Joel and Monty Neill Look Ahead

Today, we have a guest with us, Monty Neill, Deputy Director of FairTest. So, welcome Monty.

Listen to the podcast and send your questions to Joel@nea.org.

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Hi, I’m Joel Packer. Welcome to another podcast. Today, we have a guest with us, Monty Neill, Deputy Director of FairTest. So, welcome Monty.

MONTY NEILL: Thank you.

PACKER: So first tell us a little bit about FairTest and what you do there.

NEILL: Well, I’m the Deputy Director. I work mostly on testing in the public schools. FairTest is an advocacy organization for testing reform. We’re nearly a quarter century old. And we work on issues such as No Child Left Behind and the federal role. We work in states sometimes with NEA affiliates, but other organizations, grassroots groups and others. And we focus there on the state testing programs, high stakes tests for kids and so on. And we also work on college admissions testing. We think that colleges should not mandate that students produce test scores as part of admissions, but make it an option. And we maintain a list of 750 plus colleges which make test scores optional for some or all of their applicants. So we’re an advocacy group. We work with the media. We build alliances with other organizations. We put out policy reports and sometimes do some research.

PACKER: Great. Sounds pretty comprehensive. So in addition to serving as Deputy Director of FairTest, you also Chair the Forum on Educational Accountability or FEA. So, what is that? And what is that coalition doing about No Child Left Behind?

NEILL: FairTest initiated that alliance. Because after NCLB was signed, we believed that unless education groups, civil rights groups, and others got together and defined a better role for the federal government, we would be stuck with NCLB indefinitely. I know it feels indefinite, but it hasn’t really been that yet. And it’s up for reauthorization now. We first put out a statement called the Joint Organizational Statement on No Child Left Behind, signed by a few dozen groups, education and civil rights, that called for major changes in the federal law in the areas of assessment and accountability and support for schools. When we completed that, we realized, well, we have a very good two-page statement. But Congress in the end will write a law. And they’ve got to go from principles all the way to the details of the law. So our next step of the ongoing group, the core group, was to do some reports, one of which is called “Redefining Accountability”. We wrote it ourselves. And we said that in that report, the key areas we’re looking at as we define accountability is that schools and systems should be held accountable for taking reasonable steps to improve schools, such as better professional learning opportunities that are largely under the control of the educators in the school and the system.

Better collaboration with parents and helping parents who have trouble working with their kids at home. Various other steps to actually improve schools. Then schools also ought to be accountable for high quality learning outcomes. But standardized tests are not good measures of high quality learning outcomes. And when you only focus on two subjects, you undermine everything else in the curriculum and the overall quality of schooling. So we said there should be accountability for learning outcomes using a variety of kinds of measures. And then instead of punishment, which NCLB does, where schools need help, you give them help. And so the evidence would be used for help. Since then more recently, we’ve been talking about expanding that a little bit in some areas around some of the funding aspects and the use of resources. And we’ve also done a lot of political work of member organizations taking FEA ideas to Congress, to the legislators and their staff, and to the public, in order to inform people about the kinds of changes we want to make. One other thing. The alliance now also includes a range of religious organizations, twenty or so. There’s disability organizations, other labor organizations, civic groups, parent groups like the PTA. One hundred and forty-four organizations have now signed the original Joint Statement.

PACKER: That’s a pretty impressive list of organizations. And what’s interesting about that is, as you know, there’s been a lot of news stories that at least imply that civil rights groups are on one side of No Child Left Behind and teachers unions are on the other side. And with all the civil rights groups that have signed onto the joint statement, what do you see as the real story about that?

NEILL: Well, part of it was there were some folks with a civil rights history who defend NCLB, who wanted to try to claim that all the [education] groups simply support NCLB -- all the civil rights groups support NCLB. And again, twenty some civil rights groups, NAACP, LULAC, Children’s Defense Fund, very prominent as well as smaller civil rights groups, have signed a joint statement, and signed other statements supporting some of the key ideas in it since then in public. And they want significant changes to the law. They want a strong federal role. And they want accountability. But these are things that FEA also supports. It’s how you do it so that it helps improve the quality of education. So we think that in fact many civil rights groups continue to agree with our positions. In fact, if you look at, for example, the National Urban League, their own positions on NCLB, they talk about overhauling the testing and accountability program, because they don’t view it as helpful. So there is continuing support on many of our, if not all of our, key issues from the majority of the civil rights groups. There are some tensions. And these tensions have been exploited. And there’s certain misinformation. I mean, for example, a claim that somehow we want to end NCLB. Well, it’s true. There are parts of NCLB we want to end because they’re harmful. We, on the other side, think there should be accountability. There needs to be assessment. There needs to be help for schools. There should be a federal role in that. And so we think that there is in fact a useful role for the federal government that civil rights groups want and that FEA supports. And as far as we know, the NEA also supports.

PACKER: So , what’s wrong with looking at test scores?

NEILL: Test scores are part of the mix. The problem with the standardized tests is they don’t measure very much. Not only in NCLB’s case, only reading and math, but within those fields, or standardized tests in history and science. They only measure a limited slice of what kids ought to know and be able to do. They over-emphasize rote learning, memorization and repeating back memorized stuff or routine procedures and downplay everything else. All the kinds of higher order skills that students actually need if they’re going to be successful in jobs, in college and as citizens. And so the tests don’t measure that much. So when the scores come out, they misinform the public. Because you say, oh, the math scores are this. But they don’t tell you a lot about the math that kids actually should know. Then when high stakes are attached to those test scores, the pressure is on for the people in the school, the principals and teachers and everyone else, to focus on what’s tested -- because the teachers’ jobs are at stake. The kids’ futures are at stake. The school’s at stake if you don’t focus on the test. So that means that the curriculum gets narrowed to what’s on the test. But the test isn’t testing much of what’s important. So kids don’t end up getting taught. So, of course, they don’t learn it. But it also undermines the quality of the social relations in the school. It undermines a sense of community. It hinders student engagement in their own learning. All these things that good teachers know are real important for learning, they’re not only not supported, they’re hurt by the over emphasis on standardized tests. Now, we’re not saying no standardized tests. They can produce some useful information. They’re cheap. In fact, that’s the problem. They’re cheap. You get what you pay for. So if you want high quality, you don’t spend cheap. You’ve got to find ... we have to find better ways to assess.

PACKER: You’re not talking about letting schools off the hook. I mean, a lot of the, again, criticisms about NEA and others is, “oh, you just don’t want to hold schools accountable. You don’t really care about improving student learning.” So, how would you respond to those kinds of criticisms?

