Re: Fw: Obama's Reference to Performance Pay Booed at NEA Convention (with video)

[George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>]

NEA delegates were surprised that Senator Obama chose to speak from 
Montana, rather than attending the Representative Assembly in person.

In retrospect, it appears that he may have anticipated being booed, 
and chose to make his statement about "performance" pay from a safe 
distance. If so, that would indicate a calculation on his part that 
his campaign would benefit more from committing to the corporate 
"reform" agenda than from wholehearted support of union causes.

During his address, he apparently reached up and turned off his ear 
piece. As a result, his words were out of synch with the crowd's 
responses for the rest of his speech.

At 05:29 PM 7/10/2008 -0700, you wrote:
> I was at the NEA RA as a delegate from California, and I also recall Obama
> remarking about U.S. public school students doing poorly compared to
> students from other developed countries (although those remarks aren't in
> Antonucci's edited video).
>
> In addition to supporting merit pay and charter schools, Obama also called
> for "more accountability". Although critical of NCLB, his prescription was
> "fix it by providing more funding" rather than scrap it.
>
> Although I haven't seen it reported anywhere, the California Teachers
> Association leadership was highly critical of Obama's speech -- in fact, of
> his education policy in general -- at a meeting of the entire 1,200-member
> California delegation the morning after Obama's speech. They made clear that
> while they will continue to support Obama, they plan to pressure him on
> merit pay and incentive pay, and to pressure NEA to firm up its position and
> to work to bring Obama around on educational policy.
>
> Jack Gerson




George Sheridan