Teachers' Unions Critical of NCLB, Offer Other Approaches

NCLB has had a major impact on teachers in public schools across America. Teachers are vital resources for understanding how the law affects student achievement, teaching, schools and districts. The two nationwide unions representing teachers, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), have taken stands on various NCLB topics, and their websites provide resources for teachers, schools and parents. Detailed below are summaries of their positions on NCLB and the resources available on their websites.

NEA's Position on NCLB

NEA states that it supports the goals of NCLB and has a commitment to: "high standards and high expectations for every child," and to "increasing the effectiveness" of the law. NEA's efforts focus on:

advocating high standards and accountability for children, educators and for states and localities;
pursuing flexibility that supports student learning;
increasing teacher quality programs designed to recruit, train, and retain highly qualified teachers;
ensuring that students, teachers, and schools are evaluated on more than test scores alone;
working for full funding of programs that work to improve education and achievement; and
making struggling schools a priority.

While recognizing that NCLB's goals are laudable, NEA contends that the law presents obstacles to helping students and strengthening schools in three ways: (1) by focusing on punishments rather than assistance; (2) by focusing on mandates rather than supporting effective programs; and (3) by focusing on privatization rather than teacher-led, family-oriented solutions. NEA also asserts that NCLB "imposes invalid one-size fits all measures on students, failing to recognize that different children learn in different ways and with different timelines."

Potential Lawsuit and Legislation

In July 2003, NEA announced that it would file a lawsuit to challenge the lack of funding to implement NCLB, based on a provision in the law which prohibits the imposition of mandates on states and localities which are not funded by the federal government. To date, this lawsuit has not been filed because states have not joined the lawsuit, as NEA had hoped.

NEA has also taken positions on proposed legislation designed to amend NCLB. Its website's Legislative Action Center summarizes each piece of proposed legislation, separated into three categories: (1) legislation that NEA supports; (2) legislation whose concept NEA supports and with whose sponsors NEA is working on its concerns; (3) legislation on which NEA has not taken a position.

NEA Website Resources on NCLB

Toolkit: NEA provides an ESEA toolkit that can be downloaded, organized by topics: Testing, Report Cards, Labels and Consequences, Teacher Quality, Paraprofessional Quality and Reading and Literacy Programs. Each section explains what NCLB says, what it means for students and schools, and then outlines policy questions to ask in order to ensure that the law is used to improve schools and achievement. The toolkit summarizes timelines and funding, if any, for each mandate.

Report: In January 2004, NEA released a report on funding of NCLB, Head Start, IDEA, Pell Grants and other federal education programs. The study concluded that NCLB is underfunded.

News: NEA also provides a section on NCLB in the News, which summarizes and links to articles on NCLB from newspapers across the country.

Accountability: NEA's website provides information and resources regarding a wide range of education topics. Several of these topics relate directly to NCLB and propose solutions to some of the concerns raised by NEA regarding NCLB.

NEA's section on Accountability outlines an in-depth accountability system which measures students, teachers and schools in a number of ways and demands accountability from states and localities. The NEA accountability system would require accountability for class size, professional development, facilities and other inputs. Similarly, NEA's "Priority Schools" provides strategies, resources and real-life models for improving schools in crisis.

"Good News About Your Local School:" This webpage allows the user to click on a particular state and learn positive information about public schools in that state. Each state's page also contains a section describing what still needs to be done in order to further improve public schools.

AFT's positions on NCLB

AFT strongly supports certain principles underlying NCLB: high standards for all children, disaggregation of achievement data, highly qualified teachers and well-trained paraprofessionals, and extra support for schools and students performing below proficient levels. AFT contends, however, that there are serious flaws in the law.

AYP: AFT has criticized the measure of adequate yearly progress (AYP) contending that the "proficiency" standard varies among states, does not reflect grade level achievement and is therefore too confusing and inaccurate to measure achievement. Moreover, AFT disputes the "snapshot" nature of yearly measurements and calls for changes in testing of students with disabilities and students with limited English proficiency. Details are available on the AFT website.

Intervention: AFT does not agree with the mandated interventions in schools labeled "in need of improvement," arguing that they are not based on scientific research and are not constructive. AFT has also criticized provisions of the transfer and supplemental services portions of the law that allow circumvention of desegregation orders and civil rights laws. Furthermore, AFT notes that transfers cause serious capacity issues at receiving schools.

Highly qualified teachers and paraprofessionals: AFT takes issue with various "highly qualified" teacher and paraprofessional provisions of the law. For example, AFT advocates changes in regulations affecting highly qualified middle school, special education, bilingual and vocational education teachers. AFT also asserts that the "highly qualified" provisions of NCLB must apply to charter school teachers, teachers in supplemental services programs and teachers in extended learning time programs.

NCLB Funding: AFT also argues that NCLB has not been fully funded and cannot be effective without full funding.

On July 17, 2004, AFT passed a resolution echoing these positions and promising to lobby Congress for changes to NCLB and for full funding of the law. AFT also promised to work with its state and local affiliates to respond to shortcomings in NCLB.

AFT Website Resources on NCLB

The AFT site includes one-page summaries of various topics under NCLB, such as: AYP, teacher quality, supplemental services, and English language learners. These summaries outline what the law says and where AFT stands on each issue. AFT also published a separate policy brief on proficiency and AYP, which is available on its website. In addition, there are numerous articles on NCLB topics.

In addition to its opinion pieces, AFT provides state-by-state resources on NCLB. For each state, there are links to such data as: the accountability workbook, the state's definition of "highly qualified" teacher, approved supplemental service providers, ESEA budget tables, and other useful state information.

Other Resources

The AFT site provides other resources designed to help improve public schools, though not specifically connected to NCLB. For example, a section entitled "Redesigning Schools to Raise Achievement" outlines strategies to identify and assist struggling schools. This section provides case studies of successful intervention strategies.

Prepared by Wendy C. Lecker, July 22, 2004