Virginia Delegates Attend the 2009 National Education Association

Over two hundred Virginia delegates from all over the Commonwealth of Virginia attended the 2009 NEA Representative Assembly in San Diego, California from June 30-July 7. We joined almost 10,000 other delegates from all over the country for the purpose of conducting association business. We had about half of our delegates who were attending their first ever NEA Convention, and from all accounts, they had a great time, learned a lot, and have returned home eager and energized, ready to promote the good work of the NEA and the VEA.

This was a special RA for a variety of reasons. It was the first for Dennis Van Roekel as president of the NEA. It was the last for Bob Chanin who has served as the general counsel to the NEA for 40 years and he is retiring at the end of this year. It was also my first NEA RA as the VEA President, and it was held in one of the greatest cities in the country.

We accomplished much during the activity packed week starting with a special town hall meeting with Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. Virginia was honored to have one of our own serve on the panel who asked the Secretary questions about the reauthorization of ESEA (otherwise known as No Child Left Behind). Frank Cardella, the new president of the Chesterfield Education Association and Chair of the NEA National Board Certified Teachers Caucus was invited to serve as one of eight panelists. We also had Sarah Patton, NBCT from Covington and NEA Director on stage representing Virginia, and in addition, Jim Livingston of Prince William was allowed to ask a question of Secretary Duncan.

In addition to having an opportunity to interact with Secretary Duncan, Virginia was honored to host three international guests including former NEA and VEA president, Mary Hatwood Futurell who was one of the founders of Education International. Additionally, we hosted the General Secretary of EI, Fred Van Leeuwen of Brussels and Bob Harris of Australia.

Each morning, our Virginia delegates met to discuss the business of the day. Then we spent long days in the San Diego Convention Center going over more than 80 new business items, a number of Legislative Amendments, and a host of Bylaw Amendments.

In short, it was a great convention. Our new delegates were inspired by what they learned about the NEA, and they were given the charge of going home and sharing with their friends, family and colleagues what they had learned about the work that we do for our profession and for the children we teach.

For pictures of the convention, see the link on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/23812434@N04/sets/72157621313418222/.

Until next time.

Kitty

"Kitty Boitnott, Ph.D., NBCT" Web Site in Transition

If you are a regular follower of the blog that I have been maintaining as President of the Virginia Education Association, you will notice a transition taking place in the next few days. I have asked that the original site that I have been using be taken down for a while so that I may use my iWeb program for campaign purposes (it is time to run for re-election if you can believe it) and I will be switching out for this Blogspot web site as the link from the VEA web site for the purpose of chronicling my duties and activities as VEA President. I'll apologize right now for any inconvenience or confusion that may be caused during the transition. The iWeb site is the one that I have advertised as my campaign site, and it seemed to me that I should ask that it not be provded as a link from the VEA web site while I'm in campaign mode.

In the meantime, I haven't had time to post anything on the iWeb site regarding our 2009 NEA Convention in San Diego, but I have posted pictures on my Facebook page.

This week, I am headed for Portland, Oregon for a meeting of state presidents, so I am not sure when I might get a chance to post reflections on the NEA Convention. I sincerely apologize for the delay. It will seem like "old news," I know, before I get a chance to write anything about what we did in San Diego, but between catching up on work after being out of the office for 9 days and getting ready to leave town again for another week, finding the time and energy to write anything coherent has, so far, escaped me.

I have been busy on our behalf, however, as I have posted a response to a criticism of the NEA NBI E that the Family Foundation decided to post last week, and I wrote an article for the Washington Post in response to their unabashed (and unwarranted) enthusiasm for charter schools. It was published in the Sunday, July 12 edition.

I was also interviewed this past week by a reporter who wanted to know more about the damage that vouchers could do to our public schools system. In short, I have been pretty busy since arriving back from California, and while I haven't had time to post to my blog, I have been hard at work on behalf of our members.

If you are interested in today's article from the Washington Post, just follow this link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071102327.html

Until next time.

Kitty

Thoughts on Standards of Learning Tests in Virginia

On June 25, I spoke to the Virginia Board of Education about the proposal that had been withdrawn by the state superintendent regarding the elimination of the 3rd grade Standards of Learning (SOL) test that she had proposed back in April. Even though she had withdrawn the proposed change, I thought it was important to share the report that my organization, the Virginia Education Association, had done with regard to our members' thoughts and opinions regarding the 3rd grade SOL in general as well as high stakes testing for young children in particular.