NEILL: That is an unknowing or deliberate misrepresentation of our position. Our position, certainly as FairTest, and I believe in large part as FEA ... and some of this is beyond what FEA covers. But at FairTest, a lot of our work has been to improve the quality of teaching and learning precisely because we believed it wasn’t good enough.

I mean, for example, teachers don’t get taught how to do assessment well when they go to college. Unless they happen to be in a fairly unusual situation in school, they don’t get that professional development well. So a repertoire of helping kids through assessment develop high order skills is often not very available to teachers. We think that should be improved. We think even before NCLB, too much emphasis on rote learning was hindering the quality of schooling in too many of our schools. Certainly not all of them. And in every school, there’s usually some teachers that do that well and others not well. So we were into education improvement and reform. The problem is that if you define the outcome simply as standardized test scores and then put the pressure onto boost the test scores, you don’t end up producing high quality learning outcomes that need to be there.

So we in fact argue that we’re the ones calling for real genuine improvement in the quality of education, in teaching and learning and expectations. And the other side, out of ignorance or out of limited expectations for poor kids, acts as though all that we need to give them is what they can do to pass a mostly multiple choice standardized test in two subjects. And it won’t cut it.

Now, one other thing. The other part of this that makes it very complex is that this country has failed to adequately fund education for many of its children. Those are typically the same children who don’t get good health care, who live in crisis-ridden communities, who often may not eat enough, who move from school-to-school and home-to-home too often. And this country has a far too large percentage of such people. Unlike countries that do well in say international competitions, like Finland which takes care of its children far better than the United States does. What this country has then done is somehow expect teachers in underfunded schools to make up for everything the rest of society won’t do. So we have to do a complicated dance or balance between expecting schools to get better, helping them to get better, without expecting schools and the teachers to overcome all the effects of poverty. That’s a difficult dance. And people who want a black or white, yes or no, simplistic answer inevitably then say, well, you don’t get it. Or you’re ducking and dodging. We’re not ducking and dodging. We’re very clear we want to improve schools. We’re also clear that you can’t expect schools to do everything that society won’t help them do.

PACKER: So since Congress was supposed to have rewritten the law this year and didn't, what do you see happening, as they call in Congress the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind or the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, in the next Congress? Recognizing it’s going to be somewhat dependent on who the next President of the United States is.

NEILL: It’s going to be very dependent. There are political divisions over this law in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. And so it’s a very complicated political situation. I think Congress in the last decade or so has been particularly interested in accountability and not understood how accountability could hurt rather than help education. I think some of them are beginning to understand that and pay more attention to actual education issues now. George Miller, the head of the House Education Committee, the Democratic leader, has basically said that NCLB is something like the most despised brand in the United States. So he says it’s definitely going to get renamed. They rename this law every time they reauthorize it. The question is what’s going to be in it.

And I think there’s fairly certain that there will be the opportunity for states to do much better assessments. There will be financial support for that. The opportunities for teacher professional learning will be strengthened and improved compared to the current law. There will be some form of sanctions I fear will continue. My hope is that they will be put in their proper place, which is schools that are given an opportunity and assistance to improve and still don’t, something stronger should happen. But before that, you provide assistance. And we have a law that doesn’t really do that. I think there’s some recognition that that needs to change. On the other hand, there are some people in Congress who have a simply highly punitive approach and just want to beat up on teachers, poor kids, unions, whoever it may be. And it’s going to be very complicated politics. Frankly, neither candidate for the presidency has been all that clear on these issues. Obama somewhat more so. But neither of them have been real clear.

So I think it’s very up in the air precisely what they would want to do. Which means the future is pretty murky. But what that means is that it’s even more important for people at the grassroots level -- for teachers, for parents, for school board members, administrators, religious folk, on and on -- to get involved, to let their Congress people know that this law must change. Not that you need to provide the details. But send them to, of course, the NEA. But send them to the FEA materials, to FairTest materials, to other positive sources. So say, look at what these folks are saying, and put in a law that meets their requirements. But if local folks don’t act on this, if local folks are not visible through as many means as you can, the result will be we won’t win what we really need to win or as much as we need to win.

PACKER: I’m going to ask you just one last question then, . Since you mentioned people should contact FairTest. So if people want to get more information about FairTest or about FEA, the Forum on Education Accountability, what are the web addresses so people can ...
NEILL: Yeah, the best source is definitely our websites. FairTest is simple. www.fairtest.org. And if you put in FairTest in Google, we usually come up number one. Less well known, but not too complicated, the Forum on Educational Accountability is www.edaccountability.org. You can also do it from FairTest.

PACKER: All one word.

NEILL: All one word. And you can link to that from FairTest. Most of the FEA material is in fact also on the FairTest website. Just kind of easier to find. Because all this other stuff about state testing and college admissions and so on is also on the FairTest website. Whereas, Ed Accountability focuses simply on the FEA materials on NCLB.
PACKER: Well, again, I want to thank for joining us today. We don’t have time to talk about all the other issues that mentioned, state high school exit exams. But there’s a lot of information, as he said, on their website. So thanks for being with us. And again, I’m Joel Packer. And thanks for listening.

ESEA Won't Pass But HEA Provides Some Help

When Congress returns from its summer recess on September 8, the session will probably last three weeks. It is now obvious for all that Congress will not reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), of which NCLB is the latest version.

Listen to the podcast and send your questions to Joel@nea.org.

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Hi. I’m Joel Packer. Welcome to another podcast.

When Congress returns from its summer recess on September 8, the session will probably last three weeks. It is now obvious for all that Congress will not reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), of which NCLB is the latest version.

However, the recently enacted Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA), the higher education reauthorization bill, contains several important K-12 programs and policies. By the way, the bill is only five years late in being completed, so maybe we should think of Nov. 4 as the date of its AYP restructuring!

Here’s a brief rundown of these K-12 programs that are now the law of the land. A more detailed summary is available from the Council for Exceptional Children (http://www.cec.sped.org/).

Before we get too excited, as with NCLB, these programs are simply authorized – meaning that they are only words in the United States Code. To make them real they will require funding.

For instance, the HEOA completely rewrites and improves the teacher quality program in current law, renaming it the Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant Program. Targeted on improving the quality of K-12 teachers, it authorizes $300 million per year for grants to carry out undergraduate teacher preparation programs and/or teaching residency programs for master’s level study. Funds may also be used to carry out a school leadership development program.

While the new teacher quality grant program in the higher ed act is authorized at $300 million, the pending House and Senate Fiscal Year 2009 education appropriations bills provide respectively only $34 million and $48 million.

