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

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Perish the thought that Mr Obama might prefer down-to-earth Montanans 
to people whining about the "corporate reform agenda" for education.  
What could he have been thinking?

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:57 am
Subject: Re: [arn-l] Fw: Obama's Reference to Performance Pay Booed at 
NEA Convention (with video)

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 suppo
rting 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  

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