Analyzing the National Education Association's Strategic Plan - Free Paper

Introduction

The National Education Association (NEA) refers to one of the leading professional workers unions to improve the cause of public learning. National Education Association has over three million members that operate in various levels of education beginning from kindergarten to higher learning programs (King & Stevahn, 2012). National Education Association has conglomerate offices in the entire United States and operates in over 14,000 communities within the country. NEA represents public school educators and other provision employees, staffers and faculty at educational institutions, retired teachers, and students. Besides, NEA has its headquarters in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this paper involves the assessment of NEA's organization's strategic plan.

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Those Who Will Participate in the Assessment

Since the organization represents the United States of America's voluntary union of educators, administrators, and other related teachers in elementary, and secondary schools, colleges, and universities, the participants in the sampling group involve parents, teachers, the government, and secondary school board members (Kozami, 2005). NEA has a sophisticated organizational framework that deals with general-purpose, personal membership association that handles the basis of public learning and advocates for the benefit of its members. The union has a massive professional workforce and incorporates commissions and committees that offer various services like publications, research, cooperation with federal government departments, support of administrative regulations, and protection of human rights.

NEA encompasses several national organizations that focus on professional, specialized, and vocational interests. These represent agencies in NEA and independent groups that have their premium-paying participants, officers, and workers (Ma & Baum, 2016). Also, the representative body of NEA determines its policies and democratically elect its members from the national delegates. NEA continues to make efforts to improve the livelihoods of teachers and education experts by helping in the negotiation of recruitment agreements with educational institutions.

Collecting Data

Since NEA deals with negotiations of wage timelines, complaint processes, instructional approaches, transfer regulations, and discipline, this paper carried out research to determine the degree of contentment of its members on dealing with such issues. Also, NEA handles class capacity, preparation timelines, extracurricular activities, working conditions, and sick leave; this paper sampled 25 teachers from five different institutions across the United States of America using an e-mail questionnaire provided in the figure below (Over, 2008). The sampled data assessed how the teachers felt the union performs regarding its negotiation processes and sealed deals by its field representatives and through its program that provides its members with necessary resource materials.

Furthermore, the questionnaire sought to identify the level of satisfaction by member teachers on how it handles grievances raised by members concerning transfers, sick leave, disciplinary issues, and school safety (Sparkman et al., 2012). Since NEA remains a democratic association that has an outlined policy and structure in its bylaws and constitution, finding out on the teacher's contentment about the organization's activities remains crucial in streamlining its operations. Achieving this required a review of its policies in the yearly Representative Assembly usually conducted every July. The Representative Assembly remains the main policymaking and legislative body of NEA.

From the data analysis, most of the respondents, about 92%, felt that the organization continues to champion their rights and improve their economic status through active engagement with stakeholders. The survey also noted that enhancing student accomplishment by ensuring that students received the best skills and knowledge to operate in learning institutions effectively appealed to most of the respondents as an organization's strategic plan (Disselkamp, 2013). Besides, the study indicated that the essential aspect of improving student achievement originates from teacher quality which remains one of the strategic plans of NEA. NEA supports the fact that the absence of qualified educators in every learning institution undermines the quality of education and minimizes student education. Moreover, the research found out that staffing, resources, and school structure affect the performance of learners.

Political Influence

Politics contributes to NEA's activities with the contemporary opposition to the recruitment of education activist Betsy DeVos as the educational secretary appointed by President Donald Trump. NEA's president, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, argued that the appointee had no adequate qualifications and posed a danger to learners. In the event of political fallout, NEA assumes its independence and can rally its members to advocate for its ideologies without having to lobby for support from others (Disselkamp, 2013). NEA had actively engaged in politics since the 1960s when various states in the United States started demanding that different learning institutions collectively conduct bargaining with NEA and other organizations.

With the power of representatives across the nation and nationwide representation, the NEA can call on its members to hold a peaceful demonstration to petition any issue related to education in the event of political fallout (Disselkamp, 2013). Besides, NEA has sponsored some political candidates and donated funds to support improving the minimum wage, disallowing teacher performance, and eliminating policies of revoking taxes.

Specific Problems

NEA started advocating for diverse issues from the Morrill Act of 1982 that necessitated land grants to learning institutions and the introduction of government universities. Some of the problems NEA faces include its partiality on teachers' and students rights (Wiley, 2008). NEA has regularly detested regulations like merit remuneration, school vouchers, various curricular shifts, the No Child Left Behind Act, the weakening of educators' tenure, and other reforms that enable institutions to discipline errant teachers.

NEA faces criticism for its member's misbehaviors like sexual harassment in which it does not do much to take action on abusive teachers. NEA also opposed the Continuing Appropriations Resolution of 2014 since the legislation undermines the Affordable Care Act. Furthermore, NEA opposed vigorous shooter training held in educational institutions advocating for these drills to get reviewed or eradicated.

Recommendations

NEA should revise its policy on the union's dues framework and change the regulation on how the association deals with troubled state partners. NEA should advance opportunities that will enhance the rights of all teachers, promote members' career development, support emerging educators, and encourage corporate social responsibility (Venezia & Jaeger, 2013). Moreover, the union should safeguard the learning environment for teachers, learners, and families. NEA must also strengthen and expand its membership through the advocacy of issues related to teaching and learning and the well-being of their students and teachers.

Improvement Strategy

NEA needs a continuous strategy that improves teacher rights, influence, and specialized authority. Also, NEA must involve and hire novel and innovative career teachers. Besides, the union needs to promote professional brilliance to guarantee learners achievement (Valdebenito et al., 2015). Another continues strategy entails improving social rights like supporting racial justice in learning institutions. Moreover, NEA needs to create a safe pro-public learning environment, develop organization ability, and encourage enterprise operations that promote the approach goals, develop long-time strength, and maintain the union's infrastructure.

Plan for Influencing Key Decision Makers

NEA needs to engage all stakeholders in its organization's strategic plan to gain support from its key decision-makers. Through keen analysis of current issues affecting the education sector, major key players in the education field can decipher and prioritize issues that require political and public goodwill to implement, therefore receiving support from essential decision-makers (Boca et al., 2010). Also, surveying emerging educational challenges can have a significant impact on how to develop a strategic plan that can gain unanimous support from all shareholders.

Conclusion

NEA has collaborated with the domestic and federal government to advance educational centers and working environments for their teachers, administrators, and students since local learning boards determine wages and terms of employment. Besides, state governments control funding for entire public learning institutions that the union must intervene to ensure equitable and proper funding for these schools and staff.

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