Clearly those of us in the advocacy community for public education once again have our work cut out for us.

At any rate, in the area of teacher preparation, grants would support pre-service clinical experience and interaction; induction programs for new teachers; support and training for early childhood educators; teacher recruitment; and training to strengthen the literacy teaching skills of prospective and new teachers.

The other use is to support teaching residency program to prepare Master’s level teachers for success in high-need schools. Grants would enable prospective teachers to work alongside mentor teachers, earn a master's degree, State teacher certification or licensure, and fulfill eligibility requirements to be considered a NCLB- highly qualified teacher. This program is based on legislation introduced by Sen. Obama and Rep. Emanuel – both from Illinois.

While grantees must use their funds to conduct one or both of the above programs, they may also use their funds for the preparation of students for careers as superintendents, principals, early childhood education program directors or other school leaders so that they have strong administrative skills to support student achievement, improve the school environment and effectively manage schools.

Other teacher quality programs in the new higher education bill would:

· Improve the knowledge and skills of prospective teachers so that they can use technology effectively in classrooms to enhance and assess learning.

· Fund centers of excellence at minority-serving institutions of higher education to prepare teachers and to ensure that current and future teachers are highly qualified.

· Create a new Teach to Reach program that provides grants to improve the preparation of general education teacher candidates to ensure that they possess the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively instruct students with disabilities in their classrooms.

· Create a new grant program for states to improve the quality of their early childhood education workforce.

In addition to these teacher quality programs, HEOA also hopes to increase the number of educators by providing college loan forgiveness for speech-language pathologists, school counselors, physical therapists and occupational therapists who provide services to children, early childhood educators, highly qualified teachers serving students who are limited English proficient, and superintendents, principals, and other administrators.

The law also has two new provisions to increase high school graduation and college attendance rates.

It authorizes a grant to Project GRAD to provide “integrated education reform services” to improve high school graduation rates and postsecondary attendance and completion rates.
Another new grant program, called Improving College Enrollment by Secondary Schools requires the Secretary to contract with a non-profit organization to conduct a needs assessment and provide comprehensive services to urban school districts and rural states in order to improve college-going rates of participating schools.

I’m Joel Packer. Thanks for listening.

Reaching New Heights of Failure

In event after event at the 2008 Olympics, records were shattered while millions of people watched athletes going faster, higher and better than most of us can imagine. Well, a lot of other records in the U.S. have also been shattered lately, but not ones to cheer about. And we should be worried about who’s paying attention to these new records.

Listen to the podcast and send your questions to Joel@nea.org.

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Hi. I’m Joel Packer. Welcome to another podcast.

The 2008 Olympics have ended and what a show. In event after event, records were shattered, including records for audience. Tens of millions of people watched and shared the experience of athletes going faster, higher and better than most of us can imagine.

Well, a lot of other records in the U.S. have also been shattered lately, but not ones to cheer about. And we should be worried about who’s paying attention to these new records.

I’m referring to the number of schools failing to meet the No Child Left Behind law’s so-called Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) mandates. AYP is the out-of-bounds line under the relentless teach and learn-to-the-test game imposed on public education by NCLB. Step outside the line by stumbling on a single high-stakes test and schools are subject to punishment. Actually there are 37 or more out-of-bounds lines set by NCLB.

As states have announced their test results throughout the summer, record numbers of schools are being judged as failing. Here are some examples:

• Georgia: the percentage of schools failing AYP increased from 17.8 percent to 31.2 percent, with only 47.8 percent of high schools making AYP.


• Minnesota: the percentage of schools not making AYP rose from 38 percent to 49 percent.


• Missouri: Only one-fourth of all school districts and about 40 percent of school buildings met AYP this year.


• New Hampshire: the number of schools “in improvement” (for failing AYP at least two years in a row) increased from 133 to 183.


• New Mexico : the percentage of schools failing AYP jumped from 58.5 percent to 68.2 percent while the number of schools in restructuring doubled from 84 to 170.


• Oregon: the percentage of schools not making AYP increased from 21 percent last year to 35.1 percent this year. Statewide, only 35.8 percent of high schools made AYP.


• Wisconsin : the number of schools failing AYP jumped from 87 to 156.

With the Democratic convention starting this week, followed shortly by the Republican convention, educators throughout the country will be carefully listening to what the candidates and other elected officials have to say about NCLB and its flawed test, label, and punish one-size-fits-all scheme.

The public agrees that NCLB needs a fundamental overhaul. Just last week, a PDK/Gallup poll found that only 16 percent of the public want the law extended without change, compared to 42 percent who want significant changes and 25 percent who want it to expire. That’s 67 percent of Americans opposed to the current law. That’s an audience that can make a difference in November.

I’m Joel Packer. Thanks for listening!

What is Stale & Moldy But Still on the Shelf? (But Cures Insomnia When Consumed as a Podcast)

As everyone knows, most things we buy these days have an expiration date – milk, bread, aspirin, even batteries. The purpose of this is to protect us from old products that might be dangerous to our health and safety and to ensure that what we buy is fresh, not stale.What about an expiration date for a stale product that affects our schools and students – the No Child Left Behind Act? Most folks think NCLB has an expiration date, just like milk and bread. Well, even though NCLB has already soured educational experiences around the country, unlike milk it doesn’t really expire.

Listen to the podcast and send your questions to Joel@nea.org.

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Hi. This is Joel Packer. Welcome to the podcast.

As everyone knows, most things we buy these days have an expiration date – milk, bread, aspirin, even batteries. The purpose of this is to protect us from old products that might be dangerous to our health and safety and to ensure that what we buy is fresh, not stale.
What about an expiration date for a stale product that affects our schools and students – the No Child Left Behind Act? Most folks think NCLB has an expiration date, just like milk and bread. Well, even though NCLB has already soured educational experiences around the country, unlike milk it doesn’t really expire.

NCLB amended the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965. ESEA’s provisions, as amended by NCLB, are now permanent law as codified in the United States Code – I’m sure you’ve read it – Title 20, Chapter 70, Section 6301 onward. There is no sunset or expiration date for the entire ESEA or for the NCLB changes to it.

What does expire is the authorization for Congress to appropriate money for the various programs in the law, such as Title I. In general, NCLB authorized funding for each program from Fiscal Year 2002 through Fiscal Year 2007 (which ended on September 30, 2007).

Thus, the provisions of the law remain on the books, including all of the general provisions not based on funding. All the mandates. All the requirements. All the testing. All the AYP sanctions. Congress does not have to pass any short term extension, as it must do when so-called mandatory spending programs or tax provisions expire.

