NCLB – Has the UFT finally gotten it right?

The UFT and AFT say that NCLB should be reformed (see here, and here, and here, and here, and here) (or anything on the AFT’s “Let’s Get it Right” site.) I say that it should be dumped (see here, and here, and comments here, and comments here, but this is just funny). And the difference isn’t semantics.

I’m not shy about what I think. NCLB has been awful for schools, teachers, students, and needs to be tossed. My union, until recently, hasn’t been shy either. The same ideology that produces support for charter schools and thinly disguised merit pay (schoolwide bonuses?) is rooted in some sense of ‘self-management’ and ‘accountability.’ They wonder why the nasty centrist Democrats seem, on parts of these issues, to agree with them. I don’t wonder.

But look. Randi Weingarten writes to the membership (via e-mail, and chapter leaders were asked to put them in boxes, too. Should be on the website soon):

…if NCLB worked … why… is the rhetoric just the same as [in 2000]? It’s because NCLB … has resulted instead in excessive testing of students, a broken promise on funding its mandates, and more sanctions than help for the nation’s public schools. The next step is to overhaul it completely, or maybe just “scrap” it…

Maybe just scrap it? Bravo, Randi?

(you’ll get the wrong impression if you don’t read on —>)

Now, read the excerpt in its entirety. I have a bad feeling Randi is using NCLB to encourage a vote for Clinton over Obama. Maybe I am selling her short, and she really intends that the UFT and AFT should be shifting to a ‘scrap NCLB’ position, but I have a bad feeling that it’s just a flare to shift a few votes Super Tuesday. Let’s hope I am wrong.

Parenthetically, if NCLB worked as well as promised, why, almost seven years later, is the rhetoric just the same as when he was first inaugurated? It’s because NCLB, despite its bipartisan liftoff, did not work to benefit stakeholders in education. It has resulted instead in excessive testing of students, a broken promise on funding its mandates, and more sanctions than help for the nation’s public schools. The next step is to overhaul it completely, or maybe just “scrap” it, as Hillary Clinton suggested when she spoke to our Delegate Assembly earlier this month.

Yet Rep. Miller and Sen. Ted Kennedy (both of whom just endorsed Barack Obama) want to find ways to rescue NCLB and hold teachers’ feet to the fire. We are willing to accept accountability, but sooner or later others need to take responsibility too and actually support us rather than impede us from doing our jobs. Remember, if you are registered in a political party, vote on Feb. 5.

The Clinton “scrap NCLB” remark, has anyone seen it repeated anywhere, or reported in the media? Hillary’s website has a vague section on families and kids that has not been updated to even suggest the possibility. Not to say that Barack Obama has been any better. They are the two most centrist of the Democratic candidates, virtually indistinguishable on education, and, sadly, the only two left standing.