The flag of hope that fluttered last November has become tattered for me. Health care for children was vetoed, higher ed opportunities are more expensive and less accessible, and we’re engaged in exhaustive battles for public education and a positive agenda with NCLB.

The only beacon of sanity and hope in all this mess – the only strong advocate for us and our students in these and other issues -- is the National Education Association. No leadership works harder. No government relations staff works harder. And each of us members could not be represented better.

However, as Gandhi and King both realized, there comes a time when the line is drawn in the sand. There comes a time when compromise abrogates integrity, when our core values are tossed aside and trampled. That time is now. We are in the fight of our lives with the NCLB reauthorization. We have principles we cannot sacrifice. Quality public education is truly at risk.

With the support of our e-mails, phone calls, and visits to Congressmen, our leadership and lobbyists have delivered a consistent, values-driven message about NCLB: Fix it and fund it! There is a cumulative $56 billion shortfall that has occurred since 2002. That shortfall continues to be made up by all of us with unfunded working conditions and underfunded learning conditions. But our lines in the sand are not even funding issues. Our lines in the sand include core values regarding pay- for-performance programs. (1) First, there can be NO use of student achievement to evaluate teachers. If a single, high-stakes test is flawed for evaluating students, how additionally stupid can it be to use that test to evaluate teachers? (2) Second, the program cannot bypass collective bargaining. (3) Third, the local union must agree to the program. Arizona has a wide range of pay-for-performance programs in place that support those three core values. Federal meddling and mandating would override those programs and supplant them with programs designed to undermine quality public education.

Watch your e-mails and updates from NEA, AEA, and your local. A six-year reauthorization that violates our values would be a disaster to public education, our members, and our students: a dismantling of public education that would take much more than six years to repair, and educational damage to our students that would be irreversible.

NCLB must have positive changes or not be reauthorized. It would be better to have six more years of the same mantle than six years of a more oppressive yoke.

As president of MEA (Mesa), my elementary colleagues are concerned about planning time and feel they do not get enough. Our contract language currently allows for 225 minutes a week and a duty-free 30 minute lunch. The planning time during the regular student contact day combines specials and recesses. Unfortunately, it is not a block time like in the secondary schools.

What are other districts doing? What language do you have in your contract for planning time? How has NCLB impacted your planning time?

Tell us how your meetings with potential members are going. Did you use the Teacher Working Conditions data? What were some challenges you faced? What did you learn from the experience? How will you use this experience to become better at engaging potential members?

Thanks for a great Saturday!