January 15, 2009

Dear NABE Board:

The CABE Executive Board previously issued a complaint to the NABE Board regarding the tainted election process for the most recent NABE Board elections.  We requested (along with other NABE affiliates) that a thorough and objective investigation be conducted and that transparent and above board elections be conducted.  Instead of pursuing an honorable and transparent process this NABE Board chose to violate its own bylaws by using precious NABE funds to hire an attorney to lend legitimacy to its actions.  At this point, we choose not to be an affiliate with an organization who made the decision to seat an unqualified person on its Board when there were many others who were qualified and denied this opportunity by the Board’s arrogant actions.  The succeeding failure by the Board and its officers to respond to the legitimate issues raised by CABE and other affiliates only exacerbates the problem.

CABE will reconsider being an affiliate with NABE when the NABE Board reestablishes itself as a nationally recognized leader in pursuing the educational needs of culturally and linguistically diverse populations by taking the following actions:

• Repairing relationships with NABE affiliates
• Repairing relationships with other constituents sharing the same mission/vision for culturally and linguistically populations (e.g. NEA, La Raza Unida, and LULAC)
• Actively lobby for legislative changes that impact English learners (e.g. the reauthorization of NCLB, the reintroduction of the Dream Act and state changes to bilingual education policy)
• Ensuring that the Bilingual Research Journal continue to be an avenue for the dissemination of research and best practice for the education of culturally and linguistically diverse populations
• Amending its bylaws to ensure that this type of voting irregularity can no longer be taken by this or future NABE Boards, i.e. creating a process whereby elections can no longer be tampered with and creating a recess whereby the bylaws cannot be amended by the Board but by a vote of NABE members.

This decision was not made lightly but rather with due consideration for the advocacy of students and families of diverse backgrounds.  At this time, we will no longer be affiliated with NABE and therefore will not host the NABE 2010 Conference in Denver. We are hopeful that the NABE Board takes our action and our above mentioned requests to heart and considers how to bring NABE back to being the highly regarded organization it has been and can be again.

Sincerely,

The CABE Executive Board