Here is a copy of the letter NEA President Dennis Van Roekel sent to President Obama. (A similar one was sent to members of Congress.) I don't see anything I can't agree with as a citizen concerned about this issue. Maybe if we centered the debated on these points instead of exaggeration and fear-mongering, we'd have a civil discourse.
March 03, 2009
Dear President Obama:
The National Education Association commends you for placing health care reform at the top of your agenda and for convening a Summit on Health Care to examine this critical issue. Our 3.2 million members, including teachers, education support professionals, and higher education faculty, have long been strong supporters of the need for access to quality, affordable and comprehensive health care coverage for all residents of the United States.
While health care reform is vital to the recovery of our nation's economy, it is also a crucial ingredient for successful public schools. NEA members know firsthand that the lack of necessary medical and dental services for children and students of all ages creates a serious impediment to the learning process. In addition, families with access to a regular source of medical care are more likely to keep the entire family healthy and create a better learning environment within the home. By helping public schools attract and retain top-quality educators, health care benefits also play an important role in ensuring great public schools for all students. When school nurses become primary care providers, as happens all too frequently today, we're well past the time for health care reform.
NEA believes that health care reform must:
1. Guarantee coverage for the uninsured, currently estimated at 45 million individuals, including 9 million children;
2. Control costs so that premiums and health care services are affordable to all, regardless of income or employment status;
3. Incorporate provisions and standards related to medical safety and quality;
4. Result in comprehensive health care coverage that includes but is not limited to medical, surgical, hospital, behavioral health, prescription drug, dental, vision, hearing, and long-term care services and allows choice of providers;
5. Include preventive, wellness, rehabilitative, and disease management programs;
6. Make use of health information technology to reduce medical errors and administrative costs.
We recognize that there are many ways that health care reform could attempt to achieve the broad goals outlined above, but we also know that some proposals under discussion could ultimately be more harmful than helpful. For that reason, NEA also believes that reform must:
*Ensure the availability and security of employment-based health benefit plans. The employment-based system is a proven and effective way for workers and their employers to mutually agree upon the health benefit packages that make the most sense for them. Health care reform must not disrupt this system.
*Guarantee that the employee tax exclusion for health benefits is not limited or capped in any way. Over the course of their careers, many public education employees have traded salary increases for the long term security of a comprehensive health plan. Telling hard-working employees that benefits will be cut or that they will pay more taxes would unfairly penalize them. A tax on salaries above a certain amount would also be unfair to experienced educators who, after decades of dedicated service, have climbed to the top of their salary schedules. Limiting or capping the tax exclusion for health benefits could have a disastrous effect on public education by discouraging highly qualified workers from entering or staying in the profession.
*Maintain the ability of workers and employers to determine the appropriate level of health care benefits available to both active and retired employees, including the ability to negotiate above any basic benefit plan floor that might be legislated.
*Recognize and accommodate the specific circumstances of public sector employers, including their tax status. For example, reform proposals that include employer incentives to encourage continuation of employer-sponsored health care benefits should be mirrored in the public and private sectors.
*Ensure that health care benefits are available through a current or former employer, a government-sponsored program such as Medicare, Medicaid, or the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and/or a new initiative that would meet the goals outlined here. To ensure coverage of those who need it, NEA would support the creation of a well-funded public plan with comprehensive benefits intended for individuals and for small employers who do not currently offer health care benefits to their employees.
We thank you for your consideration of our views on these very important issues. We look forward to working with your Administration to ensure quality, affordable health care for everyone in America.
Sincerely,
Dennis Van Roekel, President
cc:
House Ways and Means CommitteeHouse Energy and Commerce CommitteeHouse Education and Labor Committee Senate Finance CommitteeSenate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poverty. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Editorial Facts and Common Sense
An editorial in the Oklahoman, addressing Oklahoma's poor showing in per pupil expenditure based on the latest US Census Bureau's report, brought out suspect arguements as it tries to refute Oklahoman's support of the HOPE campaign (SQ 744).
In an effort to address perceived short-comings, Oklahoma is compared to Utah whose students do better on the NAEP, despite warnings by NAEP officials for states not to compare results if states have their own state standards.
