Feldman: Fight over law could jeopardize Title I
 

Despite considerable problems posed by the nation’s largest federal aid program for elementary and secondary schools, a full-scale attack on it could jeopardize crucial resources for the nation’s most disadvantaged children, AFT president Sandra Feldman told participants at the opening session of the union’s biennial QuEST conference, held in Washington, D.C., in July.

The No Child Left Behind Act has generated controversy in states and school districts nationwide, Feldman said; the law has been described by some as the vehicle that will destroy public education and by others as much-needed medicine for an ailing public school system. The truth “lies somewhere in the middle,” Feldman pointed out, and this makes it particularly challenging for the AFT to define a constructive, thoughtful response that represents the concerns of members and the needs of students.

“If all we do is focus on the potential harm that can be done by the law, then we’ll be doing a disservice to our students, our profession, our union and to every individual teacher,” Feldman told the audience.

A central component of the law—Title I, and its provisions for accountability—has created the most anxiety, Feldman acknowledged. The law requires that all students—including such subgroups as racial minorities and special education students—post “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) toward proficiency in reading and math. Further, the formula for determining progress does not give adequate credit to schools that do make moderate progress, she charged, and will put large numbers of good schools on the “failing” list.

The AYP formula “staggers the imagination and maybe even human capacity,” and the AFT is already gathering evidence that the formula is flawed, Feldman reported.

This should not mean that the union declares war on NCLB, however. “We have to keep our eyes on the mark,” she cautioned. “When anxiety over Title I gets whipped up into a generalized, simplistic ‘down with the law’ mantra, it jeopardizes Title I.”

Meanwhile, the union will hold the Bush administration and Congress accountable for providing adequate federal resources and helping struggling states and localities that are reeling from serious budget deficits, she said.

The union will organize town meetings around the country this fall to document the impact that state budget cuts and lack of federal resources are having on schools and children.

The AFT president also made an impassioned plea that greater national attention be given to parental involvement, particularly for low-income families. Poor parents already are struggling to do the best for their children, she said, but “we need them to pay more attention to their kids.”

America needs quality child care, Head Start and preschool, “but kids still need their parents—at every age, but especially early on, when there are no schoolteachers there to help them,” she explained. This includes talking to the children, reading to them, and setting high academic and behavioral expectations.

The absence of parental involvement is not, as some cynics charge, an excuse by teachers, Feldman argued. “It’s a gaping hole in the education—the very character, lives and future—of children.”
 

Back to QuEST 2003
 Public Schools: The Right Choice

Copyright by the American Federation of Teachers, AFL•CIO. All rights reserved. Photographs
and illustrations, as well as text, cannot be used without permission from the AFT.