Posted on 07/03/2006 7:07:30 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist
(AP) ORLANDO, Fla. -- An overwhelming majority of delegates from the nation's largest education union approved a plan Monday to aggressively lobby Congress for reform of the No Child Left Behind Act.
The National Education Association has fought to change the measure since its beginnings in 2001, but this is the union's most organized effort to date, said Joel Packer, the NEA's policy manager on the act.
"We're moving from just being critics to saying this is our own vision," Packer said. "It is very powerful because it's the voices of classroom teachers."
In an hourlong discussion, only three of the 9,000 members of the union's Representative Assembly argued against the lobbying effort. They said the law was too flawed to fix and wanted the union to focus on repealing it.
A significant number of delegates shouted "No" during the vote, but not enough to swing the outcome.
Union leaders say the basic intentions of No Child Left Behind — quality schools and skilled teachers — are good. But the government's "obsessive" focus on testing student skills and punishing failing schools undermines education, said Becky Pringle, a member of the NEA Executive Committee that drafted the new policy.
The plan approved Monday calls for increases in the $23.5 billion budget currently authorized by Congress and a decrease in the number of students in each classroom. The union also is calling for a national minimum wage of $40,000 a year for teachers.
The NEA will push the government to move away from testing as the sole benchmark for success or failure. The teachers favor a series of benchmarks that reflect students' differing demographics and abilities.
NEA President Reg Weaver said the union is securing support from lawmakers and other education organizations.
"The substance of our changes, everybody knows they are good," Weaver said. "We have all kinds of organizations that want this law changed. It's just a matter of the political climate. It's good. We're on the road to success."
The No Child Left Behind Act, passed by Congress in 2001, was championed by President Bush as a way to hold schools accountable. It is up for reauthorization in 2007, but Weaver said he expects debate on reform will come after the 2008 presidential election.
The law requires schools to test students in math and reading and report their scores by group, such as race, disability, English language ability or economic situation. If one group of students fails, an entire school can face penalties.
"It expects every child to progress at the same level and they don't. One size doesn't fit all," said Marilyn Petersen, a Houston-area delegate who has taught special education for 55 years. "We're putting politics in the classroom."
The law initially enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress, but financial support has declined as the war in Iraq and other priorities have made increasing demands on the federal budget. About $1 billion was trimmed from the program's budget this year, and the NEA expects $500 million more will be cut in 2007.
Packer said Monday's vote reflects a recent NEA member attitude survey of 1,000 NEA members, which found a majority dislikes the No Child Left Behind Act but would rather modify it than repeal it.
About 30 percent of NEA members approve of the law, the survey found.
I wonder if that "vision" involves fewer students per classroom,more pay,shorter school years,no standardized testing,universal kindergarten....
these vermin wouldnt stand a chance if competition were introduced to our school system. School vouchers are needed badly. THE NEA and its teachers unions are failing our kids miserably.
I know No Child Left Behind isn't very popular around here, but does anyone have a link to a recent story about the actual expenditures--how the money has been spent--and the various successes or failures of the Act as it's implemented? I'd appreciate any help, as just recently a teacher was bashing it purely from a political point of view and had no factual argument against it.
Finally one of these bimbos admits that the NEA has turned the public schools in to political indoctrination centers.
The NEA's goal is No Teacher Left Behind. They must not want the kids movin' in on their territory.
>>The plan approved Monday calls for increases in the $23.5 billion budget currently authorized by Congress and a decrease in the number of students in each classroom. The union also is calling for a national minimum wage of $40,000 a year for teachers.<<
It would almost be worth it if we could also bar all NEA members from teaching in public schools.
Yeah, and the union arguments seem to justify racial and other discrimination. They don't say so explicitly, but they mean, "we cannot expect black and brown schoolchildren to learn like white schoolchildren; we must hold them to a lower standard!" As the President would say, that attitude defines "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
Fox. Hen house
Vouchers NOW.
As long as the union runs the schools, they will never be any good.
Home school, church school, private school, VOUCHERS - and the FAIR TAX.
FAIR TAX would put enough extra money in parents pockets to pay for alternative schooling
The bottom line in No Child Left Behind is accountabilty.
Behind the "federal mandate" for testing is the idea that schools should teach reading and math or else.
The National Education Association obviously wants other nonsense in the classroom and resents being forced to teach kids how to read, write and do math.
Principals and teachers (both of whom are NEA members) face loss of jobs and reassignment for failure to meet NCLB standards.
Labor unions are all about protecting jobs so its no wonder that No Child Left Behind is in the NEA crosshairs.
I know federal control is not a good idea, but the power of the National Education Association can not be minimized.
The federal government took on Al Capone when local authorities failed and they certainly did the same with the Ku Klux Klan.
The National Education Association deserves no less than the federal power of No Child Left Behind to combat its agenda that runs roughshod over local school boards all over the country.
P.S. I will honor the National Education Association meeting this year with a look back at 1938's convention when
No Child Left Behind wasn't the enemy, but the American Legion was. Posting later.
Is their agenda to get more money for teaching fewer teachers but still test the kids?
Children belong with their Moms. The animal kingdom knows it. Humans did, before Karl Marx.
Not too long ago, home schoolers were considered kooks. But, they've made so much progress that, someday, there may be hope!
The first part is not unreasonable, but what is tested is too narrow. But we know what they are getting at in that last statement. They want everyone to be promoted, even those who are illiterate.
