NEA Plan for Rewriting NCLB Departs From Obama's

Check out the NEA's ESEA reauthorization proposal.

-Patricia

By Stephen Sawchuk | Ed Week
April 14, 2010

The National Education Association has put forward its most detailed recommendations to date for the overhaul of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in what a union official calls a new approach for the federal law.

“We think there is a real opportunity for policymakers to change the framework of what’s in the statute,” said Donna Harris-Aikens, the director of education policy and practice for the 3.2 million-member union. “I don’t think there was an appetite for doing that during the last time around. It probably doesn’t mean every single word [in ESEA] is going to change, but we’re using this as a way to start a discussion.”

The union’s close engagement in the law—even as the legislative window for moving a bill this year begins to close—stands in contrast to the rewrite that resulted in the current version of the ESEA, the No Child Left Behind Act, which became law in 2002. Teachers’ unions were widely considered to have been left out of that reauthorization. ("Unions' Positions Unheeded On ESEA," Nov. 6, 2002.)