The remarks I made to the Board of Education are below. The report that I referenced may be found on the VEA's web site at http://www.veanea.org.

I would like to offer one more thought from my own personal and professional perspective before offering the public remarks made at the Board of Education meeting yesterday.

We have become a nation of test takers and test givers. My contention is that memorization is now being mistaken for learning and one's ability to pass a single test on a single day in a single school year has been mistaken for achievement. I worry that our children will forever lose their ability to try and fail, to experiment, or to be willing to create and innovate without a guarantee of success because the subliminal message built into the single test mode of assessment is that there is only one right answer and there is no room--or tolerance--for miscalculation or for being wrong.

I wonder how well Albert Einstein or Thomas Edison would have functioned in the classrooms of today?

Remarks for Virginia Board of Education
By Dr. Kitty Boitnott, President
Virginia Education Association
June 25, 2009

Dr. Emblidge, Dr. Wright, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board:
My name is Kitty Boitnott, and I am the President of the Virginia Education Association.
We were surprised last month when we first heard of the proposed elimination of the third grade social studies SOL test. We weren’t sure how our members would feel about the proposal, so we asked them. I gave Mrs. Castro copies of our report yesterday, and we will be posting the results of our survey on our web site today.
We understand that the specific proposal to eliminate the social studies test for 3rd grade has been taken off the table, but we would offer that the interest that the initial proposal created suggests that the issue of testing and its importance and impact are near and dear to the hearts of many, and while this specific proposal is no longer under consideration, it might be that you would want to take this time as an opportunity to fully review and reflect on the whole issue of high stakes testing and the impact of that testing on young children.
The one missing piece, it seems to me, in this whole debate has been what is in the best interest of children? I respect the interests of the various subject matter experts and those who sincerely believe that if it isn’t tested it won’t receive the attention it should, but I would suggest that what has been missed in this entire debate is, “Where do 8 and 9-year-old's fit in the puzzle?” Is it fair to ask them to deal with the stresses of such high stakes tests? What happens to the joy of learning when everything rides on a single test score?
Clearly our members had more questions than answers to offer, but we took from the responses that we received that this issue is important to them as teachers and as parents. I hope you will take this opportunity to discuss the whole issue of testing rather than focus on the merits—or demerits—of one particular test.

Thoughts on 21st Century Skills

I was interviewed for an article in School Library Journal a couple of months ago. The article was posted on June 8 in the SLJ's "Extra Helping" section.

I am very interested in promoting the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, so I am providing a link to the article for any one who might be interested.

Enjoy!

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6652250.html

VEA Celebrations

The Virginia Education Association members whom I represent have much to celebrate this week along with the beautiful weather which is prevailing this weekend. First, we got planning time for elementary teachers passed in the 2009 General Assembly session! This was no small feat, and it is a goal that we at the VEA have been working toward for at least 36 years!

Another big legislative win was the passage of a fairer grievance procedure for our Extra Support Professional (ESP) members; and a third major victory was the inclusion of enough funds in the budget to make whole the funding needed to make sure that all of the eligible national board certified teachers in Virginia get the full amount of the incentive funds that they had been promised.

It was quite a session to say the least. Many thanks go all around to our Government Relations staff, our UniServ Directors who do double duty as lobbyists during the session, and our local presidents and Board members along with our members at the grassroots level who took action and wrote and called their legislators when we needed them to. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You proved that collective action does make a difference.

The week wound up with my attendance at not one but two major education conferences. The first was a day-long summit held by the Learning First Alliance. For more information about the Learning First Alliance, click on the link and peruse to your heart’s content. (http://www.learningfirst.org/) The second, much larger conference was sponsored in large part by New York’s public broadcasting station (PBS) Thirteen WLIW21 along with corporate funding from Chase Bank and a number of other groups including the National Education Association and the New York State United Teachers. More than 8,000 teachers, administrators, and educators attended the two-day event which was the fourth annual celebration of its kind. Nationally renowned speakers and authors attended, and the level of conversation around the kinds of changes that we must undertake in this rapidly changing global environment with regard to public education were both invigorating and inspiring.

