In Chicago today, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) endorsed Barack
Obama and announced plans to mobilize its 1.4 million members.

Obama addressed the union via satellite, calling for “an era of mutual
responsibility in education.”

At the same time, Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter attacks the teachers and calls for
Obama to distance himself from the AFT and the National Education Association
(NEA).

And on Meet the Press this morning, Tom Brokaw added to this debate in his
questioning of Senator McCaskill.  She responded that Obama will seek “a
cooperative venture with the teachers and with parents and with educational
systems.”

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With this endorsement, the AFT launches an all-out effort to inform its more
than 1.4 million members about where the candidates stand on the issues, and to
mobilize them to help elect Obama in November. The AFT turned out a record
number of members to vote in the presidential primaries, and plans to build on
that effort during the general election campaign.

In remarks to the AFT today, Barack Obama said, “I am running for President to
guarantee that all of our children have the best possible chance in life.  And
I am tired of hearing you blamed for our problems.  I want to lead a new era of
mutual responsibility in education, where we all come together: parents and
educators, the AFT and leaders in Washington, citizens all across America;
united for the sake of our children’s success.”

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter resorts to the blame game this week in his column
encouraging Obama to shun support from teachers.  He writes, “they believe that
protecting incompetents is more important than educating children.”  


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AFT information: http://www.aft.org/presscenter/index.htm

Alter on Obama and Teachers Unions: http://www.newsweek.com/id/145843/page/1

Meet the Press transcript: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25662958/

Text of Obama's speech:
Remarks to the 80th Convention of the American Federation of Teachers
Senator Barack Obama
July 13, 2008

Hello, everybody.  I’m sorry I can’t join you all in person today, but thank
you for letting me say a few words.  First and foremost, I am honored to have
your endorsement, and I appreciate the commitment you’re making to help us win
in November.

I want to thank your president, Ed McElroy, your Secretary-Treasurer, Nat
LaCour, and your Executive Vice President, Toni Cortese.  Ed and Nat,
congratulations on your retirements.  We are all grateful for your steady
leadership and tireless efforts to guarantee our students their fundamental
right to a quality education.  And I look forward to working with your new
officers.

And I want to say hello to my friends from Illinois – Ed Geppert, the President
of the Illinois Federation of Teachers; Marilyn Stewart, the president of the
Chicago Teachers Union; and AFT Vice President Jim Dougherty, and all my allies
with whom I've worked so closely.

Over the course of this campaign, I’ve had the opportunity to visit schools and
talk to teachers and students; paraprofessionals and support staff; college
faculty and employees; public employees, nurses and health care workers all
across this country.  But so much of what informs my visits comes from an
experience I had a few years ago at Dodge Elementary School in Chicago, not far
from where you’re assembled today.

I asked a young teacher there what she saw as the biggest challenge facing her
students.  She gave me an answer I had never heard before.  She talked about
what she called “These Kids Syndrome” – the tendency to explain away the
shortcomings and failures of our education system by saying “these kids can’t
learn” or “these kids don’t want to learn” or “these kids are just too far
behind.”  And after a while, “these kids” become somebody else’s problem.

And she looked at me and said, “When I hear that term, it drives me crazy.  
They’re not ‘these kids.’  They’re our kids.  All of them.”

She’s absolutely right.  These children are our children.  Their future is our
future.  And it’s time we understood that their education is our
responsibility.

I am running for President to guarantee that all of our children have the best
possible chance in life.  And I am tired of hearing you blamed for our
problems.  I want to lead a new era of mutual responsibility in education,
where we all come together: parents and educators, the AFT and leaders in
Washington, citizens all across America; united for the sake of our children’s
success.

Bringing about that future begins with fixing the broken promises of No Child
Left Behind.  Now, I believe that the goals of this law – educating every child
with an excellent teacher, closing the achievement gap, ensuring more
accountability and higher standards – were right.  But promising all this while
leaving the resources behind is wrong.  Labeling a school and its students as
failures one day and then abandoning them the next is wrong.
We must fix the failures of No Child Left Behind by providing the funding that
was promised, giving states the resources they need, and finally meeting our
commitment to special education.  But that alone is not an education policy.  
It’s just a starting point.  

Now, John McCain is an honorable man and I respect his service to our country,
but he won’t even get us to that starting point.  For someone who’s been in
Washington nearly 30 years, he’s got a pretty slim record on education, and
when he has taken a stand, it’s been the wrong one.

