Unions Disappointed By Ed. Bill

Mar 13, 2010 — Politico

Harry Siegel,Nia-Malika Henderson

Even before President Obama’s plans for a major overhaul of education legislation officially appear Saturday evening, the heads of the two largest teachers unions are signaling their opposition to a bill that calls for increasing federal education spending by more than $3 billion in FY2011.

In a draft document provided by the administration entitled “EASA Reauthorization: Before and After NCLB, the administration says it will end the “’race to the bottom’ for state standards,” introduce “real rewards for high-poverty schools, districts and states showing real progress,” and end “exclusive focus on tests, narrowing of curriculum.” It also says the new bill will “include teacher perspective,” “invest in expanded learning time programs,” and introduce a “greater focus on getting great teachers where they are needed most.”

A second Department of Education draft on EASA reauthorization says the changes mean the system will “treat teachers like the professionals they are,” which is one way of saying it will try to roll back collectively bargained rights the teachers unions are loathe to surrender.

Page 10 of that memo lists the two controversial funding streams:

—$2.5 billion to “improve the effectiveness and equitable distribution of teachers & leaders,” through, among other things, “meaningful evaluations.”

—$950 million for a “Teacher & Leader Innovation Fund” to “Support ambitious reforms in teacher & leader placement, compensation, recognition & advancement.”

In other words, almost $3.5 billion to introduce merit pay, roll back seniority benefits, and give administrators more power to assign teachers to schools.

“What excited educators about President Obama’s hopes and vision for education on the campaign trail has not made its way into this blueprint,” Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association said in a statement. “We were expecting to see a much broader effort to truly transform public education for kids. Instead, the accountability system of this ‘blueprint’ still relies on standardized tests to identify winners and losers.”

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers said in a statement that she was “surprised and disappointed that the Obama administration proposed this as a starting point for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.”

“It appears from our first review that despite some promising rhetoric, this blueprint places 100 percent of the responsibility on teachers and gives them zero percent authority,” she said. “For a law affecting millions of schoolchildren and their teachers, it just doesn’t make sense to have teachers—and teachers alone—bear the responsibility for school and student success.”

Obama will submit on Monday to Congress a blueprint for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, while rolling back parts of the Bush-era No Child Left Behind Act that was built upon the EASA. Administration officials are pushing for reauthorizing the legislation this year with changes they say will emphasize college and career standards, reward schools for closing achievement gaps and encourage more nationalized standards.

Mike Allen contributed to this report.