The nation's teachers gather this week in Boston for their annual meeting and a Wisconsin delegate says there are four key areas under discussion.
Ron Martin of Eau Claire is a teacher President of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state's largest teachers union. He's heading to the annual National Education Association meeting. Martin says a top issue is a teacher shortage.
He says Wisconsin was one of the first states to see a lack of recruits to teaching. He says they are working with high school and college students..
. "....so starting a program called "Educators Rising" in some of our high schools. It's very similar to a DECA organization or FBLA. We have a couple chapters started in Wisconsin. We're going to support that and continue to put effort into earliest individuals going into teaching. The second is working with our college students who want to be teachers. That program is called the Aspiring Educators of Wisconsin...."
Martin says other key issues include vouchers and charter schools. He says charter schools not connected with public schools concern them...
"...a lot of what we're going to be doing is the accountability part of all schools, public. private, charter. We all need the same accountability. We embrace accountability, it's important. Taxpayers have put a lot of money into various programs. The other thing is how are we going to fund(education). If we're going to go down this road of voucher expansion, we have to figure out a way to not hurt our public schools...."
He says they will also discuss federal programs that replaced No Child Left Behind which some say focuses too much on testing. They will also discuss ways to increase racial and social diversity.