He voted against increased funding for No Child Left Behind to preserve
billions in tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans – tax breaks he wants to
extend without saying how he’d pay for them.  He voted against increasing funds
for Head Start, and Pell Grants, and the hiring of 100,000 new teachers again
and again and again.

In fact, his only proposal seems to be recycling tired rhetoric about vouchers
and school choice.  Now, I’ve been a proponent of public school choice
throughout my career.  I applaud AFT for your leadership in representing
charter school teachers and support staff all across this country, and for even
operating your own charters in New York.  Because we know well-designed public
charter schools have a lot to offer, and I’ve actually helped pass legislation
to expand them.  But what I do oppose is using public money for private school
vouchers.  We need to focus on fixing and improving our public schools; not
throwing our hands up and walking away from them.

Real change is finally giving our kids everything they need to have a fighting
chance in today’s world.  That begins with recognizing that the single most
important factor in determining a child’s achievement is not the color of their
skin or where they come from; it’s not who their parents are or how much money
they have.  It’s who their teacher is.  
It’s the paraprofessionals and support staff and all of you in this room.  It’s
those who spend their own money on books and supplies, come early and stay late
comparing lesson plans, who devote their lives to our next generation and serve
as role models for the children who need one most because you believe that’s
what makes the extra difference.  And it does.  After all, I have two
daughters.  I know what their teachers mean to them.

So it’s time to start treating our teachers properly.  That means residency
programs that supply exceptional recruits to high-need schools.  That means
mentoring programs that pair experienced, successful teachers with new ones.  
That means service scholarships that say if you commit your life to teaching,
America will commit to paying for your college education.  

And when our educators succeed, I won’t just talk about how great they are; I
will reward them for it.  Under my plan, districts will be able to give
teachers who mentor, or teach in underserved areas, or take on added
responsibilities, or learn new skills to serve students better, or consistently
excel in the classroom, the salary increase they deserve.  And whether it’s the
plans AFT helped create in Cincinnati or Chicago, you’ve shown that it is
possible to find new ways to increase teacher pay that are developed with
teachers, not imposed on them.

And together, we will begin changing the odds for our at-risk children by
providing quality, affordable early childhood education for all our children.  
To address the achievement gap, we’ll expand afterschool and summer learning
opportunities.  To address the dropout crisis that condemns so many futures,
we’ll intervene much earlier in a child’s education – because the forces that
lead a high school student to drop out start well before the ninth grade.

But there is no program and no policy that can substitute for a parent who is
involved in their child’s education from day one, who makes sure that child is
in school on time, helps them with their homework, and attends those
parent-teacher conferences; who is willing to turn off the TV once in awhile,
put away the video games, and read to their child. Responsibility for our
children’s education starts at home.  We have to set high standards for them,
and spend time with them, and love them.  We have to hold ourselves
accountable.

This is the commitment we must make to our kids.  This is the chance they must
have.  We all know there are too many young men and women in America right now
who are slipping away from us as we speak – students who’ve lost all hope that
they can make something of their lives. You know these kids. And I know these
kids. I began my career over two decades ago in communities on Chicago's South
Side.  And I worked with parents and teachers and local leaders to fight for
their future.  We set up after school programs and protested outside government
offices so that we could get those who had dropped out into alternative
schools. And in time, we changed the odds for our children.

But while I know hopelessness, I also know hope.  In May, I visited a high
school in Colorado where just three years ago, only half of the seniors were
accepted to college.  But thanks to the hard work of caring parents, innovative
educators, and some very committed students, all forty-four seniors of this
year’s class were accepted to more than seventy colleges and universities
across the country.  And the example they set trickles down.  While there, I
met an eighth grader named Theo Rodriguez, who now sets his sights a little
higher – he wants to go to Oxford and study criminology.  

That’s what hope is.  That’s the promise of education in America – that no
matter what we look like or where we come from or who our parents are, each of
us should have the opportunity to fulfill our God-given potential.  Each of us
should have the chance to achieve the American Dream.

That’s why I’m running for President, AFT.  To make sure all our kids have that
chance.  But I need your help to get there.  From your earliest days in
Chicago, you’ve stood up for change – when minorities weren’t allowed full
union membership; when parents fought to integrate our schools; when it was
time to take the march for civil rights to Washington, you stood up.  

And if you stand up with me these next four months; if you march with me and
knock on doors and make phone calls and register voters, and talk to your
friends and co-workers and neighbors; then I promise you this: we will win this
election; we will change education in this country; and we will bring about a
better future for our children and for this country we love.  

Thank you.