California Teachers Say "No" to NCLB Reauthorization

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

FED UP CALIFORNIA TEACHERS ANNOUNCE STATEWIDE EFFORT TELLING CONGRESS TO 
VOTE NO ON PROPOSAL BY REP. MILLER AND HOUSE SPEAKER PELOSI TO 
REAUTHORIZE FEDERAL "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" ACT;

NCLB IS HURTING STUDENTS, TEACHERS AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS -- REAUTHORIZATION 
PROPOSAL MAKES LAW WORSE

California Teachers Association news release -- September 10, 2007

Burlingham Moving to stop more federal attacks on our students, 
educators and public schools, the 340,000-member California Teachers 
Association today kicked off a statewide campaign calling on Congress to 
vote no on the proposal by California Rep. George Miller and Speaker 
Nancy Pelosi to reauthorize the failed “No Child Left Behind Act.”

Flanked by the CTA Board of Directors at a news conference, CTA 
President David A. Sanchez warned that House Speaker Pelosi of San 
Francisco and Rep. Miller, D-Martinez, who co-authored NCLB with Senator 
Edward Kennedy, have failed to make any substantive improvements.

California’s teachers “have had enough of the so-called No Child Left 
Behind Act,” Sanchez said. “It is hurting our students, our schools and 
our teachers. Unfortunately, the Miller/Pelosi reauthorization plan 
would only make the law worse. It does nothing to improve student 
learning and would place even more undue emphasis on test scores, create 
new sanctions for struggling schools, make it harder to attract and 
retain teachers, undermine local control, and erode employee rights.”

Sanchez said the proposal that mandates merit pay for teachers based on 
the test scores of students is insulting. “Test scores alone don’t 
measure student achievement and shouldn’t be the only method for paying 
or evaluating teachers.”

Instead of backing changes that punish students, teachers and schools, 
Pelosi and Miller should be supporting the proven reforms that teachers 
and parents know will help. CTA is advocating for a law that restores 
the federal class size reduction program, provides resources for quality 
teacher training, mentors for new teachers, and provides programs that 
promote parental and family involvement in our schools.

Sanchez also called on Congress not to repeat the mistakes of the past. 
“Congress should not rush through this process, as the future of our 
public schools depends on this law.”

Miller and Pelosi have placed the reauthorization on a fast track. Draft 
language was released just before midnight last Thursday, with the first 
congressional hearing called today. California’s teachers are in 
Washington D.C. for the hearing. A vote on the proposed legislation 
could come as early as next month.

No Child Left Behind is the misleading name given to the 2002 
reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 
which was approved by Congress in 1965 to help the nation’s most 
struggling schools with federal funding and is renewed every five years. 
In addition to its unfair sanctions, NCLB has been massively underfunded 
by President Bush and Congress – by $56 billion nationwide, and more 
than $7 billion in California.

A 2006 study by the Harvard Civil Rights Project found that the law has 
not helped narrow the student achievement gap and has shortchanged 
schools that serve mostly disadvantaged, minority students with its 
overemphasis on sanctions rather than assistance, said Mignon Jackson, a 
teacher at Paul Revere Middle School in the Los Angeles Unified School 
District.

“Students at risk deserve better,” Jackson said. “If we’re going to 
close the achievement gap, we need to give our schools support, not 
sanctions.”

With its one-size-fits-all approach to learning, NCLB attempts to 
standardize students by relying too much on teaching to standardized 
tests at the expense of important subjects like art, music, foreign 
language and physical education, warned Eric Heins, a Bay Area teacher 
in the Pittsburg Unified School District.

“The overemphasis that this law puts on testing our students and the 
time required preparing them for tests takes valuable time away from 
what teachers really need and want to do to help students learn and 
think,” Heins said.

“Teachers at my school and in districts around the state work together 
and support one another,” said Bonnie Shatun, a teacher in the Burbank 
Unified School District. “All of this benefits students. This proposal 
would destroy that.”

In coming weeks, CTA members will be contacting every member of the 
California congressional delegation and urging a no vote on the current 
proposals. The statewide effort will also include grassroots mobilizing 
and a public awareness campaign. For more information visit the CTA 
website at www.cta.org.

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The 340,000-member CTA is affiliated with the 3.2 million-member 
National Education Association.