Utah's students are recognized by the writer as being "predominately white and more affluent" than Oklahoma's students. For years, the impact of poverty on kids has been a strong indicator of success. In comparing kids from the USA to other countries, America's public schools are bashed for not being competitive. But when you take out the scores of students in poverty, our kids come out on top.
No one is saying you ignore those in poverty, but to ignore the role poverty plays in students lives is irresponsible.
Another "fact" is that common education receives 35% of the Oklahoma budget. What the article fails to mention is that common ed use to receive 39% of the budget as its share continues to decrease.
Oklahoma is supposedly working very hard and will do better "when the economy recovers and revenues permit." Oklahoma is an oil state. The revenues coming in were incredible. Because Oklahoma had so much growth revenue, the legislature, thinking the revenue would last forever, cut taxes. They learned nothing about oil revenue, tax cuts and the impact on revenues occurring in the 1980's. For Oklahoma, our revenue problems, with a shortfall of $2B, are largely self-imposed.
The piece even states "[t]he claim that the Legislature enacted tax cuts at the expense of schools is unfounded...." Is it really? The state has a shortfall of a couple of billion, and it's not at the expense of schools? Not only schools but everything else.
Addressing salaries for the Oklahoman has always been about merit pay and the salary schedule. When presented with ways to enhance teacher pay, they balk at the possibilities and always return to the same old arguments.
Paying teachers to be competitive with other states and other professions gives Oklahoma the opportunity to recruit and retain people. However, when we aren't competitive, we end up with teacher shortages the legislature addresses by passing a variety of ways to become a teacher. We don't have a teacher shortage in our state. We have a number of graduates with education degrees who are in other professions because the pay and benefits are so low.
As more information is made available showing the legislature's embarrassingly low commitment to kids and our future, you will continue to see responses that try to white-wash the truth. Sadly, all Oklahomans are impacted by the "white-wash" and our state will have a difficult time competing and growing in its second century if the truth is not told.
In an effort to address perceived short-comings, Oklahoma is compared to Utah whose students do better on the NAEP, despite warnings by NAEP officials for states not to compare results if states have their own state standards.
Utah's students are recognized by the writer as being "predominately white and more affluent" than Oklahoma's students. For years, the impact of poverty on kids has been a strong indicator of success. In comparing kids from the USA to other countries, America's public schools are bashed for not being competitive. But when you take out the scores of students in poverty, our kids come out on top.
No one is saying you ignore those in poverty, but to ignore the role poverty plays in students lives is irresponsible.
Another "fact" is that common education receives 35% of the Oklahoma budget. What the article fails to mention is that common ed use to receive 39% of the budget as its share continues to decrease.
Oklahoma is supposedly working very hard and will do better "when the economy recovers and revenues permit." Oklahoma is an oil state. The revenues coming in were incredible. Because Oklahoma had so much growth revenue, the legislature, thinking the revenue would last forever, cut taxes. They learned nothing about oil revenue, tax cuts and the impact on revenues occurring in the 1980's. For Oklahoma, our revenue problems, with a shortfall of $2B, are largely self-imposed.
The piece even states "[t]he claim that the Legislature enacted tax cuts at the expense of schools is unfounded...." Is it really? The state has a shortfall of a couple of billion, and it's not at the expense of schools? Not only schools but everything else.
Addressing salaries for the Oklahoman has always been about merit pay and the salary schedule. When presented with ways to enhance teacher pay, they balk at the possibilities and always return to the same old arguments.
Paying teachers to be competitive with other states and other professions gives Oklahoma the opportunity to recruit and retain people. However, when we aren't competitive, we end up with teacher shortages the legislature addresses by passing a variety of ways to become a teacher. We don't have a teacher shortage in our state. We have a number of graduates with education degrees who are in other professions because the pay and benefits are so low.
As more information is made available showing the legislature's embarrassingly low commitment to kids and our future, you will continue to see responses that try to white-wash the truth. Sadly, all Oklahomans are impacted by the "white-wash" and our state will have a difficult time competing and growing in its second century if the truth is not told.
Monday, July 13, 2009
2009 RA Sights & Sounds--Anthony Mullen, Teacher of the Year
"America's teachers and education support professionals live in very challenging and stressful times. Incredibly, many of the nation's economic problems are now directed at unions. We have become easy targets for some misguided government officials, economists, and media talking heads who believe it is time for us to give back and to share the pain. Well, teachers and education support professionals have burdened the pain of being underpaid and overworked for too long.
