Where We Stood in 1994
March 13, 2007 07:05 AM
As most readers of this blog know, the "real" name of the No Child Left Behind Act is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. NCLB is simply the name given to the last ESEA reauthorization. So what was the AFT's position on the 1994 reauthorization*? The organization supported it.
Here's the text of an October 1994 press release about a failed attempt to derail the law:
Clearly, eleventh-hour opposition to an education reauthorization bill is designed to inflame groundless opposition as part of a larger, cynical strategy to block passage of any meaningful legislation at all cost prior to the November elections.
This bill has been 18 months in the making. After too many years of faltering commitment to educational excellence, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act would encourage the states to set high standards for student achievement, but doesn't tell the states what the standards must be, and to adopt assessments that better measure student achievement.
In fact, states and local authorities would have unprecedented flexibility to determine academic standards and adapt federal education programs to achieve the standards they set. The bill is suffused with provisions to involve parents in all aspects of shaping how programs operate, and to encourage parents, teachers and other instructional staff to participate in new teamwork efforts.
Killing this bill now won't just stop progress toward higher academic achievement for all students, it will seriously harm what we have now, and all in the name of gridlock. America's children and parents deserve better than to be pawns in this cynical, partisan, scorched earth warfare. Two former secretaries of education who proposed precious little legislation...** to further academic achievement when they had the opportunity should be ashamed of themselves for joining the effort to defeat the bill now.
(Thanks to dd for retrieving this press statement from the AFT archives.)
*No one paid much attention to the name of the 1994 reauthorization, "The Improving America's Schools Act."
**I've omitted the words "do little" here, which were included, apparently by accident, in the original.
