Published: November 16, 2009 09:39 am      

Chickasha observes Education Week

Chickasha educators will be observing American Education Week today through Nov. 21.

American Education Week spotlights the importance of providing every child in America with a quality public education from kindergarten through college, and the need for everyone to do his or her part in making public schools great.

The week's tagline, Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility, reflects the Association's calling upon America to provide students with quality public schools so that they can grow, prosper, and achieve in the 21st century.

"In some countries, girls aren't allowed to go to school and in other countries public education ends at 16," said Holly Swinford, president of the Chickasha Unified Teachers Association. "In Chickasha, we are striving every day to ensure that each one of our kids graduate."

In her role as a graduation coach at Chickasha High School, Swinford works with students, parents and teachers to make sure that every student is given every opportunity to get an education and goes on to graduate, she said.

CUTA will be giving its more than 100 members a small gift in commemoration of American Education week, Swinford said.

The National Education Association was one of the creators and original sponsors of American Education Week.

Distressed that 25 percent of the country's World War I draftees were illiterate and 9 percent were physically unfit, representatives of the NEA and the American Legion met in 1919 to seek ways to generate public support for education.

The conventions of both organizations subsequently adopted resolutions of support for a national effort to raise public awareness of the importance of education. In 1921, the NEA Representative Assembly in Des Moines, Iowa, called for designation of one week each year to spotlight education. In its resolution, the NEA called for: "An educational week ... observed in all communities annually for the purpose of informing the public of the accomplishments and needs of the public schools and to secure the cooperation and support of the public in meeting those needs."

The first observance of American Education Week occurred December 4-10, 1921, with the NEA and American Legion as the cosponsors. A year later, the then U.S. Office of Education joined the effort as a cosponsor, and the PTA followed in 1938.

Other co-sponsors are the U.S. Department of Education and national organizations including the National PTA, the American Legion, the American Association of School Administrators, the National School Boards Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the American School Counselor Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers, the National School Public Relations Association, the National Association of State Boards of Education, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals.

American Education Week is always celebrated the week prior to the week of Thanksgiving.