Teacher Union

UNIONS: Teacher Union by Roxanne Anthony Christie Terwilliger and Christian Parker

The NEA ( National Education Association)

Beliefs: The members of the NEA of the United States, believe they are the voices of education professionals. They believe that their work is fundamental to the nation, and they accept the profound trust placed in them to carry out that duty. The NEA's vision is to create great public schools for all students in the United States. Their mission is to advocate for education professionals and to unite their members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world.

Core Values of the NEA include:

• Equal Opportunity ~ public education is the gate way to opportunity. All students have human/civil rights to a quality education that develops the their potential, independence, and character.



• Democracy ~ public education provides skills to be involved, informed and engaged in the US's representative democracy

• Just Society ~ public education is vital to building respect for the worth, dignity and equality of every individual in our diverse society.

• Partnership ~ with parents/families/communities/other stakeholder it is important to provide quality public education and student success


• Professionalism ~ we expect status, compensation and respect gained by any other working professional.
  
• Collective Action ~ individuals are strengthened when they work for a common good. We improve professional status and quality of public education when we unite and collectively advocate.

Lobbying/Legislative Attempts:

No Child Left Behind ~ Currently The NEA is meeting with members of Congress to bring to No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to their attention. NCLB, a plan originally established by Lyndon B. Johnson and know as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, is up for reauthorization by Congress. NCLB holds high standards and accountability for the learning of all children but has a test-and-punish approach that the NEA feels does not move us closer to our goals for education. NEA has developed new guidelines for the changing the law which they feel will better convey improvements to education and lessen achievement gaps. Lobbyists speak with the Representatives and Senators of Congress on a regular basis.

Jobs for Main Street Act ~ Most recently the NEA was successful in having the House of Representatives pass the Jobs for Main Street Act. This act includes Education Job Fund that should help states to keep and create approximately 250,000 jobs for the next two years and also fund school construction, renovation and modernization.

Consolidation Appropriations Bill ~ The NEA was excited to know that this bill was passed by Congress. It provides funding for the fiscal year 2010 for a numerous amount of programs including education. $1.5 billion will be spent on assistance needed success for over 20 million disadvantaged students (in approximately 55,000 schools). The bill will also provide $11.5 billion for the Individuals with Disabilities Act. The bill will support many other educational entities such as Pell Grants, funding for English Language Learner Grants and 21st Century Community Learning Centers.

Political Activity: NEA has a rather rowdy reputation. They can often be found around Congress lobbying for or against certain acts and/or bills. The organization has however frequently challenged any hint of education reform they disagree with unprecedented tactics. For example in 2008 the NEA-affiliated California Teacher Association was said to have used tactics such as blocking potential signators' access to petitions and allegedly sabotaging a petition with fake names. Not all NEA members act so aggressively but they are know to participate in small protests and other non violent political activities such as campaigning

Common Supporters/Voters: Teacher are the number one form of supporters for the NEA. Support can also be found in School Board Affiliates and other public school staff member, as well as parents of public school attendees.

Known Supporters: Two big industries that support NEA are Target and 21st Century Fox. Both of which have help; Target through donations such as school supplies and both with funding

PAC's for NEA:

PEA PAC (Parents Education Association Political Action Committee) ~ the PEA PAC's mission is to address a wide variety of public policy issues through a biblical perspective, to help Christians in the application of the scriptures to politics in Oregon and developing a thoroughly Christian View world wide.

NFA (Nevada Faculty Alliance) ~ The NFA created a pac in order to interview/endorse candidates supportive of highering education in Nevada.

AEA Fund For Public Education (AZ PAC) ~ The goal of AZ PAC is to fulfill the promise of a democratic society by promoting the cause of quality public education, advancing the education profession, expanding the rights and furthering the interests of education employees, and advocating human, civil, and economic rights for all.

• Guarantees each child a free, equal, quality public education
• recognizes that public school employees are central to education excellence
• supports community commitment to learning
• Assures fairness, equality and respect

Gay Marriage

By: Christie Terwilliger
Marriage as it is defined by Merriam-Webster is "the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law" or "the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage" (Merriam-Webster.com). These two separate definitions alone can help to establish the difference between the two platforms of the Democratic and Republican party.


The history of gay marriage as a nationwide issue, started around 1993 with a case in Hawaii in which the constitution of Hawaii gave reason as to why gay marriage should not have the same rights as a heterosexual marriage (A Brief History of: Gay Marriage). From this nationwide attention, the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 was enacted, which denies benefits to homosexual couples which would normally be granted in a heterosexual marriage (A Brief History of: Gay Marriage). From this event forward, states have worked to define marriage their own way (A Brief History of: Gay Marriage).

The Democratic party platform has a strong basis of civil rights and liberties. This is a leading issue on the parties agenda. "Democrats will fight to end discrimination based on race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and disability in every corner of our country, because that's the America we believe in" (Democrats.org). The Democratic platform also has a section dedicated to the LGBT community, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Overall, the Democratic party's stance on gay marriage is that Democrats believe that all people should be equal, and therefore should all receive the same rights as one another, even if these people are homosexual.



The Republican party, on the other hand, does not share these same core beliefs. Republicans have built their platform on equal rights, much like opposition to slavery, but when it comes to the topic of gay marriage, Republicans are usually opposed. As stated in the Republican party 2008 platform, "We consider discrimination based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability, or national origin to be immoral, and we will strongly enforce anti-discrimination statutes. We ask all to join us in rejecting the forces of hatred and bigotry and in denouncing all who practice or promote racism, anti-Semitism, ethnic prejudice, or religious intolerance" (GOP.com). However, this statement does not cover sexual orientation. Also stated in the Republican party platform of 2008 is the idea of appointing judges who uphold family values (GOP.com). Republicans hold a core believe that they should uphold existing family values, such as marriage between only a man and a woman.




