by Michelle Faust
Three hundred delegates from the Ohio Education Association—the state’s largest teachers’ labor union—has joined 8,000 colleagues in Washington, D.C. this week to discuss issues in their field and set policy for the National Education Association.
The NEA Annual Meeting and Representative Assembly runs through the weekend.
Becky Higgins, OEA President, says the meeting is akin to a national political convention. Central to the conversation will be efforts to implement the federal Every Student Succeeds Act—or ESSA and the effects of the presidential election on federal education policy. NEA endorsed Hillary Clinton in the primary and is expected to continue to endorse the presumptive Democratic nominee.
“It’s all about—for me—collaboration,” says Higgins who hopes to learn what’s working in other states to roll out ESSA since President Obama signed it to law in December.
OEA praised the new federal law in a report released in May.