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National Education Association

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

National Education Association (NEA), organization of professional educators in the United States, with almost 2.5 million members. The NEA was founded (1850) as the National Teachers Association, changed its name in 1857, and was chartered by Congress in 1906. Its 13 standing committees and 7 divisions share an operating budget of approximately $150 million; each represents a separate area of specialized interest. Its general aim is to promote the welfare of all professional educators, including teachers, administrators, counselors, and others concerned about education. In 1998 the leadership of NEA and the American Federation of Teachers supported a merger of the two groups, but delegates to the NEA's annual meeting rejected the proposal.

Bibliography: See E. B. Wesley, NEA: The First Hundred Years (1957) and M. Murphy, Blackboard Unions: The AFT and the NEA, 1900-1980 (1990).

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National Education Association

The Oxford Companion to United States History | 2001 | | © The Oxford Companion to United States History 2001, originally published by Oxford University Press 2001. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

National Education Association. The National Teachers Association, founded in 1857, became the National Education Association (NEA) in 1871.Its members met annually to discuss educational issues. By the late nineteenth century, the NEA leadership was dominated by college presidents like Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University. Beyond its annual meetings and proceedings, its chief influence came from committees. The Committee of Ten (1893), led by President Charles Eliot of Harvard, recommended four equivalent and thoroughly academic high‐school curricula, putting modern subjects on a par with the classics. After 1900, three developments shaped the NEA: The activism of college presidents waned while school administrators came to dominate; women successfully challenged male dominance and occupied offices (including the presidency, with the election of Ella Flagg Young in 1910); and the organization's committees (especially its Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education in 1918) endorsed school curricula that emphasized a variety of nonacademic purposes. The organization grew from 2,300 members in 1900 to 53,000 in 1920 and 454,000 by 1950.

By the 1950s, a majority of NEA members were classroom teachers, and the organization faced a challenge from the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). Unlike the NEA, the AFT accepted collective bargaining, and it began to sanction strikes by teachers in the 1960s. The NEA accepted collective bargaining (but not strikes) in 1962, thus becoming more like a union. In the 1960s and 1970s, the NEA achieved two major lobbying goals: federal assistance to elementary and secondary education and the creation of a federal Department of Education. By blending its long‐standing emphasis on teacher professionalism and a somewhat reluctant endorsement of collective bargaining, the NEA retained the loyalty of most organized teachers, with 2.2 million members in 1996, compared to 830,000 in the AFT. While the NEA moved toward collective bargaining, the AFT began emphasizing teacher professionalism. This convergence bred serious talk of merger throughout the 1990s.
See also Education: The Public School Movement; Labor Movements.

Bibliography

Edgar B. Wesley , NEA: The First Hundred Years. The Building of the Teaching Profession, 1957.
Marjorie Murphy , Blackboard Unions: The AFT and the NEA, 1900–1980, 1990.

Carl F. Kaestle

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Paul S. Boyer. "National Education Association." The Oxford Companion to United States History. Oxford University Press. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. 9 Nov. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

Paul S. Boyer. "National Education Association." The Oxford Companion to United States History. Oxford University Press. 2001. Encyclopedia.com. (November 9, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O119-NationalEducationAssocitn.html

Paul S. Boyer. "National Education Association." The Oxford Companion to United States History. Oxford University Press. 2001. Retrieved November 09, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O119-NationalEducationAssocitn.html

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