In addition, a provision in the General Education Provisions Act (GEPA) provides for a one-year extension of the authorization of appropriations for all programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education. Thus, all NCLB program authorizations were automatically extended through September 30, 2008. That is money for the 2008-9 school year.

And again this week folks - it’s wonk appreciation time at the podcast! The first person to correctly identify the title, chapter, subchapter, part and section of the U.S. Code where the General Education Provisions Act is located wins lunch for two at the NEA cafeteria.

So, for Fiscal Year 2009 and beyond, unless and until Congress extends the authorization of appropriations for Title I, Title II, and the many other NCLB programs, the programs are considered “unauthorized” and Congress under its own budget rules may not appropriate funds for such programs. Seems like it does expire after all!

However, Congress can, and indeed routinely does, waive or ignore points of order against appropriating funds for unauthorized programs. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO):

“…an appropriation is considered unauthorized when it is made available for a program after that program’s authorization of appropriations has expired…House and Senate rules—dating from the 19th century—generally preclude the Congress from considering appropriations that are unauthorized. In both the House and the Senate, legislation containing unauthorized appropriations is subject to a point of order. However, House and Senate rules are not self-enforcing. An individual Representative or Senator must raise a point of order for the rules to be enforced. If no Member raises a point of order, an unauthorized appropriation may proceed through the legislative process.”

Even when points of order are raised, it only takes a majority vote in either House to waive them. In other words, for those don’t get excited reading CBO reports and experts from the Budget Act, since Congress makes the rules, they can break the rules.

Appropriating funds for so-called unauthorized programs isn’t rare or unusual. It happens all the time. Again, according to CBO:

“The Congress has appropriated about $748 billion for fiscal year 2008 for programs and activities whose authorizations of appropriations have expired.”

Wow, that’s a lot of money even for Washington!

So, the bottom line is that all of the provisions of NCLB remain in effect in perpetuity, unless and until Congress repeals or modifies them. And as long as Congress provides funding, the programs and their mandates stay in place.

Congress simply continues the programs by providing funding for them through the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill, even after their authorization of appropriations has expired.

So, even though NCLB certainly leaves a sour taste in the mouth, and its mandates, sanctions and test-label-punish scheme is getting really moldy, unlike milk and bread, we’re not protected by an expiration date.

But come January, with a new President and a new Congress, NCLB will hopefully be sent to the garbage heap along with the spoiled milk and moldy bread, and a new improved Elementary and Secondary Education Act will become law. One that will hopefully redefine the federal role so that it partners with states and schools to ensure that every child has a great public school. And one that provides students, educators, and schools with the tools and resources they need to succeed.

Once again, I’m Joel Packer. Thanks for listening.

More Than a Vision for 2020, We Have Prizes

A couple of weeks ago, NEA held our annual Representative Assembly — or RA. I’m always amazed and humbled to see how the RA operates. Nearly 10,000 voting delegates — educators from throughout the country — come together as the largest democratic decision-making body in the world!

Listen to the podcast and send your questions to Joel@nea.org.

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Hi. I’m Joel Packer. Welcome to the podcast. A couple of weeks ago, NEA held our annual Representative Assembly — or RA. I’m always amazed and humbled to see how the RA operates. Nearly 10,000 voting delegates — educators from throughout the country — come together as the largest democratic decision-making body in the world!

At the RA, NEA released a major new policy document called Great Public Schools for Every Student by the Year 2020. You can read all about it and see the whole document on our website at: www.nea.org/lac/federalrole.html.

It’s a bold proposal. NEA believes a "new balance" is needed between federal, state, and local governments and that we collectively commit to making every public school great by the year 2020. The call comes after more than six years of living with the fundamentally flawed federal education law, No Child Left Behind.

The combination of Congress not reauthorizing NCLB this year and the 2008 election created the opportunity for us to take a step back from just changing and tweaking the specifics of the NCLB and instead to take a broader look at the Federal role in elementary and secondary education. So instead of just worrying about changes to Section 1116(a)(2)(B)(vii) of the law, we’re focusing on the fundamentals for what the federal government should concentrate on in K-12 education.

By the way, the first person to correctly identify the gist of Section 1116(a)(2)(B)(vii) wins lunch for two in the NEA cafeteria.

Schools, districts, and states—not the federal government—are the primary engines of public school transformation. But to accelerate the pace of transformation, states and districts need well-designed federal policies to supply the balance of support necessary to deliver quality educational programs for every student in our public schools. Many school, district, and state-level efforts are transforming public schools into high-quality learning centers. But clearly the status quo is not acceptable.

NEA recognizes that there are many out-of-school factors that affect student success, and frankly, the impact of those factors—from poverty to health care, the availability of summer opportunities for students, and the stability of housing—has been wrongly downplayed. Socioeconomic factors need to be addressed as strategies to improve educational opportunity for every student. For too many poor and minority children, "at risk" describes their fate and not simply their circumstances. We are convinced that by improving both children’s circumstances and their schools, we can change their fate.
We call for the federal government to be a partner in supporting state efforts to transform our public schools by focusing on six policy priorities:

1. Support the profession of teaching as a desired and complex field of study and practice. Federal policy should support teachers at every stage of their development, from promoting high standards for entry into the profession, to high-quality professional development for teachers and paraeducators, and supporting research and resources that help educators obtain additional skills and knowledge and contribute to improved teaching practices.


2. Federal guarantee for the sustained funding of Title I and IDEA and for special needs populations. Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) have never received the federal funding that the original laws promised. The federal government should close the gap between its commitment and the actual funding so that shortfalls disappear.


3. Equal access to educational services and supports. The federal government should require states, to develop "Adequacy and Equity Plans." Through these plans, states will demonstrate where there are disparities among districts and schools in educational tools and services, as well as opportunities and resources. The plans will outline steps underway or planned to remedy the disparities.
   
   Support state-led public school transformation through authentic accountability that is publicly transparent. The federal government should use ESEA and other federal programs as mechanisms to induce states to devise comprehensive accountability systems that use multiple measures. Such systems should support efforts to guarantee that every student has access to a rich and comprehensive curriculum.


4. Establish high-quality educational research and development as essential to educational improvement. Currently, federal funds allotted for education research account for just 0.9 percent of the federal education investment. The federal government should quadruple the amount of R&D money in education.


5. Support innovation and best practices to accelerate state-based improvement efforts and improve student learning based on proven teaching strategies and programs grounded in sound teaching and learning research.

