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Thursday, April 1, 2010

NEA Presents Congress With ESEA Wish List - Teacher Beat - Education Week

NEA Presents Congress With ESEA Wish List - Teacher Beat - Education Week

NEA Presents Congress With ESEA Wish List

Congressional lawmakers got a recent present in the form of a thick mailing from the National Education Association. It details the union's vision for the reauthorization of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act, i.e., No Child Left Behind.
Your intrepid blogger has read all 170 pages, and the documents largely align to NEA's earlier "positive agenda" for the reauthorization, but are much more detailed and even include sample legislative language. They also underscore just how starkly the NEA's stances on teacher quality and accountability differ from those of the Obama administration's blueprint, as there is nary a reference in this document to "teacher effectiveness" or "school turnarounds."
So, what does the NEA have in mind? The union has long said there's too much testing under the current ESEA, and the documents make clear that the union wants standardized assessments in just two grade spans.