We're on a QuEST
McElroy advocates extending school year for struggling K-3 students

The aft’s biennial QuEST (Quality Educational Standards in Teaching) conference, held in Washington, D.C., brings school staff together to learn about the latest research and share ideas. This year’s conference in July drew more than 2,000 participants who attended sessions covering a range of topics, including NCLB, school safety and literacy.

In his keynote address, AFT president Edward J. McElroy proposed extending the school year into the summer for at least 20 days, using that extra time to provide the nation’s most vulnerable K-3 students with intensive instruction and out-of-classroom enrichment. “We are simply losing too many children during the long summer months,” McElroy said. “Struggling students need additional instruction, enrichment and more time.”

McElroy called for a program in which school personnel would screen students—beginning in prekindergarten and continuing through third grade—to determine which kids would benefit from an extended year.

The AFT president has asked our state affiliates to work with their legislative leaders to develop state-by-state legislation that would enact his proposal.

Powering up expectations

At a mini-institute before the conference, paraprofessionals and teachers examined their schools’ expectations for all students.

Class participants drafted a list of how expectations are formed, including such seemingly innocent factors as students’ health, birth order and where they live. Children from any background can become sophisticated learners if adults believe it and say it, said the trainers in “Does Your School Really Expect Kids To Succeed?”

QuEST participants explored strategies for breaking through low expectations and getting underperformers to engage. Strategies included never isolating lower performers in the front or back of the room, giving them time to answer questions and applying discipline consistently.

Gardner brings ‘happyness’

Chris Gardner, whose rise from homelessness to ownership of a brokerage firm is chronicled in his best-selling autobiography, The Pursuit of Happyness, received the AFT’s Making a Difference Award.

Employing a mix of humor and stories, Gardner offered thoughts on his book and the hit movie made from it. Now on a campaign against homelessness, Gardner said that 12 percent of homeless people in this country go to work every day; 23 percent of all homeless people in the United States are military veterans; and half a million children under age 4 are homeless.

He opened his remarks with an acknowledgment of his mother. “Anything good or positive that I’m doing happened because of the mother that I had.”

One scene in the movie captures what his mother believed, Gardner said. “She would tell me, ‘Don’t ever let somebody tell you what you can’t do.’ That’s something I’m telling young people every day.”

A longtime friend of the AFT, Gardner has sponsored a cash award for winners of the AFT PSRP division’s Pioneer Award. He thanked his teachers, and “for me, more importantly, the folk who really make the schools work: the janitors and the bus drivers and the cafeteria workers and the nurse and the crossing guard—them is my folks.” He said, “The teachers always wanted to talk to us and tell us stuff. That was their job. But we had this one janitor who would listen to us, and that made all the difference in the world.”