And since we have been given very little, we have nothing to give back. Teachers did not leave their classrooms and abandon children when the best deal in town was to work in the financial services sector. We did not join the legions of people that became wealthy by sitting in front of a computer and selling stocks and managing hedge funds. We did not envy friends and neighbors who prospered during the 1980s and 1990s and bought McMansions and took trips to Bali. No, we stayed with our students because we believe that education and our nation's children are too valuable to be abandoned for a new sports car. So we accepted our meager raises. We worked harder to narrow the achievement gap and did more with less to help our nation prosper. And now, some of the very same people who once asked me how I could live on a teacher's salary, are now asking me what I can do to help the economy. What my union is going to do to help the economy.
And I tell these people two things: One, teachers did not crash the economy. Greed and corruption by people entrusted with our country's financial health collapsed the economy.
And two, unions are helping to recover the economy by protecting the rights of their members. Unions are making sure that what has made our country great, the middle class, will not be sacrificed for the decadence of Wall Street."--Anthony Mullen, 2009 National Teacher of the Year
2009 RA Sights & Sounds--Dennis Van Roekel's Keynote Address
"And contrary to what our opponents might say... NEA welcomes a national conversation about how to transform our school system... better ways to measure student learning... to improve the practice of our profession... to attract bright and talented students into teaching... and to confront the problems that plague poor and minority children in struggling schools."--NEA President Dennis Van Roekel's keynote address on July 3.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
OEA Educators and Clergy Conference
The 2nd annual Educators and Clergy Conference was held earlier this spring and more than 100 people -- teachers, administrators and clergy -- attended. The Conference topic was how schools and churches can work together to battle the dropout problem.
Some faith-based organizations have programs for kids while other groups and schools are looking for help and direction in this area. The speakers shared successes and challenges of their programs and also heard from representatives from the First Amendment Center about how programs can legally assist schools.
Speakers pictured above are of OEA Vice-President Becky Felts, Reverend George Young, Tulsa Schools Superintendent Keith Ballard, Charles Haynes, Senior Scholar at the First Amendment Center, Patrick McPherson of Lawton, Howard Hendricks the Director of the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, Richard Klinge of Catholic Charities, Julie Roberson of St. Luke's Methodist Church and Officer Wayland Cubit of the Oklahoma City Police.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Poverty, the Dropout Rate and the Achievement Gap
While some claim poverty has only a small impact on dropout rates and the achievement gap, research, anecdotal evidence and common sense prove otherwise.
Essay Cites Poverty, Nutrition, Health As Obstacles To Closing Achievement Gaps In Texas.
The Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram (12/12, Frazier) reports, Students in Texas "from poor families continue to perform worse in school than their classmates, according to research released Thursday by the Center for Public Policy Priorities." An essay in the State of Texas Children 2008-09 report titled Closing the Educational Gaps "cites...poverty, nutrition, and health" as "statewide factors [that] are pivotal in academic achievement." According to the essay, "Texas has more poor children than most states," and "poor children are more likely to drop out of school." Regarding nutrition, the essay claims that "children without enough to eat lack the fuel to learn, have lower levels of academic achievement and are less likely to be in school." Moreover, "sick children cannot learn well, and Texas' uninsured rate exceeds that of every other state," the essay says.
Essay Cites Poverty, Nutrition, Health As Obstacles To Closing Achievement Gaps In Texas.
The Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram (12/12, Frazier) reports, Students in Texas "from poor families continue to perform worse in school than their classmates, according to research released Thursday by the Center for Public Policy Priorities." An essay in the State of Texas Children 2008-09 report titled Closing the Educational Gaps "cites...poverty, nutrition, and health" as "statewide factors [that] are pivotal in academic achievement." According to the essay, "Texas has more poor children than most states," and "poor children are more likely to drop out of school." Regarding nutrition, the essay claims that "children without enough to eat lack the fuel to learn, have lower levels of academic achievement and are less likely to be in school." Moreover, "sick children cannot learn well, and Texas' uninsured rate exceeds that of every other state," the essay says.
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