We are not alone in doing this. The Forum on Education and Democracy recently released its own paper, Democracy At Risk that shares many similarities to ours. The Economic Policy Institute has released A Broader, Bolder Agenda which is also critical of NCLB and calls for a new focus in the federal role. The American Association of School Administrators has its All Children Will Learn plan. Even House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller recently said that it is "time to pause…and rethink" the federal role.

Our policy framework has also picked up support form a range of policy experts and advocates. Jonathan Kozol, author of many books on public education, including Savage Inequalities, said that Great Public Schools for Every Student by 2020 "is one of the most powerful, insightful, and forward-thinking documents on public education I have read in many years. Its cutting-edge proposal for a more expanded and enlightened version of accountability — one that includes such elemental inputs as the size of classes, availability of preschools, and conditions of school buildings — represents a major change in thinking that the leaders of our government must not ignore.

Even Senator Obama had this to say in a letter to the RA delegates:

"This document provides a roadmap for educators, elected officials, policymakers, and all who care deeply about the future of our children to consider and debate in the days ahead. And it provides critical starting points for a new educational compact."

We can create a new balance and change the federal role from "test, label, and punish" to one that recognizes our students are more than a test score. To one that respects teachers and education support professionals as professionals. To one that provides us with the tools and resources and funding we need to get the job done. To one that ensures that all children have adequate and equitable funding, services, and programs. And to one that will result in a great public school for every student!!!

I’m Joel Packer. Thanks for listening.

OMG! Why Can’t He Sing After the Answers?

After the screeching singing is over, the Merry Answerman dives into the virtual mailbag to talk about NCLB impacts, insanity, involvement and even a key idea for improvement. For more Joel and a lot more on the National Education Association’s work on education policy, click into http://www.nea.org/esea/index.html.

Listen to the podcast, and send your questions to Joel@nea.org.

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Hi. This is Joel Packer. Welcome to another podcast.

This episode is a little different. Instead of just hearing me, we’ll be listening to some of you. I’ll summarize and quote from some of the emails and comments that you’ve sent me and answer your questions.

Everyone loves getting mail. Well, maybe not junk mail or spam – but letters and now emails from real live people. When I was growing up in NYC, I remember a kids’ show called the Merry Mailman. It had a cute theme song (uh oh – I’m going to sing again!):

"I am The Merry Mailman
Ring Ding Your Bell Will Ring.
That's My Very Special Ring
And This Is What I'll Bring”

Well, let’s see what your email has brought.

Jo-Ann from Pembroke, New Hampshire asks, “What effects has NCLB had on the Native American / Amerindian community? Every piece of information on minorities that I find focuses on the African-American or Hispanic communities, but nothing on our country's first people. Any ideas?”

Yes, Jo-Ann, I do have an idea! The National Indian Education Association (http://www.niea.org/) has held several hearings on the impact of NCLB on education of American Indian children. Their study entitled No Child Left Behind in Indian Country, found reports of “unintended consequences of the statute” resulting in “major disruptions to the education systems” that “narrow(ed) the broad public purposes of schools.”

The report also looked at the impact on teachers and noted, “Witnesses either speaking on behalf of teachers and educators or on their own behalf felt that the effect of NCLB was driving teachers and educators out of the field increasing the teacher turnover rates. This was particularly harmful for schools with high percentages of Native students as they already have significantly high teacher turnover rates.

Turning to another email, Brenda, a high school math teachers says, “I also believe that the NCLB is tantamount to insanity for the most part, but I do applaud the goal of improving our students' performance… Punishing teachers and schools is ludicrous. I would like to see any politician teach a child who will not even pick up a pencil. I would like to see how they can engage them or motivate them to want to learn. I would really like to see them get kids who are virtually unsupervised at home to do homework…As a teacher I cannot do it alone. We need the student, parent, administration and even government all in the game with us. What do you think about the role of parents in the mix?”

Brenda, I think you are right on target. The research is clear, consistent, and convincing. Parent, family, and community involvement in education correlates with higher academic performance and school improvement. When schools, parents, families, and communities work together to support learning, students tend to earn higher grades, attend school more regularly, stay in school longer, and enroll in higher level programs. Researchers cite parent-family-community involvement as a key to addressing the school dropout crisis and note that strong school-family-community partnerships foster higher educational aspirations and more motivated students.

If you want more on NEA’s view on parent-family-community involvement check out our policy brief at www.nea.org/achievement. And listen to the last podcast with Wendy Puriefoy of the Public Education Network.

Unfortunately, despite this evidence, President Bush every year in his budget has proposed to eliminate funding for NCLB’s Parent Information Resource Centers or PIRCs program. That seems a little odd, since the Department of Education on its own website says that PIRCs “help implement successful and effective parental involvement policies, programs, and activities that lead to improvements in student academic achievement and that strengthen partnerships among parents, teachers, principals, administrators, and other school personnel in meeting the education needs of children.”

Turning to another email, Margaret from Pendleton, OR says,

Joel, I have to tell you that NCLB is so unfair to Sp Ed teachers - it will eventually rid the school systems of SP ED teachers. there will be none left whatsoever.

We are being required to be certified in all areas - reading, math, social studies and by that I mean separate certifications -- because a sp ed certification does not satisfy NCLB. We even have a teacher who has the national certification for Special Ed - is she highly qualified? NO!

So teachers in our district who have taught for 30 years with sp ed certificates are being told we are not highly qualified - that we cant teach English, Math or Social Studies to kids with mental retardation, learning disabilities, etc, etc....

Margaret, we have heard that same issue over and over from many special education teachers. NEA has long fought to change the law to say that a teacher who is fully certified and licensed as a special education teacher should be considered highly qualified for NCLB and IDEA. While the Congress has not agreed with that change, the last reauthorization of IDEA did provide a little
flexibility by provding that newly hired special education teachers teaching multiple subjects had to be highly qualified in only one core subject area subject area at their rime of hiring and then had two years to become highly qualified in any other subject they teach. It also allows those teaching children with significant cognitive disabilities who are being taught at the elementary school level to only have to meet the elementary level HQT requirements (which are not subject matter specific). Lastly it exempts from the HQT requirements special education teachers who are only providing consultative services to a highly qualified core content area teacher.

Turing to one more email, Erin writes,

While I concur that NCLB was a poorly structured law, it really is not clear from your blog how any of your alternative proposals will affect/better our students’ learning.

Could you better connect the dots for me how money, class size etc… will do anything to improve student learning?

I sure can, Erin. Let’s focus on class size. Twenty years have passed since the first large-scale experiment on small class size was conducted—the Tennessee Student/Teacher Achievement Ratio (STAR) program. Several follow-up studies on the STAR program and other similar class reduction programs confirm substantial academic gains for K–3 students in smaller classes compared to students in larger classes. The impact of smaller classes was particularly important for Black children,. Black students in the smaller classes outperformed Black students in larger classes at a rate two to three times higher than the white students did over their white counterparts.

