Change is expected, but when?
by Elizabeth Ahlgren, NEA Director District 10, Morse High

The latest news on ESEA is that there will be no action during 2007. It seems like that's insignificant but when you consider how quickly things were moving in September and October, this is a very big deal. NEA president, Reg Weaver met with education committee chairpersons, SenatorTed Kennedy and Representative George Miller last month. No aides or assistants were present and the conversation focused on the fact that there will be something coming forward in 2008; and the concern is that we need to agree on the accountability issues.

I attended an NEA conference at which Secretary-Treasurer, Lily Eskelsen spoke about some training that she and NEA vice president, Dennis Van Roekel attended regarding growth models. She indicated that the experts on assessing growth models of accountability painted a very complicated picture of how this needs to be done. The issue becomes one of how we can incorporate growth models on a national basis that can be accomplished by each of the states within the context of the individual accountability systems that currently exist. You can imagine the scope of the issue when you think about a state with a small student population like Vermont or Wyoming
compared with California or New York. Can you imagine a one-size-fits all approach? It doesn't seem possible.

The other big national issue is the social security offsets. Those who attended last month's senate hearings said they were optimistic about the promise of affecting change. There are two pieces to the offsets that affect California educators. The government pension offset or GPO, affects the social security benefit that you might receive because your spouse has contributed to social security. Basically, your STRS benefit is multiplied by two-thirds and that amount is deducted from your spousal benefit. If you have been a career California teacher, it may be the case that two-thirds of your monthly STRS benefit may exceed anything you might receive through a spousal benefit.

The Windfall Elimination Provision, WEP, impacts your own social security benefit unless you have paid into social security for more than 30 years. This benefit is more complicated due to a multi-tiered formula in the computation but the social security web site explains it pretty well and even has a calculator to help you figure out how this impacts you. You need to determine how this impacts you and let your member of Congress know of any negative impacts. A California Republican, Congressman Buck McKeon, authored legislation to repeal these offsets and in out county, Susan Davis, Bob Filner and Brian Bilbray have signed on in support. Although many other members of Congress have also signed on as cosponsors of this legislation, we don't have enough cosponsors to override a presidential veto. We need to convince Duncan Hunter and Darrell Issa to sign on as cosponsors of HR 82. If you want to communicate your story, write a letter and send it to the member of Congress or send it to me, and I will hand carry it to the member of Congress when I am in Washington. If you prefer to cyber lobby, visit the legislative action center at www.nea.org and send e-mails. We are close to impacting a change here and your action just may what it takes to make a difference.

Have a great winter break!
- Elizabeth Ahlgren