Sounds like the usual union demands on management; less work for more pay. Increase the budget, cut my workload, raise my pay and hire more union members.
And if you do it, next year it will be the same demands.
What have you done for me lately.
While it's clear that a voucher program is a wrong answer to the issues in education, the looming debate and lobbying efforts should produce some interesting public discussions. These contrasting arguments will likely be heated and loaded with exaggeration and hyperbole but interesting nonetheless.
That agenda is promoted by NEA, but it is not theirs alone. It is that of the educational establishment, which includes the school board and administrative associations as well as the faculties of the education colleges.
Ummmmmm....and just how would we arrive at these benchmarks?
Get rid of the Unconstitutional NEA and both problems are solved. I just cant believe that we have allowed an organization to evolve that by mandate has the ability to indoctrinate on a National level.
Surprise, surprise, the teachers union wants a raise.
Well said
Voucher programs are exactly what the doctor ordered. Public schools need to be forced to compete. That's the only way they will improve. Plus vouchers give parents choices in their children's education.
Union scum -- all of them.
My point is that union leaders are only some of the leaders. Administrators run the schools and work hand in glove with union leaders. School boards, for the most part, support the agenda. Education collages serve to indoctrine teachers in the regnant ideology. I should also throw in the federal and state education agncies, which are dominated by bureaucrats with the same mindset.
We are in basic agreement. My point is that many (if not most) administrators were union teachers earlier in their careers. And retired union teachers appear on school boards all too freqently.
Teaching is not a career; administration is. Union contracts are beneficial to the poor/ mediocre teacher, to be sure, but more so to professional administrators because their salaries piggy-back on the teacher salary schedule. The general rule is that the lowest level administrator will be paid more than the highest paid teacher. After that the usual rules of bureaucracy apply, except that no other government bureaucrat I know makes as much as the head of a large urban school district. Hinojosa, the head of DISD make twice as much as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So we must assume that in the eyes of the national elite, a school superintendent is more like a CEO of a small company or the head of the Red Cross. This pay structure, of course, works to the benefit of union leaders. The union feels that in order for their leaders to look the school heads in the eye as equals they should have commensurate incomes. So there are dozens of NEA officials who get more than $200,000 a year. Teaching is not a career, but administratrion is, and so is working for the union.
What the Teacher's Unions FEAR is being SCRUTINIZED for QUALITY!!!
We ALL know what The Teacher's Unions do POORLY;I wonder if they could do a better job hanging doors on Chevrolets?
Ha! More like Stepford Teachers.
This is one of the more objectionable provisions. A school is penalized if too many minority students are not at "proficient" level. The school is not rewarded if a lot of students are achieving at the limits of their ability. Guess how resources will be allocated
And guess what happens to white kids if there is too much of a gap between white and minority scores?
Where's my cigar?
Imagine that?"Politics"in"The Classroom"??That reminds me of Inspector Reynaud(Claude Rains)in"CasaBlanca"!"I'm Shocked To Find That There's Gambling HERE"!!!
The problem I have with NCLB and the voucher movement is this:
While some public schools do need serious reform, private and charter schools are not always an improvement, and NCLB does not remedy that issue....
In the area where I live, there are scores of private schools. Yet only a small handful, actually about 5-10, are actually any good. The rest actually post lower test scores than the public schools. NCLB and vouchers do nothing to hold those schools accountable. I don't want my tax dollars going to take a child out of a failing school and put him in a school that is even worse. Of all the dozens of charter schools, this is the case in all but 2 cases (more on these later).
Now, the problem is that the good private schools all have entrance exams. Yes, they appear to be very good. However, they can also pick and choose their students. Say that the average family income of these schools is $75k and the average SAT score is 1300. Now, the public district I live in has a wide demographic, and 40% of the students live in poverty. However, it also offers more AP courses than the private schools and even throws in an IB program (which is far better and more rigorous than the AP program - only 4 schools in the state, public or private, offer this). However, the average SAT score is down closer to 900. Students who reside in the district 3 or more years score dramatically higher than transient students, who make up a high % of the student population.
Not only that, but the district has not asked for a tax increase in 7 years, and has announced they will not seek one for another at least. And this in a state where taxes are automatically rolled back such that property reassessments bring in $0 of extra funding. The ONLY way to get additional property tax funding is through tax increases. All inflation does is actually bring in the rollbacks that reduce the millage you pay (voters have approved 72.54 mills, but the rollbacks take this down to 38.26 mills).
Now, here is the kicker: According to the law in NCLB, the public school district is borderline failing. So despite the fact that they serve a large at-risk population, and by all evidence do it very well (remember the transient population scores), they could be subject to NCLB penalties. That means that students could be taken out of the school and put into the expensive private school which actually offers less and has 0 accountability, just because some bureaucrats in DC decided that they knew better than people who lived in the area (and ironically, one of the leaders behind NCLB was our rep).
And here's another kicker - when it comes to many of these schools, the students actually do worse after the move. I'm not arguing that public schools are always the best, but there needs to be accountability in the private and charter schools, too, if they are to receive my tax $$$.
Back to the charters - there are two spectacular inner-city charter schools in the area - not surprisingly, though, both run year round and 12+ hours per day. Why do they work so well? The students are kept off the streets and away from their parents and family, who in the cases of these two schools, are often very negative influences.
Of course, those teachers are also paid much better than the ~$28k starting salary of the public schools or the $22k at the private schools.....
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