NEA taking on NCLB with their own plan

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest education union, approved a plan on Monday to aggressively lobby Congress for reform of the No Child Left Behind Act. An Associated Press article describes how the NEA wants to move “from just being critics to saying this is our own vision.”

But is the NEA pursuing a vision shared by the parents, students, administrators and the general public who have their own priorities for school reform?

According to AP:

“The plan approved Monday calls for increases in the $23.5 billion budget currently authorized by Congress and a decrease in the number of students in each classroom. The union also is calling for a national minimum wage of $40,000 a year for teachers.

The NEA will push the government to move away from testing as the sole benchmark for success or failure. The [NEA] favor[s] a series of benchmarks that reflect students' differing demographics and abilities.”

There does seem to be general agreement among teachers, administrators, parents and students that the standards and testing associated with NCLB will not be enough to finish the job of education reform (See Reality Check, Issue No. 3). But there is, in fact, strong support for standards and testing.  NEA’s advocacy for moving away from testing as the “sole benchmark” – keeping testing, but lessening their be-all-and-end-all status – seems to recognize this reality.

But the devil is in the details on accountability. Majorities of teachers themselves support high school exit exams, and just handfuls of all groups we surveyed want to return to the way things were before the standards movement made testing so predominant. But teachers also say that testing is getting too much emphasis. So what’s the right mix? How exactly does the NEA propose to ensure that schools be held accountable for making sure that all youngsters reach high standards, regardless of their demographic background?

Reader comments on this issue are very welcome.

As for NEA’s call to increase the federal budget with the aim of decreasing the number of students in each classroom, this item should find wide support among administrators, parents and students. However, the actual funds seem unlikely to materialize in the current environment in Washington.

A national “minimum wage for teachers” being touted by NEA is somewhat less likely to find broad public support. For one, few are pressing for more pay for teachers as a way to improve education – even among teachers. The pay-related reforms that have the most support are those that reward individuals who teach in the most difficult schools. To learn more about the reform priorities of teachers as it relates to pay, unions, etc., check out our research report Stand by Me: What Teachers Really Think about Unions, Merit Pay and Other Professional Matters. While research indicates there is public support for overall pay increases and people do think most teachers are underpaid, there isn’t a groundswell of political pressure building for increasing overall teacher pay. And even though there is support for differential pay, teachers themselves put it near the bottom of strategies that they believe might improve teaching and learning.

The NEA’s plan also neglects a key element of change that all of the major interests have again and again said needs to be addressed: classroom environment. I suppose the number of students in the classroom is tied to this issue, but is that the only way of addressing this pressing need?

Public Agenda’s surveys of teachers show large majorities say they feel they are being made “scapegoats” for all the problems facing education, so it’s not surprising that the NEA is stepping up its efforts to protect its members from NCLB’s impact. But it would be a shame if this effort became – or was simply interpreted to be – an effort to advocate primarily for the best interests of teachers over the learning environment as a whole. The central question to me is: Is what the NEA is proposing really likely to benefit students and the student learning and, in tight times with the federal government already facing record debt, are these proposals the best, fairest, most cost effective and realistic alternatives for improving schools?