NEA representatives in front of the White House prior to the Nov. 1, 2001 meeting on the American Jobs Act.
Vice President Joe Biden addressing the audience.
President Barack Obama
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel and David Plough during the West Wing conference call.
Me with the NEA President in front of the West Wing.
The group photo with VP Biden on his way out of the office.
President Obama exiting the meeting.
Me with the President speaking behind me.
The White House as it looked as we headed back to the hotel.
Write-up for CSEA newsletter:
I had a very unexpected message
when I got home from parent-teacher conferences in late October. The
message was from Andy Linebaugh at the NEA offices in Washington D.C., and he
was inviting me to go to the White House for a meeting with President
Obama. It was too late to call him back that evening, so I had to wait
until the next day to get more information. I was being invited because
of a short paragraph I had written at the Education Votes website in response
to an NEA e-mail request asking teachers to describe how budget cuts were
affecting their schools.
This is what I wrote:
“My school has been lucky compared to many in these times of
cuts. We didn’t have to lay off nearly as many teachers as some schools. But,
year after year we come to work in 90+ temps with packed classrooms and no AC.
We can’t pass a bond issue for many reasons—public education’s battered
reputation and “we-can’t-take-one-more-request-for-money” battered voters are
two of the big ones. I have classes of 36 and 37 teenagers packed into desks
that are falling apart, using textbooks older than they are. Every day,
students ask for food, paper, pencils, fundraiser purchases, even clothes, let
alone the graphing calculators we want them to have to keep up with
technological advances in education. Our carpet is threadbare, stained, and
approaching 40 years old, but can’t be replaced because there is an asbestos
issue we can’t afford to address. New mandates come from the government every
year, but never with any funding for the training and infrastructure required
to implement. We’re supposed to be a magic black box that produces perfect
widgets out of students with nothing. I wish we could have some of the joy of
Finnish education; I wish I could feel that people of America believed in the
value of free quality education for all. That was a principle I was raised on
and firmly believe in, but I feel it is a value that is being sorely eroded.”
I felt I shouldn’t pass up a
rare opportunity like this one, so I accepted the offer and the following
Monday I was flying to Washington D.C. All the business happened on
Tuesday. I made my way a block from my hotel to the NEA offices where I
was warmly welcomed. It turned out, I was the only classroom teacher
attending – the ten others representing NEA and teachers were the NEA
President, a member of his staff, and 8 representatives from various states
that are association Presidents and Vice Presidents at the state level.
We attended a briefing, and then were interviewed and video-taped individually
about school conditions to be used in press releases or provided to the state
and local associations to use as needed. We went to the White House in
the afternoon. The meeting was in the East Room and included some other
organizations like the NAACP in addition to NEA for a total of about 120
guests. Three cabinet members and the Reverend Al Sharpton were in
attendance. There were four speakers including Vice President Joe Biden
and President Obama. The topic of discussion was the American Jobs Act
and the need to create and preserve public sector jobs and
infrastructure. The President did take questions and comments from the
audience and committed to continue fighting for school funding. He said
that the most important thing educators and students can do to try to advocate
for school funding and infrastructure is to get their stories out in the local
press as much as possible. Much of the public does not really understand
how budget cuts are affecting what happens in the classroom and the state of
repair of schools and the only way they will learn is if people in the schools
tell them and show them.
After the President left, the
NEA group was quickly ushered to the West Wing to attend a conference call with
David Plough (President Obama’s campaign manager and political strategist) and
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, and a variety of NEA members from around the
country who wished to learn about the meeting we had just attended or express
what is happening in their schools. When the call concluded, we left the
White House and each gave short video synopses of our experiences to the NEA
press crew.
While we hope that the meeting
will make some positive difference that all of us will benefit from, the
experience was also very exciting and fun. We all had opportunities to
get pictures of the President and Vice President, some shook hands with one or
both of them, and we had a group photo with the Vice President as he was
leaving the West Wing on his way home. We were made to feel quite welcome
at the White House. I put some of my trip pictures on my blog at http://masooma.blogspot.com/2011/11/white-house-trip.html
, which also includes a link to an article with pictures and video that NEA
wrote up about the event. They decided to make the stories with me the
focus of the event because I was the classroom teacher as opposed to a state
officer. I tried to represent us all well and am very thankful for this
once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
