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KNEA Delegates tackle tough issues at national meeting

• Cheryl Brown Henderson honored
• Highlights

Kansas NEA is sending 150 delegates to the 2005 National Education Association (NEA) Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, July 1-6, with one goal in mind: charting a course for improving American public education.

Among the chief items of business at this year's convention is mobilizing NEA members around an agenda focused on closing the student achievement gaps, boosting outreach to minority communities, bringing professionalism to educator pay, and fixing and funding the so-called No Child Left Behind law.

With a flurry of debate over these pressing education issues serving as a backdrop, NEA heads into this year's Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly (RA) at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The first two days of the Annual Meeting, July 1-2, are devoted to a wide range of forums, conferences, and exhibits. Over the next four days, July 3-6, the NEA RA will deliberate on issues impacting public education and set Association policy and activities for the year ahead. The RA is the highest decision-making body within the 2.7 million-member Association.

The 9,000+ NEA delegates come from every state in the nation, are elected by their local and state colleagues. They represent all facets of the public education workforce, including elementary and secondary teachers, education support professionals, school administrators and other Association members.

Kansan Cheryl Brown Henderson is NEA's Friend of Education

The 2005 NEA Friend of Education Award will be presented to educator and historian Cheryl Brown Henderson, whose family was the lead plaintiff in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the landmark case that led to the desegregation of public schools. The award recognizes individuals whose leadership, acts, and support have raised the level of excellence in American public education.

Highlights 2005 NEA Annual Meeting

• "Outreach To Teach" Project. More than 300 NEA members will descend on a Compton middle school to paint, repair, landscape, and make other improvements. The event represents NEA's ongoing commitment to boosting student achievement in urban communities and is sponsored each year in the host city or area where the RA is held.
• The Joint Conference on Concerns of Minorities and Women will bring nearly 1,000 educators together to explore the latest trends in education policy and classroom instruction that have proven effective in teaching minority students. This year the conference will feature a special presentation on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students. Discussions of closing the achievement gaps often overlook AAPI students because most people believe these students always do well in school. But a groundbreaking report from NEA debunks the stereotype that all AAPI students are succeeding in schools and offers disturbing data on the widespread underachievement of some groups.
• The NEA News Room will be open. A filing center for credentialed news media will include telephones, fax machines, modems and a television monitor from which the media can view the action on the floor of the Representative Assembly. Seating will also be provided near the stage for media who want to cover the Assembly "up close and personal."
• The International Forum. Education leaders from across the globe will share an overview of educational trends and issues in their respective countries and will learn more about American education topics like school accountability and student assessment.
• NEA's Read Across America "Red Carpet Read-In." Hundreds of Los Angeles schoolchildren will join NEA delegates at an event designed to get kids excited about the joys of reading. NEA President Reg Weaver and his army of readers will officially kick off the event.
• Symposium on Critical Issues in Education. Educators from across the nation and top scholars will strategize on tactics for improving public education, which include bringing professionalism to educator pay, reaching out to parents in underserved minority communities, closing the student achievement gaps and bringing school technology into the 21st century.

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