NEA and AFT: Let's Apply the Lessons of NCLB to the Common Core - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

NEA and AFT: Let's Apply the Lessons of NCLB to the Common Core - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

NEA and AFT: Let's Apply the Lessons of NCLB to the Common Core

by Anthony Cody

We learned this morning that:

The two national teachers' unions have won $11 million to build an online warehouse of instructional tools for the Common Core State Standards. Student Achievement Partners, whose founders led the writing of the standards, is also a grantee. It will work with the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association and their teachers to build the tools and post them on Student Achievement Partners' website.

Here we go again.
When No Child Left Behind came along in 2002, our unions were, for the most part, quiet about what was about to happen to our schools. We have learned since then the damage that can be done by ill-conceived reforms. NCLB has done the following things:

1. Resulted in thousands of schools being declared failures for low test scores.
2. Coerced schools and teachers into narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test.