The National Education Association held its annual Representative Assembly in Minneapolis last week. Six thousand delegates, representing teachers and education support workers in every state, met to debate and vote on the national union’s budget and agenda for the 2018-19 school year.
Each year the delegates amend NEA’s constitution and by-laws, federal legislative program, resolutions, and policy statements. They also submit new business items, which direct the national union to take specific actions over the coming year. These new business items cover a wide array of issues — some only vaguely related to education and labor.
The California Teachers Association comprises about 12 percent of NEA’s total membership, but CTA delegates were responsible for almost 40 percent of the new business items submitted and 45 percent of those that were approved. Here are just a few of the actions NEA will take in 2018-19 because of CTA ideas:
APPROVED:
No. 9: The NEA Representative Assembly directs NEA to support, in ways it finds appropriate and within the budget, the removal of the names of Confederate leaders from public schools.