President Edward J. McElroy delivered the keynote address at AFT's biennial convention today.  The speech's "Count Me In" theme called for greater political and union activism. 

Here are a few K-12 education-related excerpts:

No Child Left Behind has proven to be—at best—a tremendous missed opportunity and—at worst—a cynical attempt to undermine public education.

Our members and leaders still stand for high standards and accountability, but the law in its current form falls short of these goals.  No Child Left Behind sets arbitrary benchmarks, yet the measuring formula that is the centerpiece of the law does not even measure progress toward those benchmarks.  NCLB is making a well-rounded education a thing of the past, because students and teachers are being forced to focus so much of their instructional time on math and reading—to the exclusion of other important subjects.

From the beginning, the AFT has worked to improve this law.  We have been able to get a number of significant changes made to NCLB, but this is not anywhere near enough.  We have given this law a four-year test—and NCLB is not making the grade. 

Public school teachers and staff want their students to succeed.  They want to do their job well.  The AFT and our affiliates have a history of advancing effective reforms that strengthen student achievement.  We cannot allow a law with so many flaws to derail the work that offers the best hope for reaching that goal.  The problem is that NCLB is the law of the land and it’s not going away.  The only solution is to change those responsible for making the laws and then get the laws changed.  And we’re going to do that—starting with this fall’s elections.

UPDATE: For another take on the convention, see Mike Antonucci's write-up.  In Antonucci's world, it's a gotcha moment whenever a public school advocate uses the word "choice," there's no such thing as a good speech by a union leader, unions play verbal games to disguise the fact that we're out to get all those non-union teachers who make more money than union teachers, the president of our Massachusetts affiliate offended New Yorkers (in fact he welcomed Yankee fans in the sentence after Antonucci's quote of the day), and resolutions that may never get voted on are all important.  (Also, though he is proud of his Jesuit schooling, "who" and "whom" seem to be interchangeable in Antonucci's world.)