Are you ready to help make positive change for children and K-12 education? Are you ready to get back a secure retirement for our members and other public employees? Are you sick of the federal Social Security offsets that cheat you and your loved ones of the retirement benefits you’ve worked so hard to earn? Are you fed up with the flawed No Child Left Behind law? Or the conscienceless under-funding of Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA)?

If your answer is yes to any of these questions, then it’s time to get involved in Election 2008. As the school year winds down, please plan to invest eight hours (at least!) on the campaign of your choice this summer. Activities can include what you feel comfortable doing: phone banking, walking a neighborhood with campaign literature, data entry. Whatever we do, when we work together, we have the power to make a difference for Alaska’s future.

Let me share with you what NEA-Alaska is doing: Over the coming months we’ll be working closely with organized labor on a coordinated, all-Alaska labor campaign. When we work in concert, we represent more than 70,000 Alaska households. And our valuable AARP-Alaska ally in the pension fight brings another 90,000 Alaskans to the coalition.

For the Leadership Conference, we invited respected political operative Joelle Hall to work with our 150 leaders from around Alaska. Our leaders caucused by region and came up with their list of top priorities: The top four are:

• A secure retirement and school funding (tied for #1)

• Rural/affordable housing
• Outsourcing

Earlier this spring, the NEA-Alaska PACE Committee opened the door to early recommendations in federal races. For state legislative races, we already know which legislators have proven themselves friends of NEA-Alaska and K-12 schools. PACE has recommended nine incumbents. (See back page.) By doing things differently this year, NEA-Alaska is ensuring we make the best opportunity to bring about positive change.