Many of the sessions were focused on the changing world and our need to change the way we school youngsters in a very fundamental way. The tide of opinion regarding education reform is changing fundamentally in this era of rapid change, and there is a definite sense that educators are tired of being left out making important policy decisions. Indeed, from what I heard, they are more than ready to take their power back--at long last. I believe that it is truly an awesome time to be an educator in this country.

2009: A Year of Challenges & Opportunities

As I have reflected on the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, I have been reminded of the quote from Charles Dickens’ novel, Tale of Two Cities. The part of the quote with which most people are familiar is, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times....” The quote goes on to say, however, “it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us....”
Whether these seem like the best of times or the worst of times, the season of Light or the season of Darkness, we are surely facing uncertain times. And yet, in spite of the uncertainty that we all know lies ahead in 2009, there is a tangible sense of hope that I believe many of us are also feeling as we begin a new era in our nation.
This coming year will surely present us with many challenges, but as I keep reminding myself, where there are challenges, there are also opportunities. We need to reach out to each other, reminding ourselves that no one needs to go through these trying times alone. The times are, indeed, uncertain--but there is surely comfort in knowing that we are facing the challenges together.

Wow! What a Week This Has Been!

This has been a week that I will long remember. On Monday, all during the day, I could feel the momentum building, and I was certainly hopeful that the election that was about to take place would make history. While I felt confident that the Obama campaign had done everything it could conceivably do, admittedly, the anxiety mounted as well. What if people decided, for some reason, not to vote after all?

Needless to say, I was gratified to see the long lines that showed the thousands of people who turned out in spite of rain in some parts of the country. I was also relieved to hear that incidents of trouble were limited and not widespread. That had been another fear in the back of my mind. I had felt that the elections of 2000 and 2004 were snatched away from me. I was, I admit, fearful that some trick up someone's sleeve would prevail again resulting in heartbreaking disappointment.

Needless to say, I was thrilled by the outcome of the day on Tuesday. It occurs to me to consider that those who have worked tirelessly on behalf of the NEA/VEA’s recommended candidates will now have to find some other way to fill their free time. The weekends of neighborhood canvassing, the evenings of phone banks...they are all behind us now as we celebrate what feels like a definite turning point for our nation and for Virginia.

On Tuesday evening, I was allowed to join the party faithful in McLean, Virginia where Democrats converged to wait for the outcome. Not surprisingly, Mark Warner carried the election for the Senate seat vacated by John Warner easily and early. He and Senator Jim Webb arrived for the first round of congratulations and celebration around 9:30. It was not until much later, however, before we knew what the outcome of the race for the White House would be.

When Governor Tim Kaine came out to announce to the awaiting crowd that he had just received a call from the Associated Press informing him that Virginia had turned blue for Obama, the crowd erupted into elation. For myself, the tears ran, and I hugged everyone within arm’s length. Moments later, the room erupted again when the TV monitors were turned back on and the outcome of the election nationwide was being announced: Barack Obama had been elected President of the United States!

This election has caused me to feel all sorts of emotions--some expected and some not. We at the Virginia Education Association have talked some--and will continue to talk more--about what are the best strategies for dealing with being a “battleground state” if that should ever happen again. We took a lot of push back from our members about the seemingly relentless barrage of mailings. There are certainly lessons to be learned, and we will study how we conducted ourselves during this campaign cycle and how we might do things differently in the future.

While we have pledged to learn lessons from this experience, many of us are gratified by this victory because we believe that this election had so much riding on it with regard to where we will go in our country with the future of public education. As I traveled the commonwealth of Virginia these past several months, I told folks that my single issue this year was No Child Left Behind. My prayer now will be that the Obama administration will name people to the Department of Education who are true educators and who understand the need for addressing the many negative (if unintended) consequences of NCLB.

I am bolstered, too, by the overall message of this presidential campaign. "Yes We Can" sums up the spirit that we as a nation need to embrace in the months ahead. We are certainly facing uncertain economic times. The challenges remain, but with that "can do" spirit, who doesn't want to believe that with the right leadership, we can, in fact, do anything we set our minds to?
What a fabulous message. We as educators must remember that mantra as we face the numerous challenges ahead of us.