Class size reduction projects in other states further document the positive effects of smaller classes. In Wisconsin, the Student Achievement Guarantee in Education (SAGE) program evaluations confirm that smaller classes have significant positive effects on Black students across all income levels.

A great resource on the benefits of smaller class sizes is a group called Health and Education Research Operative Services (HEROS), Inc., http://www.heros-inc.org/.

Well, that’s all the mail we have time for today. So, keep the cards and letters, emails and blog comments coming! In future podcasts I’ll read and answer some more.

I’m Joel Packer, Thanks for listening.

Packer & Puriefoy

With a new President to be elected this year, it's time to look at a new federal agenda for education. In the latest podcast, I interview Wendy Puriefoy about a new report from the Forum on Education and Democracy that sets out a Marshall Plan for education -- including more investment in teachers and research, and a greater emphasis on engaging parents and educating communities.

Listen to the podcast, and send your questions to Joel@nea.org.

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The transcript follows:

Hi, I’m Joel Packer and welcome to the podcast. And today’s podcast is going to be a little bit different as opposed to just hearing me talk, we have today a distinguished guest with us, and we’re going to have in some future podcasts some additional guests. So today we have with us Wendy Puriefoy, who is president of the Public Education Network and also a convener of the Forum on Education and Democracy.

For those who don’t know PEN, the Public Education Network, is the country’s largest network of community-based school reform organizations. Ms. Puriefoy has been deeply involved in school reform since the 1970’s when she served as a special monitor of the court-ordered desegregation plan for Boston’s public schools. Prior to starting in her role as President of PEN, Wendy was Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Boston Foundation in Boston, Massachusetts.

She also serves on numerous boards of national organizations including the Children’s Defense Fund. So, Wendy, welcome and thanks for joining us today.

Wendy Puriefoy: Thank you for having me.

Joel Packer: Good, so Wendy, start off a little bit about the report from the Forum on Education and Democracy. Actually, first just tell us a little bit about what the Forum on Education and Democracy is and what your role with it is as a convener.

Wendy Puriefoy: The Forum includes a group of both researchers and people who run organizations who decided to come together to really look at the ways in which we could talk explicitly about the connection between education and democracy. So often the conversations we have about improving public schools are able specific individual strategies. And in this new report we actually recommend a number of specific strategies.

But the Forum always keeps in mind what is the state of our democracy in relationship to the quality of public education. So that’s one of the purposes. The other was to, is to really be able to take a fresh look at the issues that each of us are grappling with within our institutions and organizations or as professors. In the case of Linda Darling-Hammond and Gloria Latson-Billings and Pedro Negara, and to really be able to sort of freshly come to material and really say, what do we think about this.

Joel Packer: Great. And so the Forum just recently released a report called Democracy at Risk. So what does the report mainly focus on and what does it say about the No Child Left Behind Act?

Wendy Puriefoy: Well, there’s a set of things. The first is, we decided as a group that it would be important, given the upcoming election and the election of the new President that will take place in November of this year, that it was now time to really put together a federal agenda, a new federal agenda for public education. So if, in the report there are really three sort of major sections of the report. One part of the report has to do with the deep investment that we need to make in teachers.

And we talk about that as the Marshall Plan. Another part of the report really has a great deal to do with the ways in which we can engage communities, which is the part of the plan that I in particular am very interested in. And the, probably one of the most important parts of the report is a way in which the report helps people to see that because education is so critical for obvious things, productivity and employment and the positioning of the nation, obviously important to us individually.

It therefore becomes a significant investment that the nation should be making. And so part of the report begins with really looking at this concept we call the educational debt.

Joel Packer: Okay. And so does the report talk at all about the current federal role through No Child Behind and some of the issues with that, or problems that that’s causing?

Wendy Puriefoy: I think the way in which the report explicitly talks about NCLB is by making a set of recommendations about sets of things that need to be done in terms of the investment in teachers, the investment in research. So it calls for different types of investments than what presently exist in NCLB.

Joel Packer: So let’s talk a little bit more about the report’s recommendation that’s called Engage Parents and Educate Local Communities. So how can the federal government really do that, or help do that, and why is doing that, why is parent involvement and community involvement an important part of improving education?

Wendy Puriefoy: Well, you know, one of the, to talk about NCLB for just a minute, one of the hallmarks of No Child Left Behind is, in fact, it talks about the role that parents play in the quality of education that their children receive. And the need for parents to be engaged, not only in their homes, but at the school level, and to help engage others. Because actually, parents only make up 30 percent of the population, and so we need the other 70 percent.

So in the NCLB legislation, it really calls for the creation of parent councils and it calls for information to be gotten out to parents. And so what this report does is really continue to focus on that engagement of parents to ensure that the people who are closest to the issues of what’s going on in school, are the people who can be used not only to help improve schools, but to also lever engagement or leverage engagement with others.

Because for the most part, if the general public doesn’t see parents engaged, they can't make the connections to why they should get engaged. So it talks about, in terms of the report, it talks about family engagement in schools, it looks at the ways in which community agencies can become involved. And it reminds people that schools are really centers of community. So there’s a tendency for us to, at least now, to look at schools as completely separate from community. And we forget that there was a time when communities were literally built around schools.

Joel Packer: Right.

Wendy Puriefoy: And today, despite our not talking about it explicitly, you and I go and buy a house in a neighborhood, and the first thing the real estate developer will tell us is, your investment is really great here because this community’s got great schools.

Joel Packer: And so what should the federal government specifically do?

Wendy Puriefoy: Well, the federal government has, at least under NCLB and in this proposal, is that one, parents and teachers and schools don’t often interact well. So there needs to be really, real training to help schools and principals know how to engage with parents as a group, specific parents in terms of language difficulties; or to be very aware of the fact that parents, some parents, particularly parents of poor and disadvantaged children, don’t engage with the schools because they’ve had bad experiences.

Practically a number of people don’t engage with schools because they’re working at the hours that schools typically do their engagement. So the report really asks us to take a look at who the parents are, how to engage with them, train teacher and school personnel about engaging with parents more effectively, and also to look at different ways in which parents can be engaged. Not just to look at say a single pipeline of 20 years ago where mothers stayed at home and you could come to a PTA meeting at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

So that’s one part of it. So that’s one part of it. The other is that it’s really using, the report talks about having community and family member, families invited to learn about what the next new thing is that’s going on in school. And that those kinds of meetings are held at a time when information can be gotten out. We can use technology to get some of that information out.

