NCLB takes center stage at AFT policy council meeting
Union leaders discuss concerns about AYP, other provisions

Problems with the No Child Left Behind Act and members’ frustration with the federal law were the focus of much attention at the AFT Teachers program and policy council’s January meeting in Washington, D.C.

Following small-group sessions on NCLB’s adequate yearly progress, supplemental services and highly qualified teachers provisions, PPC members discussed how the AFT can help locals and members grapple with the law’s shortcomings. PPC members were particularly concerned about NCLB’s reliance on testing and the fact that the law fails to give schools and teachers credit for student progress. The PPC recommends that the national office develop talking points that local leaders can use to discuss these and other NCLB-related topics with members and the community. (Other AFT resources on NCLB are  posted online at www.aft.org.)

On the subject of supplemental educational services and who should provide them, PPC members said local unions and their members were uniquely qualified to provide tutoring and other education services called for under the law. It was noted, however, that an evaluation system should be put in place to determine the effectiveness of these services—regardless of who provides them.

AFT executive vice president Antonia Cortese, who chairs the union’s NCLB task force, told PPC members that the task force will take up their concerns. Created in October 2004 by the AFT executive council, the task force will focus on the union’s agenda for the next reauthorization of NCLB and help the union respond to various proposals to address problems with the current law.

In addition, a resolution adopted by delegates to the AFT convention in July 2004 provides a framework on which the union and the task force can build. An AFT policy brief, “NCLB: Its Problems, Its Promise,” which details some of the major challenges that helped shape the resolution can be found at www.aft.org/pubs-reports/downloads/
teachers/PolicyBrief18.pdf.

Chicago preserves public school tutoring

Faced with sanctions under the No Child Left Behind Act that federal officials say bar the district from running the program with NCLB funds, Chicago and the state of Illinois will reach into their own pockets to provide tutoring programs for 40,000 students.

The district announced its decision to continue to offer public school tutoring in late January, ending a threatened legal standoff between Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the federal government. NCLB mandates that Chicago and other districts that fail to meet adequate yearly progress must offer tutoring through vendors outside the public schools if they wish to provide those services using NCLB funding, the U.S. Education Department says. In December, the Education Department demanded that Chicago stop offering tutoring through CPS because the district failed to reach adequate yearly progress (AYP) for two consecutive years. Former U.S. undersecretary of education Eugene Hickok told the Chicago Tribune that continued federal assistance under NCLB for the district’s tutoring services would amount to rewarding the district “because it didn’t get it right the first time.”

The federal agency’s stand provoked anger across the city. Shutting down public school tutoring would mean that Chicago would be able to offer services to far fewer students; the district’s program costs $400 per student for 80 hours of assistance through certified staff compared to $800 to $1,500 charged by private tutors who may or may not have certification, the Chicago Sun-Times notes.

Keeping services in the school system won’t come cheap. The Illinois Board of Education has agreed to give the district a $1 million grant to keep tutoring afloat, but the district must still find an additional $5 million by year’s end.