Your Union's Agenda for Student Success
The following media advisory was released on December 9.
Vermont-NEA Unveils Agenda for Student Success
Members of state’s largest union work every day for Vermont’s students
MONTPELIER – Vermont-NEA President Martha Allen on Monday unveiled the association’s agenda for student success that emphasizes rigorous standards, effective evaluation and expanded opportunities for Vermont’s public schools.
“As teachers and education support professionals, our members work every single day to ensure student success,” Allen said. “We know what it takes to motivate students, to help them learn, to push them to their highest potential. And sadly, we know what doesn’t work: more and higher-stakes standardized testing; cookie-cutter curricula that don’t take creativity into account; punitive evaluation systems; and a relentless drumbeat about the costs of public education.”
Vermont-NEA said student success will be ensured by:
- Embracing rigorous standards that still allow us the freedom to teach in the ways that are most effective for all of our students
- Recruiting more of the best and brightest to join us in this profession
- Inviting and encouraging effective, rigorous and fair evaluation of our work, so that we and the entire school community can focus our efforts where it matters: on student growth
- Adopting common-sense reforms in how the profession is regulated
- Expanding the ability of local educators and local school boards to come up with innovative, community-specific programs that will help local students thrive
- Collaborating with businesses in our communities in recognition that our public schools are our most important economic development tool
- Working with advocates, parents, and social service providers to address the effects of poverty in our schools
“Educating our children is everyone’s responsibility,” Allen said. “But it is our job. It is a job we take seriously, and one that has a lasting impact on the children who will grow up to be the future of Vermont.”
You can read the complete agenda here.
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