Shelly Moore Krajacic is a labor union activist and advocate for left-wing racial and gender policies who has sat on the executive committee of the National Education Association (NEA) teachers’ union. ¹

Professional Background

Shelly Moore Krajacic is a former two-term member of the National Education Association’s governing body, the Executive Committee, and has held a number of roles in the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) and local unions. ^{2 3} As a member of the NEA’s six-person Executive Committee, Krajacic received $76,917 in compensation in 2018. ⁴

An English and drama teacher at South Milwaukee High School in South Milwaukee, Krajacic was selected in 2024 for induction into the “National Teachers Hall of Fame,” an independent nonprofit at Emporia State University in Kansas that names five K-12 teachers each year for inclusion. ^{5 6} The Hall of Fame is partially funded by the National Education Association and the NEA Foundation. ⁷

Krajacic was an unsuccessful Democratic Party candidate for the Wisconsin State Senate in 2011. ⁸

Advocacy

Education

In 2023, Krajacic chaired a National Education Association committee that produced “Great Teaching & Learning,” an official NEA report on improving teacher quality. ⁹ Among other proposals, the report called for basing teacher assessments on “a locally bargained, evidence-based system of peer review linked to performance expectations” rather than test scores or other metrics of student performance, and for teachers to have “authority at the classroom level to make significant decisions about curriculum design, teaching methods, and assessment strategies, versus being mandated to deliver prescribed programs.” ⁹

Krajacic advocated for increased NEA spending to influence the 2020 elections, saying “This is an unprecedented ask because this is an unprecedented election. Our country, our ideals, and our decency must be protected.” ¹⁰

Krajacic is a board member of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, a nonprofit teacher certification organization that promotes left-of-center beliefs in its certification programs and offers certifications that are highly incentivized by many large public school teachers’ unions, most notably by the Chicago Teachers Union. ^{11 12}

Racial and Gender Activism

As a candidate for Secretary-Treasurer of the Wisconsin Education Association Council in 2022, Krajacic described herself as “one of the cocreators of the NEA Leaders for Just Schools program” and claimed “a record of dedication to dismantling systemic issues of inequity.” ³

Krajacic advocates for “anti-racist” educational policies and other left-of-center racial and gender principles. As of 2024, she is a doctoral student in urban education at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, completing a doctoral thesis on “anti-racist education of incoming English language arts teachers,” including whether new teachers “view themselves as anti-racist educators.” ¹³

In 2020, she was quoted in a Pakistani newspaper’s coverage of American racial unrest as saying, “Some of the educators of early childhood might think that children already come with pre-conceived racial biases planted in them. But one is never too young to start having conversation[sic] about race. As educator, we got[sic] to have serious explicit talk about race with the students of colour [sic] as we have failed them so far in the history of this nation.” ¹⁴

In 2021, Krajacic was a member of the Women’s Committee of the NEA that recommended, among other policies, an internal audit for “gender bias” within the NEA, updating NEA documents to include “necessary anti-harassment language,” and updating the NEA’s anti-harassment policy to include “awareness of prevailing privileges due to race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, or elected or hired position.” ¹⁵

1.  Maiers, Staci. “NEA Delegates Re-Elect Wisconsin Teacher to Its Executive Committee.” NEA, July 5, 2018. https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-delegates-re-elect-wisconsin-teacher-its-executive-committee.
2. ^[1] Maiers, Staci. “NEA Delegates Re-Elect Wisconsin Teacher to Its Executive Committee.” NEA, July 5, 2018. https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-delegates-re-elect-wisconsin-teacher-its-executive-committee.
3. Candidate BIOS for the WEAC/NEA positions to be elected …, January 2022. Wisconsin Education Association Council, https://weac.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Candidate-Bios-for-the-WEAC-RA.pdf.
4. “National Education Association of the United States, Full Filing.” Nonprofit Explorer, July 13, 2020. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/530115260/202011959349302036/full.
5. Preciado, Abril. “South Milwaukee Teacher Earns National Hall of Fame Induction.” FOX6 News Milwaukee | Wisconsin & Local Milwaukee News WITI, March 21, 2024. https://www.fox6now.com/news/south-milwaukee-teacher-national-hall-fame.
6. “Staff Directory.” South Milwaukee High School. Accessed April 29, 2024. https://hs.sdsm.k12.wi.us/about/staff-directory?utf8=%E2%9C%93&const_search_group_ids=227%2C197%2C196&const_search_role_ids=1&const_search_keyword=krajacic.
7. “About Us.” National Teachers Hall of Fame. Accessed April 29, 2024. https://www.nthf.org/about-us.html.
8. “Shelly Moore Krajacic, NBCT.” Mira Education. Accessed April 29, 2024. https://miraeducation.org/about/leadership/shelly-moore-krajacic/.
9. “Great Teaching & Learning.” National Education Association, August 11, 2023. https://www.nea.org/resource-library/great-teaching-learning.
10. Flick, Brian, Tracy Philips, and Dawn Miller. “NEA Executive Committee Readies for November.” Nevada State Education Association, October 2019. https://www.nsea-nv.org/sites/nsea/files/2020-12/NSEA%202020%20DA%20NEA%20Director%20Report.pdf.
11. “Board of Directors.” National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, April 25, 2024. https://www.nbpts.org/about/board/.
12. Cherkasky-Davis, Lynne. “Want to Take the Journey to National Board Certification?” Chicago Teachers Union, November 10, 2020. https://www.ctulocal1.org/chicago-union-teacher/2020/11/journey-national-board-certification/.
13. Quirk, Kathy. “UWM Grad Student Chosen for National Teachers Hall of Fame.” UWM REPORT, April 18, 2024. https://uwm.edu/news/uwm-grad-student-chosen-for-national-teachers-hall-of-fame/.
14. Bano, Sheher. “For a Better World.” The News International, July 2020. https://www.thenews.com.pk/magazine/you/684827-for-a-better-world.
15. “Reports Of Committees 2020–2021.” National Education Association, May 1, 2021. https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/NEA-Minority-Affairs-2020-21-Jaco-Levi-Alberto-Nodal-Castro-Valley.pdf.