Reply #11: Here's the NEA's current position. [View All]

http://www.nea.org/esea/eseaamend.html

As a long-term member and dues payer, I feel justified in saying I don't know any teachers who feel the love flowing from the NEA out here in the trenches. My district employs close to 800 teachers; there are about 2000 total in my area.

Even so, we can applaud them for lifting their head and noticing that there might be a few little problems with NCLB, 2 years late and billions of $$$ short.

Now, I'm generally considered to be competent in my district. My test scores are as good or better than the rest of the district, I'm fully qualifies with a few extra specialization certifications, I mentor beginning teachers, write curriculum, serve on a couple of district committees, and have one of the best attendance records in the district...for 20 years. My parents return their kids to me year after year and line up to lobby to get their kids into my room. My boss assigns many of the most difficult kids to my class, because he knows I will fight for them and support their efforts every step of the way. The last 2 years I've been a "demonstration classroom," and have had teachers from my local area, my state, and other states as well as school board members come in to see what was going on, and go out talking about how impressed they were by what they were seeing. And guess what? NCLB has not offered me an iota of support in my efforts. It has imposed restrictions and some "one-size-fits-all" programs that impede the great things we're doing in the room. In complying with mandate after mandate, the joy has gone out of the learning. Kids aren't excited about showing up, and meeting the demands can be a chore. Teachers who used to love their jobs and do their best to make a difference with every kid are now complying, and they dread the school day, too. It has raised the level of stress on our campus to the point that principals scream at everyone and kids cry during testing periods. And I spend more and more valuable instructional time testing instead of teaching every year. All those extra tests are part of the mandated "improvement plan" implemented when you reach a test score plateau.

So, if we the teachers don't give the NEA enough credit to suit, I won't apologize. We need the general public to stand up and fight, because public ed is going down. It doesn't matter what great things are written into NCLB; the bottom line is that the testing portion is fraudulent, it is intended to label schools "failing" to drum up more support for vouchers and privatization.

I'd invite you to come on down to my classroom; spend a few days there and see what NCLB is really doing for our schools and our kids.