Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for July 3, 2007 TEACHER COMEBACK?

'T' is for teachers - and 'terrorists'

By Elmer Smith

THREE years ago, President Bush's education secretary called the National Education Association a "terrorist organization."

He may have had a point.

The 3.2-million-member organization, - celebrating its 150th anniversary in Philadelphia, where it was founded - has the presidential candidates so terrorized they've all turned into apple-polishers.

Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Chris Dodd were first to take the podium yesterday at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where the NEA is convening.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden will bring their apples for the teachers on Thursday.

Any candidate left standing by next year, when the million-member American Federation of Teachers meets in Chicago, will show up there, too. By then, if you gathered a half-dozen teachers on your front lawn, you could expect a presidential candidate to show up.

After years of being castigated as part of the problem, after hearing Republican candidates and some Democrats pledge to start their education reforms by dissing teachers' unions, the tide has turned.

The political bashing of teachers' unions was the most successful misdirection move out of Washington since the Redskins offensive line gave us the "counter-trey."

If former Education Secretary Rod Paige could have come up with a more offensive line than his "terrorist organization" crack, he would have. It was just good politics. He once compared critics of the No Child Left Behind program to segregationists who stood in doorways to keep black children out of schools.

Three years later, Paige is out, No Child Left Behind in its present form is about to be out, and teachers' unions? Well, did I mention that the NEA and the AFT have about 4.5 million members between them?

Yesterday was Clinton's turn to be the teachers' pet. Her remarks were as predictable as a failing grade for a truant student. But she said what they needed to hear her say.

President Bush can't be allowed just "to check the education box by passing No Child Left Behind and check out by not funding it," she said.

Nice sound bite, especially since that is exactly what this administration has done. Not once since NCLB was passed in 2002 has the administration spent what Congress authorized. Bush hasn't even spent what he asked Congress to provide for NCLB.

Congress authorized $22.75 billion for the program last year. The president asked for only $13.3 billion. Pennsylvania received $497.8 million from that outlay. Congress had authorized $848.7 million.

With 279 Pennsylvania elementary schools struggling to meet the NCLB's Adequate Yearly Progress standard, the administration sends a mixed message by refusing to alter the standard while withholding $351 million this year that could help them make the grade.

Is it a complete failure? Far from it. As even a veteran Bush basher like Hillary Clinton told the NEA yesterday, some progress has been made.

But after five years of testing, No Child Left Behind is still long on diagnosis and short on therapy. Schools teach to test instead of learning from them.

"The test is becoming the curriculum when it should be the other way around," Clinton intoned. "How much creativity is being left behind? How much passion for learning is being left behind?"

As for me, I wonder how many children are being left behind by a culture that brands them as failures if they don't test well instead of devising lesson plans geared to their learning styles? How many schools will be written off as chronic failures instead of being fixed?

What could be more cynical than to come up with a program that shows where your child or his school is failing, then leaves money on the table that could provide tutors, after-school programs and alternatives through which he could get the help he needs?

Such questions are being asked in Congress this week as the reauthorization of NCLB is being debated in the think-tanks where candidates are building their platforms.

And in Philadelphia this week, where the largest organization of domestic terrorists in America is celebrating its 150th anniversary.

From the Boston.com website...

Democrats: No child law needs overhaul

By Nancy Zuckerbrod, Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA --They all voted for it, but that was then. Democratic presidential candidates came out swinging Monday, not at each other but at the No Child Left Behind law. They spoke at the annual convention of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union.

While the candidates received a warm response in the City of Brotherly Love, mere mention of President Bush's signature education law elicited loud hisses and boos from the thousands of teachers on hand.

The law, passed with broad Democratic support in 2001, requires public school students to be tested annually in reading and math in third- through eighth-grade and once in high school. It is up for renewal this year in Congress.

An NEA criticism of the law is that it forces teachers to spend too much time on test preparation instead of other forms of instruction, and many teachers wore buttons or stickers reading, "A child is more than a test score."

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., sported the sticker on his own lapel as he called for the law to be overhauled. "It's time that we get this law right," Dodd said, saying it needed higher funding levels, among other things.

Dodd and John Edwards, a former vice presidential candidate and North Carolina senator, both stressed that they have school-age children and therefore have personal as well as political insight into what's happening in the nation's schools.

"These tests do not tell us what we need to know about our children," Edwards said.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said she has heard stories about teachers shaping their lesson plans to ensure their students do well on the reading and math tests at the expense of other subjects.

"The test is becoming the curriculum when it should be the other way around," Clinton said.

Clinton's call for universal preschool for 4-year-olds and smaller class sizes won cheers, as did Edwards' comments about improving low-income students' access to college.

Edwards said stemming poverty, a theme he often talks about on the campaign trail, would be a top priority if he were elected president.

He announced he would try to push the minimum wage up to $9.50 an hour. President Bush recently signed a law increasing it from $5.15 to $7.25 over two years. But Edwards said that falls short.

"No one should work full time in the United States of America and live in poverty," he said.

Other Democratic candidates, including Sen. Barrack Obama, are slated to appear before the convention this week.

The only Republican candidate in the speakers' lineup is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

The NEA has only backed Democratic presidential candidates in the past. About 85 percent of the union's members end up voting for the union's recommended candidate in the general election.

In all, the union has 3.2 million members, including teachers and other school staff.

Earlier Monday, Clinton picked up the endorsement of the mayor of this heavily Democratic city.

Mayor John F. Street said Clinton is the best candidate "to restore this great country to its rightful place on the world stage."

The city, which is 45 percent black, is a Democratic stronghold in a swing state.

A quarter of Philadelphia residents live below the poverty line.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton gave a huge boost to Street's mayoral campaign in the closing days of a race that was too close to call. Street barely edged out Republican Sam Katz for the job.