Legislative Agenda
MEA goals focus on funding, bargaining rights, outsourcing
Legislative goals adopted by the MEA Board in March focus on full funding for education, improved bargaining rights and discouraging privatization.
The goals support MEA’s Quality Education Agenda for 2006-08, calling for the funding and resources necessary for every teacher and support staff member to deliver quality education to students.
“We believe in these goals,” said Garden City EA President Mike Riley, chair of the 10-member MEA Legislation Commission that developed them.
“We’ll support the MEA staff’s lobbying efforts to achieve them, but it’s also important for every MEA member—teachers and support staff—to keep abreast of what the Legislature is doing that impacts our schools and our jobs.
“As members, we need to have more direct contact with our legislators so they know what we support and what we won’t support.”
Among MEA’s key legislative goals:
• Supporting legislation to restore and strengthen the collective bargaining rights of MEA members, including the right to negotiate over potential job loss or change in employer and elimination of unilateral “declaration of impasse” and compulsory binding arbitration to resolve contract disputes.
• Pursuing legislation that discourages all attempts to privatize or outsource district staff, substitute teachers and programs.
• Supporting legislation that assures access to higher education for all students and that provides funding programs in higher education based on student need and enrollment.
• Supporting legislation that assures due process rights for support staff and for probationary teachers and other professional staff not eligible for tenure and that preserves and protects employment rights of substitute teachers.
• Supporting legislation calling for equity increases to close the gap between the highest and lowest foundation allowances. Visit www.mea.org to review MEA’s Quality Education Agenda and Legislative Goals for 2006-08. Click Legislative and Political Information, then 2006-08 Legislative Priorities.