CAT Tracks for February 14, 2005 COUNTDOWN BEGINS...

The dedication of the Cairo Community Education Center is rapidly approaching...Thursday, February 17th. As advertised, the featured speaker will be our own Reg Weaver, President of the National Education Association. Below is the official biography posted on the NEA website...

Reg Weaver, an outspoken advocate for public education and one of the country's foremost African American labor leaders, was elected president of the 2.7 million-member National Education Association at NEA's 2002 Representative Assembly in Dallas, Texas. He took office as head of the nation's largest professional employee organization on Sept. 1, 2002.

Weaver, a middle school science teacher from Harvey, Illinois, is a 30-year classroom veteran and native of Danville, Illinois. He was recently named to Danville High School's Wall of Fame.

As an adult, he rose through the NEA ranks, serving as a local Association president in Harvey, Illinois (1967-1971) and then president of the Illinois Education Association (1981-1987). Weaver served on the NEA Executive Committee from 1989-1995, and for six years he served as NEA vice president.

Weaver serves on the executive board of the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education and on the board of governors of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. He is also a member of the board of directors of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. He is listed in Who's Who, as well as in Who's Who in Black America.

As NEA president, Weaver travels across the country as an ambassador for public education. Speaking on behalf of education reform and innovation in the nation's schools, he has addressed national conferences and public policy forums sponsored by the NAACP, Cable Television Association, National Conference of Black Mayors, ASPIRA, Rainbow/Push Coalition, and University of Wisconsin. Weaver has also represented the Association internationally at meetings of the World Confederation of Organizations of the Teaching Profession and the Federal Education Association.

While at the helm of the 90,000-member Illinois Education Association (IEA), Weaver led a recruitment drive that boosted IEA membership nearly 50 percent and a legislative campaign that resulted in historic gains for IEA members, including collective bargaining rights for teachers, education support professionals, and higher education faculty. He also chaired the IEA Political Action Committee for Education (IPACE), which had a 90 percent success rate in electing pro-public education legislators.

Weaver was appointed by Illinois Governor Jim Thompson to the Illinois Commission for the Improvement of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Illinois Project for School Reform Advisory Council, the Illinois Literacy Council, and the Task Force on At-Risk Youth.

Weaver also served on the Illinois State Board of Education's Blue Ribbon Committee on the Improvement of Teaching as a Profession, the Administrator's Academy, the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory Advisory Committee, and the Joint Committee on Minority Student Achievement.

Weaver has received many honors and awards, including the National Conference of Black Mayors President's Award, the Ebony Magazine Influential Black Educators Award and the Illinois Education Association's Human Relations Award. He is an honorary life member of the National Parent Teachers Association.

Weaver earned his Bachelor of Science degree in special education for the physically challenged at Illinois State University in Normal, and his master's degree at Roosevelt University in Chicago.