Is the NJEA Annual Convention, held the first Thursday and Friday in November, an inspired opportunity for teachers to network and improve instruction? Or is it a symbol of the NJEA’s intractability to balance teachers’ and students’ needs? Joseph Wardy, a retired NJ public school teacher and current Star-Ledger blogger, blames the NJEA leadership, “the authority figure for teachers,” for promoting “group think,” specifically in regard to the scheduling of the two-day state-wide convention. The NJEA has argued, he says, that moving the convention date is “impossible,” in spite of the fact that the month of November is already fractured as instructional time by the Thanksgiving holiday and the two-day “mini-vacation” reaps no educational benefits.

In the four high schools and one middle school I taught in, there was never a word spoken about who attended or any discussion from teachers at any faculty meeting about what they learned at the Convention and how that learning can benefit kids in the classroom.

His argument concludes,

Our public education system will not attain excellence until the New Jersey Education Association balances the rights of its members to its responsibility to its students. The teachers convention in November is a microcosm of what is preventing public schools from achieving excellence.

According to Wardy, the problem with the NJEA is a lack of balance, an inability to commingle the overarching vision of job protection and educational needs of kids. In fact, the two days with full day is an item on the NJEA’s legislative agenda for 2009. From an NJEA publication:

NJEA supports S-209 (Singer)/A-2097 (Malone/Wolf) Convention Attendance: This measure would permit any full-time school district employee to attend the annual NJEA Convention for a period of no more than two days with full pay. NJEA supports this legislation because of the great diversity and expansion of our convention offerings. We believe it is important that all school employees be allowed to attend without loss of income.

In other words, NJEA’s logic – that teachers should attend the Atlantic City convention without “loss of income”– precludes scheduling the conference over the summer or on a weekend since they don’t get paid then anyway. Does this scheduling help kids? No. Do teachers only get paid if they attend the convention? No. But it’s a perk that the leadership is loathe to give up, in spite of the fact that kids lose 4 teaching days (the convention + Thanksgiving) within 3 weeks. If this is a balancing exercise, then the kids have tumbled off the beam.