Behind any problem lies a solution that’s simple, straightforward—and wrong. Nowhere does that adage apply more than the No Child Left Behind Act, where the thorny variety of problems, ranging from adequate yearly progress to provisions for highly qualifed teachers, can make it tempting to call for lawmakers simply to do away with the law.

This “blow it up” response to NCLB ignores a lot of history behind the law, however. It ignores the fact that NCLB is simply the most recent installment in the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which for 40 years has remained a lifeline for schools and districts serving the nation’s most disadvantaged communities.

This point is not lost on AFT members like Leon Shore, who began his teaching career in the Philadelphia public schools of the mid 1950s. Back then, the district was forced to make due with whatever funding it could scratch out from its weak local tax base and from state assistance—with predictable results. “We were teaching classes with 40 desks in a room, and four or five kids waiting outside in the hallway to see if we could get some extra chairs in the room,” remembers the math and computer science teacher, who retired from teaching several years ago.

Shore also recalls how hard he and other teachers fought through their unions to secure ESEA, which was watershed legislation passed in the Johnson administration that established a clear federal role and responsibility for helping high-needs schools provide true educational opportunity to their students (see “NCLB: It’s still a worthy ideal” on page 14). And Shore remembers how teachers and their unions fought to preserve and maintain this lifeline through the budget battles waged during much of the last half century.

It was worth the fight, the math teacher says.

“When ESEA began to reach the schools, you got the feeling that someone was starting to pay attention” to districts like Philadelphia, Shore recalls. Along with new equipment, schools and skill centers, “we started to have a lot of after-school activities and Saturday school for kids who probably would be doing nothing more than hanging out” without these new opportunities. And the money made a difference, he adds. “I remember many kids who went through my Saturday school class and stepped up [to more challenging courses] the next year.”

Leatrice R. Roberts, who began her teaching career in New Orleans in 1949, remembers how the infusion of money under ESEA helped break some of the remaining vestiges of neglect under the formerly segregated school system. The federal funding helped accelerate efforts to “end the days of having 45 kindergartners in one room,” she says. And Roberts, who is also a member of the AFT retiree committee,  points to the emergence of paraprofessionals as another lasting and valuable legacy of ESEA legislation. She clearly remembers how the introduction of classroom assistants  following the law’s enactment “allowed me to work much closer with small groups of students, particularly the ones who were struggling.”

This perspective should never be lost as the union fights aggressively to fix the problems tied to No Child Left Behind, AFT executive vice president Antonia Cortese told an audience this summer at the AFT QuEST conference.