When several states decided to accept gay marriage FOX news announced the following statement, "With congressional elections next year, Republicans, Democrats and nonpartisan analysts say the changes benefit Democrats, whose bedrock liberals favor gay unions, and disadvantage Republicans, whose conservative base insists that marriage be solely between a man and a woman" (FOXnews.com). This quote from FOX can sum up the views of the two party's platforms, Democrats mostly support gay marriage while Republicans mainly do not.

References
1.)2008 Republican Platform. (2008). GOP. Retrieved from http://www.gop.com/2008platform/
2.)A Brief History of: Gay Marriage. (2008). Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1808617,00.html
3.)Democrats see Opportunity as Acceptance of Gay Marriage Grows. (2009). FOX News. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/05/02/democrats-opportunity-acceptance-gay-marriage-grows/
4.)Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/marriage
5.)Reclaiming Our Civil Rights and Liberties. The Democratic Party. Retreived from http://www.democrat.org/a/national/american_democracy/civil_rights/

Boulder Creek College Bound Poll

By: Christie Terwilliger, Roxanne Anthony, and Christian Parker

For our poll we asked the question, are you going to college. We has 3 questions; 1. Do you know what career you will/hope to have in the future?, 2. Do you plan on attending college?, 3a. If yes, do you plan on attending college in Arizona?, and 3b. If no do you already have a job available to you?. All the questions can with multiple choice answers all of which were a, yes, b, no, and c, maybe besides questions 2 which the answers included a, yes-university, b, yes-community college, and c, no. We polled a total of 100 students and the results were as follows:

Correlations and Results:

Overall, the results display a high majority of students who plan on attending college. very few students said that they would not attend college.
According to this chart, a majority of students involved in athletics plan on attending a university as well as club members. No athletes do not plan on attending a college.

This chart illustrates the number of students with jobs and without jobs. According to this chart, students without jobs are more likely to not attend college. This may be because the working students might be working to save up for college.
General education students are more likely to not attend college while honors students are more likely to attend a university.
Employed honors students are more likely than unemployed general education students to attend a community college.

Method for Achieving Randomness:
The key for achieving randomness was to ask students at a variety of times, and locations. For example, out group polled students during lunch time and also on such social networking sites like Facebook.com and Myspace.com. While polling we tried to alternate between male and female and grade levels. Also, we tried to stay away from groups of friends and instead just ask one person instead of the whole group.

Possible Problems:

Possible problems for this could have been the overlapping of people interviewed. We did not record names of students and because of this it made it impossible to know if a student was already asked the same questions. Another possible problems could have been a counting error or a miscalculation/misunderstanding while speaking to students.

House: "International Relations"

Category One:

Functions of Committee-
The International relations committee is responsible for many different aspects of foreign relations. They are also accountable for the legislation that is involved in these relations. Types of foreign relations governed include: foreign assistance, the Peace Corps, National security affecting foreign policy, planning and agreements, war powers, peacekeeping, arms and disarmament issues, the United States Agency for International development, activities and policies of the state, international law, promotion of democracy, Broadcasting Board of Governors, embassy security, international broadcasting, public diplomacy, and cultural problems. The International Relations committee is also in charge of oversight to any matter involved with foreign relations.


Purpose of Committee-
The purpose of the International Relations committee is to represent the United States in the foreign affairs field. Although the President does have the lead on nearly all aspects of foreign affairs, the House has the "power of the purse" in order to influence the President's agenda.

Category Two:

Chairman-
The current chair is Howard L. Berman, who is a Democrat from the state of California. Howard as been the chairman of the International Operations subcommittee from 1991-94 and also served as the senior Democrat on the Asia and Pacific subcommittee from 1995-98. In 2008 Howard severed as the chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee.

Key Members-
*These members are key due to the fact they sponsored many bills of legislation for their committee.

Category Three:

Current Bills pending-

H.R.585: To direct the President to enter into arrangement with the National Academy of Sciences to evaluate harmful aspects of public health, air quality, water quality, plant and animal life, global climate, or the environment, and to devise a plan to reverse the harmful side effects found. Sponsored by Barbara Lee and introduced January 15,2009.

H.R.591: To improve the United States capabilities for gathering human intelligence through effective interrogation and detention of suspected terrorists and for bringing terrorists to justice in accordance with the Constitution. Sponsored by David Price and introduced January 15,2009.

H.R. 994: To remove incentives/loopholes that encourage the illegal immigrations of aliens to the come to the United States to live and work. Fore more to provide additional resources to local law enforcement, border patrol and immigration officers as well as other purposes. Sponsored by David Obey and introduced February 23, 2009

H.R. 1448: To give both the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General raise the amount of resources necessary to identify and eliminate illicit forces of firearms smuggled into Mexico for drug trafficking and other unlawful activities. This will require security grants to local law enforcement agencies and reinforcing Federal agencies on the border and other purposes. Sponsored by Ciro Rodriguez and introduced March 11, 2009

H.R. 1623: To protect children from sexual exploitation by mandating reporting requirements for convicted sex traffickers as well as other sex offenders against minors attempting to travel abroad, by providing advanced notice of intention of travel by high risk sex offenders outside the U.S. to the government of the country of destination, and preventing entrance into the U.S. by any foreign sex offender against a minor and for other purposes. Sponsored by Christopher Smith and introduced March 19, 2009