News: Interview
Public Education's Unsung Heroes

NEA president reflects on quality issues and a 'lifeline' to students.

Upon taking office in 1996, NEA President Bob Chase led a bold push to expand traditional union responsibilities to include issues related to the quality of education. Now, as his second and final term comes to a close, he reflects on the impact of "new unionism" and how educators can work more closely with parents, in an interview with NEA Today's John O'Neil.

You've advocated for 'new unionism.' What's at the heart of this concept?
It's making sure that issues of quality--quality teachers, quality support staff, and quality educational opportunities for kids--are as important to us as traditional union responsibilities.

Schools don't exist for our members to have jobs, or for politicians to climb up political ladders, or for entrepreneurs to make money. They exist to educate children. That's our primary mission. And the better we do that, the better it is for us as members and as professionals. The best way to ensure our job security is to make sure that the product of our work--an educated child--is as good as possible.

How have NEA members responded to your focus on these issues?
It's interesting--issues that created lots of discussion five years ago just don't provoke a debate. They seem to have become part of our culture.

For example?
The issue of accountability. Peer assistance and review programs. Promoting National Board certification to the degree that we promote it. Emphasizing negotiations that are more collaborative, more interest-based. NEA is now structured around three primary areas: student achievement, teacher and support professional quality, and school system capacity. That's our thrust.

That doesn't mean that we back away from making sure that our members' rights are protected. We work very hard for quality salaries and working conditions. In reality, those things are very important components of student achievement. We're not going to have quality student achievement unless we have quality teachers. We're not going to have schools that run appropriately unless we have quality support staff. We're not going to be able to succeed unless we build the capacity of school systems to provide appropriate conditions for our members and for the students we teach.

I think our members were absolutely ready to do all this stuff. They needed to have their organization push for it and help them achieve that.

What are some challenges?
One of the biggest is school governance. The tenure of a superintendent is short, school board members rotate in and out. You need some mechanism--preferably a contract--to sustain these new arrangements, because you can't create a new culture in a local setting overnight. It takes time and commitment. And when new people come on the scene, it's susceptible to the vagaries of change for change's sake.

You recently finished a book for parents. What do educators need to know about parents to have a good partnership?
Parents want what's best for their child but don't necessarily know how to help in schools. When I went to my first parents night for my daughter, I thought I knew what to do, having participated in so many of them as a teacher. But it was different being on the other side of the table. If I felt that way as an educator, think how parents feel!

So teachers need to be empathetic to parents' perspectives.
Absolutely. We have to understand that parenting is the hardest job in the world--to do it right, it's 24 hours a day, seven days a week, forever.

Every parent has had school experiences, and some of those experiences aren't good. The bad things usually are in the back of their minds. A lot of immigrants come from countries where school was seen as an arm of the government, and they may not have liked the government. So they are especially leery about schools, and we have to help them get over that.

What are some of the barriers to effective partnerships, and what can teachers do to surmount them?
Everyone needs to work to make schools a more welcoming place for parents.

You know, when a parent comes into the school, they are told to go to a central office, and one of the first things they'll typically see is a list of rules that--in a lot of places--are written in the negative. You run into this bureaucracy as soon as you go in. It's not welcoming or warm. A lot of schools now are developing parent rooms, which is a terrific idea.

What else?
We can't continue to approach parents the same way we always have. The world of parenting is different. Where there are two-parent families, both parents work. Where there's a single-parent family, that parent may work several jobs. It doesn't work any more to schedule a meeting with parents in the afternoon at school. School districts and our unions have to work together to create different ways of dealing with parents.

Some parents are taking an active role on the testing issue--for example, keeping their children home on days when high-stakes tests are being given. Do you see parents joining teachers to push for a sensible approach to testing?
Yes, I think parents want to make sure that testing is going to help their kid. And if these high-stakes tests don't measure what's being taught, and they don't tell a parent how well their child is doing on specific skills, then they're going to question the purpose of it.

Testing seems to be the foremost issue on many teachers' minds these days.
Teachers feel so hamstrung by tests that don't do what they should do. Assessment is very important, but assessments should inform instruction. They shouldn't be used to grade a school. We have to really push to ensure that assessment is used appropriately.

You've visited scores of schools as NEA president. What's given you hope?
The dedication of people who work in schools. Lots of our members work in terrible conditions: rundown schools, huge class sizes, lack of financial and administrative support. Too often, parental involvement is minimal. There are members out there who are working against incredible odds and succeeding. We keep hearing negative stuff about schools, but more students are now taking rigorous courses, more students are going on to some form of postsecondary education, and more students are finishing school than ever.

This year I visited what NEA calls "high-priority" schools. They are in the toughest circumstances and often are the schools being portrayed in negative ways. When you see them up close, though, you see the caring and the earnestness in the teaching that goes on there.

Teachers and support staff realize they are the lifeline for a lot of kids. That makes the work of our members vitally important. They don't receive the kind of kudos that they should. But they are the unsung heroes.