Relationship Chills Between Teachers Unions, Obama
The nation's two largest teachers unions are holding their annual conventions this week and have been saying some harsh things about the Obama administration's education agenda. Some teachers are even calling for Education Secretary Arne Duncan to resign.
This seems to suggest that despite the unions' support for many of the administration’s proposals, the relationship has begun to sour. But if Duncan is worried about the angry rhetoric coming from the presidents of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, he certainly won't admit it.
"I just have huge respect for them as individuals. I know they have very challenging jobs, but they're the right leaders at the right time," Duncan says.
The feeling was not mutual among NEA delegates in New Orleans earlier this week. At their annual meeting, they called for Duncan's resignation and cast a vote of "no confidence" in the administration's school reform agenda.
For good reason, says NEA President Dennis Van Roekel: Instead of overhauling the politically unpopular No Child Left Behind law, he says, the Obama administration has not done enough to rescind the law's worst features.
"The narrowing of the curriculum, the overemphasis on tests, the labeling and punishment of [school] districts is not working and the students are losing," Van Roekel said.
So here's how Van Roekel suggests the administration can get back on the unions' good side: reward schools for raising kids' academic performance, no matter how small; stop relying on tests as a single measure of students' academic growth; and absolutely stop supporting the use of test scores to evaluate teachers or decide how much they should be paid.
For people to act right now like they feel betrayed by this president only suggests that they were not paying attention when he was speaking.
"I think that decision is best made at the local level [and] not mandated and micromanaged at the federal level," Van Roekel says.
If the administration does not rethink its policy, says Van Roekel, it will find itself on a collision course with teachers and their unions.
And that is not entirely a bad thing, says Margaret Spellings, former secretary of education in the George W. Bush administration.
"I do think there are some political advantages in characterizing the unions as "about the status quo," and I would commend the president and the secretary for some of the stances that they've taken — they're very courageous for Democrats to take and I would not characterize them as anti-teacher. I would