National Education Association

Beliefs

Professional Pay for Teachers- If teachers were paid more, they would become better teachers, and would be much less likely to branch out to other professions with higher pay.

Education Funding- More money for schools, especially elementary and secondary schools. Funding needs to be increased to include forms of health insurance for teachers.

Minority Community Outreach- Every child deserves a quality education regardless of race or ethnicity. The needs of minority students must be met and the quality of their education must be improved.

Dropout Prevention- Better education programs need to be provided so that children can not and will not dropout of school before graduating.

Achievement Gaps- Gap needs to be closed between different socioeconomic classes of students as far as quality of education, and hopefully the grades all the students get.
Educator Tax Relief- Educators used to get a tax break, and that should come back so teachers are not paying for their own salaries and classrooms.

Political Activity/ Legislation Attempts and Lobbying

No Child Left Behind (ESEA)- Congress is considering a reauthorization of this bill, and the NEA is lobbying to make sure the bill still meets the needs of all students. Congress has been under heat for needing to change the bill because some say it has not fulfilled its fundamental purposes, but the NEA is unhappy with the new drafts being proposed. They strongly need educators voices to be heard in this reauthorization of such an important bill. NEA believes every student needs a great public school, which is why they endorse this bill.

Education Jobs/ FMAP bill- Recently passed, and its purpose is to get recently unemployed teachers back in the education system. Any tacher recently being laid off due to budget cuts can now be reconsidered for their old jobs.

IDEA (Special Education)- Trying to pass legislation that would give better learning opportunities and more funding to the special education department in all schools within the next 6 years. Also support a free, appropriate education for all students with disabilities.
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act- This act would put about $130 billion into the U.S. Department of Education, so the NEA strongly supports this legislation.

Social Security- Retirement age should not be increased, no social security cuts, and a repeal is in order for the unfair Social Security offsets that threaten the retirement security of most government paid jobs.

Common Supporters/ Voters

Common Supporters- Teachers, Administrators, anyone working in a school or university. Parents of students, and they are commonly Democratic voters.

Known Political Supporters
  The president of the NEA is Dennis Van Roekel. Other politcal figures endorsed by NEA include senatorial candidates Lisa Murkowski (AK), Rodney Glassman (AZ), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Barbara Boxer (CA), Christopher Dodd (CT), Christopher Coons (DE), Kendrick Meek (FL), Daniel Inouye (HI), David Hoffman and Mark Kirk (both from IL), Brad Ellsworth (IN), Jack Conway (KY), Charles Melancon (LA), Michael Capuano and Martha Coakley (Both from MA), Robin Carnahan (MO), Harry Reid (NV), Paul Hodes (NH), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Cal Cunningham and Eddie Burks (Both from NC), Joe Hoeven (ND), Lee Fisher (OH), Ron Wyden (OR), Arlen Specter and Joe Sestak (Both from PA), Patty Murray (WA), Russ Feingold (WI). also multiple house of representatives as well.

PAC
The NEA does form a PAC.

As the NEA’s national political action committee (PAC), the NEA Fund provides direct financial support to recommended candidates for President, the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate who will fight to support teachers, staff and students and improve public education. We also support pro-public education candidates in gubernatorial and other important state races. In addition, the NEA Fund makes independent expenditures asking people to vote for or against candidates based on their position on public education.

Every member who contributes to the NEA Fund does so voluntarily. Every dollar that the NEA Fund contributes to a candidate, a political party, or spends on independent expenditures is voluntarily given. NEA does not use dues dollars for this purpose.

Bibliography:

The NEA Fund for Children & Public Education: The Political Action Committee of the National Education Association. Web. 02 Oct. 2010. http://www.neafund.org/.

NEA - NEA Home. Web. 02 Oct. 2010. <http://www.nea.org/>.

Gun Control Poll/Fellowship of the Ring

Poll:

1.       Is there a firearm in your household?

(a)   Yes

(b)   No

(c)    I don’t know

2.       What should be the proper procedure for obtaining a firearm?

(a    A psychological evaluation

(b)   A gun safety class

(c)   All of the above

(d)   No formal procedure for obtaining a firearm

3.       What should Arizona law be pertaining to gun control?

(a)   Regulate access with a permit

(b)   No regulation

(c)   Ban firearms in public

(d)   Ban firearms entirely

4.       Some people believe that even if guns are prohibited, criminals will still obtain firearms.

(a)    Strongly agree

(b)    Agree

(c)    Disagree

(d)    Strongly Disagree

These graphs and the one below represent the apportionment of the total  responses. There are generally two popular and fairly evenly split answers (A and B for Question 1, etc.) and one or two less popular responses. In fact, not one person responded D to Question 4.   

Here are the results by grade level. Graph one demonstrates a cleavage between the upper and lower classmen (and women), with the majority of grades 9 and 10 answering B, or "No", to Question 1 while the majority of 11th and 12th graders responding A, or "Yes". A possible explanation for the fact that lower classmen do not have guns in their households while upper classmen do is simply that the 9th and 10th graders do not know and would not like to look ignorant by choosing C. Also interesting is the fact that both 9th and 12th graders chose option C for Question 2 while 10th and 11th graders chose option B. It seems students come full circle over the course of their four years.

The yellow and blue bar graphs represent the split between honors and non honors students. The data all follows a predictable pattern, with the majority of both honors and non honors students responding similarly in all graphs. The clear exception is Question One, in which more non honors students answered B for not having firearms in their households while more honors students responded A. Further, there is a slight switch on Question Three. Honors students clearly answered B (no regulation) more than C (ban firearms in public), whereas non honors students answered C slightly more than B. This is interesting since one would project that the more educated, and thus more liberal, honors students would prefer banning guns in public to having no regulation. Perhaps honors students' greater exposure to other  honors students lead them to trust the judgement of their peers more than non honors students who know first hand how  stupid people can be.

Randomness

To acheive randomness, the members of our group did many things. First we tried to avoid polling multiple members of one class. Also, we made a concerted effort to only poll students we saw outside of class. Another way we acheived randomness was that we did our best to not poll students we knew. This way we avoided only getting honors students or getting results that we knew we were going to receive. As for receiving an accurate sample, we made sure to poll an equal amount of males/femals and an equal amount of 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th graders.

Possible Sources of Error

One major source of error we did have was that most the students we ended up polling were honors students. This didnt necessarily distort our graph but it did not give us the sample size of both sides that we wanted. Also on question 4, we had no answers that were D and very few that were C. This could be due to the fact that the choices went from Strongly Agree to Agree. If it had been in a more random order more people may  have considered the option of disagree but since they saw two agree answers back to back they immediently wanted to answer agree. And last of all, one member of our group handed the answer sheet to the student being polled so they could write their responses. This could have influenced their responses.