The AFT has joined five of the nation's other top education groups in releasing a joint statement stating their intention to work together to push Congress for significant changes to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

The joint statement emphasizes that "the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) is an opportunity for a refocused national discussion about public education that offers members of Congress the opportunity to elevate this dialogue, to be bold, and to embrace not only the call for equity in American education but the demand for innovation as well."

The other groups that have signed on to the joint statement are the American Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Education Association and the National School Boards Association. (The groups also issued a joint news release.)

"Although each of the organizations has developed and proposed specific recommendations to address our reauthorization priorities," AFT president Edward J. McElroy says, "we have reached consensus that changes need to be made in the following areas: accountability, assessments, improved assessments for English language learners and students with disabilities, school improvement, and educator quality and professional development."

Members of the AFT staff, together with staff from each of the other education organizations, were on Capitol Hill on May 18 to attend a bipartisan briefing for key staff from the House Education and Labor Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Other Hill briefings will be held in the near future.

These actions, in addition to AFT state and local affiliates' work on programs such as ACE (Activists for Congressional Education), reflect the union's ongoing commitment to inform lawmakers about the need to listen to frontline educators as they weigh changes to the law in 2007, McElroy says.

"In addition to the work we are doing jointly with the five organizations regarding the points on which we all agree," he adds, "the AFT, of course, is continuing to lobby for all of our own recommendations."

May 18, 2007