For decades, the overuse and misuse of standardized testing has fueled a "label-blame-shame" approach to education reform manufactured to undermine support for public education. More recently, right-wing culture war attacks have accelerated the insidious movement to privatize our public schools.

As the people who have devoted our lives to ensuring ALL students--regardless of race, ZIP code, or background--receive the support they need to succeed, we know how important it is to be united in promoting, protecting, and strengthening public education. As a member of the NEA Executive Committee, I will bring my experience of advocating for the resources and respect we need as we unify our members and the nation so our students have the great public schools they deserve.

Advocating for great public schools goes hand-in-hand with leading to create a world where all people--regardless of race, class, or identity--have an equal opportunity to succeed. Public education is uniquely positioned as the catalyst for building a just and equitable society, but systemic racism has made that promise elusive for far too many.

As a member of the NEA Executive Committee, I will join with you to continue our work to dismantle barriers to opportunity based on race, ethnicity, wealth, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and all other factors that marginalize people within our union, in public education, and in our nation. As the largest and most powerful labor union and education advocacy organization, we are uniquely situated to continue leading this fight.

Having served in leadership in small and large locals and as a state officer for nearly twelve years, I understand the critical importance of state and local affiliates in improving the lives of our members and the students we serve. That has been especially clear through my leadership experience with the National Council of State Education Associations (NCSEA), where I have come to understand the unique strengths and needs of each of our state affiliates.

As a member of the NEA Executive Committee, I will continue advocating for NEA to provide resources needed to fill gaps at the state and local level and facilitate dynamic strategic alignment at all levels of our union. Our unified affiliate structure is one of our greatest sources of strength. We must work together to ensure we are relentlessly focused on meeting the needs of all our members and students where they live and work.

Growing and strengthening our union depends on identifying, developing, and supporting leaders at all levels. We are doing a lot of great work, but if we are to truly grow and thrive as an organization, we will need to strengthen our system of leadership development. NEA has the resources to support state and local affiliates in this critical work.

If you elect me to the NEA Executive Committee, I will support you in broadening and deepening our leadership development system so it is inclusive, aligned to our strategic goals, and impactful. Good leaders create other leaders. My extensive experience in identifying, training, and supporting leaders at the local, regional, state, and national level has prepared me well to partner with you in this critical work.

Educators across the nation depend on their union to give them the protection they need to do the essential work with students they were trained and hired to do. Book bans and censorship laws undermine our work even as public schools and institutions of higher education struggle to recruit and retain educators. We must never lose sight of the fundamental need to protect our members as we continue to recruit, retain, and engage them in higher numbers.

Through legislative advocacy, legal action, collective bargaining, local organizing, and effective communication with the public, we are uniquely situated to turn back the cynical attacks on teachers and education support professionals being waged across the country. If elected to the Executive Committee, I will continue using my voice to champion the cause of our members and organize with you to build the collective strength to withstand any attacks coming our way.

To protect members, strengthen public education, and ensure every student, without exception, is given the opportunity to succeed, we must increase our collective power as a union. Whether in red, blue, or purple states, in affiliates large or small, in places with or without formal collective bargaining rights, we have both the need and opportunity to organize for power.

As a member of the NEA Executive Committee, I will support you and our leadership team in this ongoing power-building work. I am proud of the work I have helped lead in Ohio to protect collective bargaining rights, increase public school funding, and fend off some of the most dangerous attacks on our professions despite virtual one-party control of our state for more than a decade. I will bring what I have learned from that experience to the NEA Executive Committee to support our leadership team in helping to maintain and expand our power across the nation.