Also to work with employers to help employers be able to see that it’s an investment in their employee if they’re a parent to enable that parent to have time off from work to be able to participate in their school, their children’s school’s activities because it’s going to pay off long term.

Joel Packer: Well, Wendy, President Bush and Secretary Spellings often highlight that No Child Behind empowers parents. My view is when they talk about that, they’re really meaning school choice, private school vouchers, after school tutoring, those kinds of things. So how is what the Forum proposes for parent-community involvement different than that?

Wendy Puriefoy: Well what the Forum is proposing may be a deeper, better extension of what NCLB is talking about in terms of parent involvement. Good news about NCLB is that it talks about parent involvement over 300 times, I think, in the legislation. So it’s clear to anybody who’s reading it that parents are an important constituency in terms of increasing student achievement and setting goals for children about how important it is to be educated.

What the Forum’s report is talking about in terms of parent involvement is really, I would say in two ways. One, we recognize that parents have to be able to engage with their children’s school. There are various reasons why they don’t. Some that have to do with, psychologically school was a bad experience for many poor and parents who were poor and disadvantaged. For some, the traditional involvement strategy falls outside of a time when they can be involved because they’re at work, either during the day or at night.

And the report also recognizes that parents are the key link to engaging the rest of the community. So in the report what we talk about is the importance of having schools prepared to deal with parents. In other words, making sure that school personnel receive the kind of training that parents are not an add-on, but they’re a central part of educating. To help people who work in schools to figure out how to talk to parents, how to elicit feedback from parents, how to use various means to engage parents besides coming to the school.

Technology is clearly an option for some parents. The other part of it really has to do with how we help parents understand what their children are learning, why they’re learning it, and what role the parent can play in helping to stress the importance of a particular lesson, or what’s going on in school, or the importance of school to the child. Increasingly making that child more and more comfortable about being in school, and at the same time setting standards.

One of the things that you'll see in this report is the extent to which we talk about the multiple approaches to parent engagement. We encourage in this report, for example, employers to recognize that an investment in the parents in their company will pay long term benefits. Not just for the child, but will pay long term benefits for the company in terms of its stature in the community, the satisfaction of an employee, and a sense that education is as important to people who are not parents as it is to people who are parents.

Joel Packer: Okay, well great. Well thanks Wendy for being with us today. We’re actually going to have Wendy back in Part 2 of this podcast where she’s going to talk about, and we'll ask her some questions about, PEN’s own work and a report they issued last year about No Child Behind. So once again, I’m Joel Packer, thanks for listening.

Schools Carry That Weight of Bush Magical Mystery Tour

In less than a year, the Bush administration’s Magical Mystery Tour approach to education will come to an end. The belief that schools magically improve without resources or funding or relationships with educators, administrators or school districts – all that will fade like a flashback. The mystery of how this Administration believed it could sell a policy that says fewer resources plus reduced time to teach plus more testing equaled greater student achievement will never be solved.

Listen to the podcast, and send your questions to Joel@nea.org.

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The transcript follows:

Hi. This is Joel. Welcome to the podcast.

If President Bush and Education Secretary Spellings had to use a song to describe their funding policy for No Child Left Behind they might have picked the Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love”. You know “'cause I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love.”

But most educators and state and local officials would instead pick another Beatles’ song, “Money” and think of these words as music to their ears:

“Money don't get everything it's true.
What it don't get I can't use.
So gimme money that's what I want.”

It’s true. Money “don’t get everything” needed to help close achievement gaps, improve student achievement for all students, or ensure all students have great public schools, but without the resources and investments needed so educators can get the job done, we won’t reach the goals.

Yes, it takes money to pay for smaller class sizes, expanded professional development for teachers, after-school programs, quality PreK, new textbooks, technology, and modern schools.

Yet in each of the past three school years, an average of 63 percent of school districts have received LESS Title I money than they got the previous year.

Title I provides federal money for extra reading and math help for educationally disadvantaged students in schools where low-income students are concentrated.

These cutbacks should not be a surprise because since the enactment of NCLB in 2002, funding for Title I is more than $54 BILLION below what was proposed in NCLB. And sadly, President Bush’s budget for next year would further shortchange children and public schools under Title I by another $10.7 billion; more than 4 million low-income children will NOT receive the full range of services and programs they need and deserve.

That’s not even the worst of it. When you compare the overall mandates of the law to the overall money committed, by the end of the Bush years the funding short fall will be more than $85 billion.

In a report last year, the Center on Education Policy found that in recent years approximately 80% of districts have assumed costs to carry out NCLB for which they are not being reimbursed by the federal government.

NEA and eight school districts have filed a lawsuit challenging the right of the federal government to force states and school districts to spend their own funds to meet the NCLB mandates. The suit is still pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals with several states now supporting our effort.

The funding squeeze becomes worse each year as the federal mandates become more stringent. Annual standardized testing of students in reading and math originally was only required for three grades -- once in elementary, once in middle school, and once in high school. Starting in the 2005-06 school year, every state had to test every student annually in reading and math in seven grades - each of grades 3-8 and once in high school. Starting in the 2007-08 school year, each state had to annually test students in at least three grades in science. All teachers of core academic subjects had to be highly qualified by the end of the 2006-07 school tear. And of course, by the 2013-14 school year, 100% of all students must be proficient in reading and math.

Mandates piling up, dollars draining away. It may be the worst thing the Bush Administration has done to public education. And what has the President proposed in his budget for next year?. How about over $1 billion for two new private school voucher programs. How about eliminating funds for arts education and parent information centers? How about cutting state grants for safe and drug-free schools by 66%?

In less than a year, the Bush Administration’s Magical Mystery Tour approach to education will come to an end. The belief that schools magically improve without resources or funding or relationships with educators, administrators or school districts – all that will fade like a flashback. The mystery of how this administration believed it could sell a policy that says fewer resources plus reduced time to teach plus more testing equaled greater student achievement will never be solved.

The Bush education policy tour isn’t over, but it has more than lost its way, now it’s just plain lost.

Education Smackdown -- No Child Left BeHype vs. No Child Left BeReal

It’s time for Congress to reject the hype and outright falsehoods too often marking the final months of Bush policy.

Listen to the podcast, and send your questions to Joel@nea.org.

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The transcript follows:

Joel Packer Has All the Answers Podcast -- May 13, 2008

Hi. I’m Joel Packer. Welcome to the podcast.

Get ready for some numbers. I promise you’ll be smarter in just a few minutes with our famous Joel Packer Has All the Answers individualized instruction. And there will be no test needed to move on to the next podcast.

