Sample letter to Congress

[George Sheridan <learn@jps.net>]

 Members of Congress tend to give more weight to letters that are mailed or Faxed
to them than they do to email. However, some have very sophisticated systems for
counting email received on key issues. California's U.S. Senators, Diane
Feinstein < http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/ > and Barbara Boxer <
http://boxer.senate.gov/ >, require that you send email through their web sites.
http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.Emailme

http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/policy.cfm

Erase, Rewrite and Reauthorize!
Sample letter to Congress member

The Honorable ___________


Dear ________:                                            

As you prepare to consider the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA), or No Child Left Behind (NCLB), as it was renamed by
President Bush, I ask that you erase the punitive and onerous provisions of the
law and support changes to help our schools and improve student learning. 

I am a constituent and a teacher in your district.  I teach ____ grade at
_________ School. Our school has many success stories, yet you would not know
that under the current ESEA/NCLB law.  (Share your personal experiences about how
NCLB has affected you and your students.)

No Child Left Behind bases student achievement solely on the scores of
standardized tests taken on a single day.  This one-day snapshot is an unfair,
inaccurate and misleading measure of student achievement. The law must be
rewritten to include multiple measures of student learning and school success
such as attendance rates, graduation rates, a rigorous curriculum, and the number
of students participating in honors or advanced placement courses. 

The time spent on testing and preparing students for tests makes it difficult to
focus on other important programs like art, music, foreign languages and physical
education.  It also limits the depth and breath of instruction we can give to
students during class time.

We all know that every child learns differently.  So why does NCLB force every
child into a one-size-fits-all approach that requires all students to learn in
the same way, at the same rate, while pushing struggling students even further
behind?  Erase the one-size-fits-all approach and rewrite the law to recognize
the individual needs of students and schools.  Rewrite NCLB to allow states to
implement growth models that measure changes in student performance and give
schools credit for making progress over time.

You?re probably aware that the current law has never been fully funded and
shortfalls now exceed $55 billion.  It?s wrong for Congress to make demands of
our schools without providing the funding to meet those demands.

Instead of punishing schools, we need assistance and resources to help all
students and schools succeed.  We need Congress to restore and enhance the
federal class size reduction programs, particularly in our schools that need help
the most. We need resources so we can offer financial incentives to attract and
retain teachers in hard-to-staff schools.  We also need resources to help
increase parental and family involvement. These are the proven reforms that will
help improve student learning.

Please erase, rewrite and reauthorize ESEA/NCLB so it can do what it was intended
to do: help improve learning for all students.

Sincerely,

*

At http://boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/index.cfm you will also find addresses
for all of the Senator's district offices. It's good to stop in to register your
concerns in person. You might even arrange to take some like-minded friends.

George Sheridan