(This post is part of a series related to the VIVA/NEA 360° Report. See an overview here.)

By Nancy Kunsman.

An email from National Education Association (NEA) president Lily Eskelson-Garcia in October invited NEA members to share our voices concerning best practices in education accountability. I tend to be one of these people who sign up, try it out, and move on, but the idea that intrigued me about this invitation was the final comment in the introductory material: “At the end of this collaboration, a small group of the most active and engaged members (regardless of point-of-view) will be invited to meet with NEA Vice President Becky Pringle…Your input will help shape NEA’s position on the issue” (italics mine).

Coming from a conservative state where I tend to march to a different drummer, I was excited to have a chance to discuss education accountability, even if I am the odd man out. The willingness to let all points of view be heard and shared was key to my participation. And throughout the entire process, that rang true. New Voice Strategies (NVS) was chosen in order to “ensure that your voices, experience and wisdom lead this conversation, NEA is partnering with New Voice Strategies on a VIVA Idea ExchangeTM to hear and amplify your ideas.” Our VIVA moderator, Elaine Romero, always encouraged open dialogue. At no point in this entire process did I feel that I was not free to share.

However, I did research New Voice Strategies and its relationship to NEA. I have been an NEA member my entire teaching career and have served for years as an NEA representative. I am NEA and NEA is me. I trust NEA. I found that NEA members had previously participated in Idea Exchanges with NVS when Dennis Van Roekel was president.

So this was not the first Idea Exchange NEA entered into with NVS. That meant a lot to me as an NEA person. If our members had been unsatisfied or felt slighted, I do not think NEA would solicit NVS again and again. I entered this conversation in earnest and was soon identified as a thought leader in the discussion.

The purpose of the Idea Exchange (IE) was to allow teachers to voice ideas, determining how all aspects of the education system could be assessed and be held accountable for ensuring students “get the best possible education.” This was the largest IE to date and included 945 teachers with all different points of view. We had weeks to offer thousands of comments on topics related to accountability.

At the end of phase I, I was asked to join a group to sort and summarize thousands of comments, identify the problems and solutions offered by the larger group. During the entire Phase 2 process, we voted by consensus and, in general, stayed faithful to the 945 voices.

At the end of Phase 2, we had written a report well over seventy pages in length, full of ideas, stories and resources. We had disagreements during this process and we edited our own work. For example, when two stories were written to illustrate the same point, the lead writer chose to leave her own in and remove the other although the consensus was that the other was better. This same lead writer was also questioned as to the authenticity of one of her proposed solutions because the solution did not originate with the 945 voices. Her response was that was her solution to the problems pointed out by the 945 voices. At this point the moderator should have had the group review the Phase I comments and vote her up or down, but her solution was allowed to remain because of keeping to a tight schedule and the belief that we would address this again later.

Near the end of Phase II, we were encouraged to cut our seventy pages back to fifty. Some of us tried, but it was hard to chop up our own baby, so we were unsuccessful at self – editing. They asked us to remove stories and resources to an appendix. But the only way to fit a square peg into a round hole is to chip away at it. It had to be shortened, and if we couldn’t do it, the editors at NVS could. And they did. They cut quite a bit to meet the fifty page goal. Those of us who were willing to shorten our sections saw less editing. Did they cut important information? I think so. Did they cut unimportant information? Absolutely. Did they pick and choose to cut sections in order to serve their own agenda or the agenda of monetary backers? No. In fact, many ideas that people like Bill Gates would disagree with remained intact. Did they ADD anything that was not our thoughts? No. Did they change the tone? Their job as partners with NEA was to help us prepare a report that policy could be drawn from. This meant they removed emotionally charged language in order to make this a document that would fit into a policy making world. As teachers who have been hurt by administrators or frustrated by lack of funding or sick of too much testing, we are emotionally involved. NVS is not.

The one time I questioned NVS was what has become known as “The Thanksgiving Day Edits.” The group received an email with suggested rewording for our recommendations. Notice the word “suggested.” Some were very angry at these suggestions. I was one who stood my ground. The explanation given is that VIVA was trying to reword for policymakers. We rejected their suggestions and moved on.

NVS arranged for us to meet with NEA leadership during Phase III. Some complained they didn’t see our report until we were walking in to the meeting and only then found out how much had been cut. It was no conspiracy. The publishing was rushed in order for us to present to the NEA Accountability Task Force. NVS did what NEA asked them to do. Others felt that NVS should have posted the report online immediately as well. Again, NVS was waiting on NEA to give them the go-ahead. This all occurred right around Christmas and the holiday season. People were out of their offices. As soon as NEA gave the approval, NVS posted the report online. NVS also arranged for us to write blogs. And all who wrote blogs agreed that the only edits were grammar and mechanics.

At the Network for Public Education conference, we will lead a panel to create a rubric for assuring authentic teacher voices are heard. The foundational document is already being created. One suggestion by our writing collaborative members is that it is headed with the following quote:

It’s within [a] sort of fairly narrow orbit that you manufacture the [research] reports. You hire somebody to write a report. There’s going to be a commission, there’s going to be a lot of research, there’s going to be a lot of vetting and so forth and so on, but you pretty much know what the report is going to say before you go through the exercise.  Anonymous, Gates Foundation

Some in our group think this quote is true for us. I beg to differ. We put together a report driven, not by Bill Gates or any other public entity, but by the voices of 945 professional educators who care about what is happening in your schools, their schools and my school. A similar posting was made on the ASCD website that showed an entirely different set of teachers tweeting ways to improve America’s education system.  Guess what? They came up with an almost identical list of solutions. Why? Because teachers know what is going on and what we need.

I thank NVS VIVA Teachers organization for allowing me the opportunity to be part of a golden opportunity to allow teachers, not just me, to be heard. I thank them for bringing me to NEA leadership to share our report. I thank them for giving me a venue for blogging on a national stage. I thank them for allowing my voice to be heard. One member of our writing collaborative team straight-forwardly told me in a recent telephone conference I should not be on the NPE panel. She doesn’t want my voice, different than hers, to be heard. Who is really trying to silence me? It is not NEA or NVS. So I say to all people reading this who care about public education—authentic teacher voices are out there. Let us listen rather than shut them down.