What’s the main objective of No Child Left Behind? Increasing student test scores. Sure, the law is more than 1,000 pages long and contains some 50 programs, most of them unfunded mandates by the way. But the major “bright line” to quote Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, is that by the year 2014, every single student – 100 percent - will be proficient on statewide reading and math tests.

Every year from the start of the law in the 2002-03 school year through the year when all children will be above average and living in Lake Wobegon, increasing percentages of students must score proficient or higher on these two tests.

So, has it worked? Are the children now all above average, just as in Garrison Keillor’s fantasy world?

Secretary Spellings says everything is fine. She says scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) have increased, so she says NCLB is “like Ivory soap: It’s 99.9 percent pure…there’s not much needed in the way of change.” Even President Bush said, “These scores confirm that No Child Left Behind is working.”

But is it?

The percentage of fourth graders who scored at the proficient or higher level on NAEP only increased by 2% between 1998 and 2002 (pre-NCLB). Yet from 2002 to 2007 - after NCLB began - the increase in the percent proficient was also just 2%. Based on 4th grade math scores, the percent proficient rose by 9% from 2000 to 2003 but only 8 points from 2003 to 2007.

For 8th graders in reading, the percent proficient improved by only 1% between 1998 and 2002 but actually went down by 2 points between 2002 and 2007. The only area where performance was better post-NCLB than before was in 8th grade math, where the percent proficient went up just two points between 2000 and 2003, but rose 4 points between 2003 and 2007.

FairTest co-Executive Director Monty Neill criticized the Administration for its claims saying, “NAEP shows educational improvement across the nation slowed significantly since NCLB went into effect…despite the fact that curriculum narrowed in many schools to little more than test preparation in reading and math.”

The NY Times in a September 2007 article said, “…gains in reading achievement have been marginal, with performance declining among eighth graders… The results also showed that the nation had made only incremental progress in narrowing historic gaps in achievement between white and minority students, a fundamental goal of the federal law.”

The Civil Rights project at UCLA (formerly at Harvard) in a 2006 study, Tracking Achievement Gaps and Assessing the Impact of NCLB on the Gaps, reached the following conclusions:

• NCLB did not have a significant impact on improving reading and math achievement across the nation and states.
• NCLB has not helped the nation and states significantly narrow the achievement gap.
  The Bush administration’s hard spin on its failed education policy doesn’t straighten out away from NCLB issues either. Spellings recently said about the Reading First program, “If ever there was a program that was rooted in research and science and fact, this is it,” she said. “This is [like] the cure for cancer.” Two months later her own Department’s research arm issued a report saying the Reading First program had no real effect on reading comprehension in Grades 1-3.

It’s time for Congress to reject the hype and outright falsehoods too often marking the final months of Bush policy.

It’s time to fundamentally overhaul NCLB and shift its focus from testing, labeling, and punishing. It’s time to support states and districts to build capacity, use comprehensive meaningful measures of student learning and school quality, and provide resources for proven programs like smaller class size.

And finally, it’s especially time to stop pretending when it comes to closing the achievement gaps – to allow school systems flexibility to put in place appropriate interventions targeted to the underlying problems in struggling schools – instead of failed one-size-fits-all mandates.

Thanks very much. I’m Joel Packer.

Welcome to Joel Packer Has All the Answers

In the inaugural podcast, Joel explains why he's here, why he's focusing on the No Child Left Behind law, and how the law became so toxic. But he needs your questions -- so ask Joel@nea.org!

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The transcript follows:

Joel Packer Has All the Answers Podcast - May 1, 2008

Welcome to the podcast. I’m Joel Packer, Director of Education Policy and Practice at the National Education Association.

For more than 20 years I’ve been at NEA helping to represent the views of educators to the Congress and four different presidential administrations. Our goal over the next several months is to keep you informed and updated on the No Child Left Behind Act and to give you a sense of what we can do together to make a difference in education policy.

Let me start by saying I don’t have all the answers, but I do know why they picked this name.We are determined to be interactive. There’s a national dialogue about this law and that dialogue is going to be reflected here. Having answers means I’ll be getting questions - and you better believe, with a title like that, if I don’t HAVE the answers, I’ll get them. But the title also means I’ll be asking some questions and sharing YOUR answers. We may even have a guest from time to time. There’s an email address on the website nea.org and at the end of this podcast where you can ask me specific questions, suggest topics and share stories and tips and your experience under this law.

So why focus on No Child Left Behind?First of all, since the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, nothing has had a more sweeping effect than NCLB. From testing to funding to the curriculum and more, NCLB reaches out and touches some aspects of almost every school.

NCLB passed Congress with overwhelmingly bipartisan support in 2001, but controversy and confusion over the law among educators and the general public grows every year. And support has rapidly eroded. Even the House of Representatives Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, one of the original four authors of the law, recently said that NCLB “has become the most negative brand in America.”

While the law officially expires September 30, it is virtually certain that due to divisions between Congress and the President, divisions in Congress between Democrats and Republicans, as well as divisions within each party, that the law will not be renewed this year. The reality however is that the law doesn’t really expire or go away. As long as Congress continues to fund the many NCLB programs including Title I, Teacher Quality grants, and after school, the law’s requirements and mandates stay in effect.

What this means for all of us is a chance to influence the way the law is rewritten in the coming months into next year. Yes, 2008 is an election year and elections can make a difference in shaping policy. But this podcast won’t be about politics or elections. We’ll be talking about how the law has affected your schools and students and communities and how we can create federal policies that help rather than hurt.

Why has NCLB become so toxic? We’ll explore the reasons in depth in upcoming episodes, but here’s a brief list:

• NCLB has failed in its own fundamental purpose – to raise student test scores and close achievement gaps.NCLB is narrowing the curriculum.
• NCLB is too focused on standardized tests.
• NCLB is a severely underfunded mandate that is shortchanging our students and public schools.
• NCLB will eventually result in almost all schools failing.

In case you can’t tell, the National Education Association opposes the law and is leading the way to a fundamental overhaul. We were the first national organization to propose substantive changes and helped organize a coalition of 144 groups calling for changes. We initiated a lawsuit challenging the unfunded mandate provisions of the law and have worked with members of Congress from both parties to draft bills to change the law. There are actually 134 bills on NCLB pending in Congress that we support

…So there’s our first podcast. Stay tuned to nea.org and please, if you have a question you’d like addressed on future podcasts, a comment, or an idea or experience to share with our vast national audience – Hi Mom! – send an email to joel@nea.org. That’s joel j-o-e-l @nea.org.

Thanks.