As legislation to renew Title I and the rest of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) begins to move through the U.S. Congress, the AFT and its allies have already won some important legislative battles.

For many months now, the role of instructional paraprofessionals in Title I has been under intense scrutiny and attack, to the point where there were legitimate fears that paras might be banned from providing any sort of instruction in Title I programs. Fortunately, the worst of the anti-paraprofessional proposals seem dead for now, thanks in no small part to lobbying by AFT and other education groups, as well as AFT locals and individual paraprofessionals around the country.

"When we started out, we felt doomed," says Lorretta Johnson, chair of the AFT's PSRP program and policy council and an AFT vice president. "It was a heavy, heavy battle." Efforts to educate members of Congress about paraprofessionals included phone calls, postcard campaigns, hundreds of letters and invitations to key members of Congress to visit local schools and see the value of Title I.

Now, the main issue concerning paras being discussed by the education committees in Congress has turned to qualifications for the job. And here, too, the AFT has helped improve what were some misguided and potentially very damaging proposals. In its proposal for Title I, for example, the Clinton administration had called for a requirement that all paras working with children in the classroom have at least two years of college education. While that might sound good to outsiders, accumulating a certain number of college credits has almost nothing to do with whether a person is qualified to work as a para or will do a good job in the classroom. Moreover, for people working full time--and not being paid very well, in many instances--and also raising children, as many of them do, a requirement to return to college was unrealistic.

Leaders of the AFT and four other unions that represent classroom paras sent a letter to members of the education committees in the House and Senate outlining their concerns with the two-year college requirement. "We are very concerned with proposals that would set arbitrary standards for educational achievement by Title I paraprofessionals working in the classroom," AFT president Sandra Feldman and the other union leaders wrote.

As the AFT has long argued, a much better approach would be to set standards for what paraprofessionals should know and be able to do--minimum entry standards as well as more advanced standards paras should be expected to meet after some time on the job and participation in appropriate professional development. Working with House staff, the education groups helped write language that significantly improved the legislation's provisions in this area. In the version the House passed in October--in a rare piece of cooperation this session between Democrats and Republicans--the legislation includes three options designed to ensure that paraprofessionals have the knowledge and skills they need:

• two years of college;
• an associate's degree in a field related to their work; or
• proof they have met rigorous standards of quality, through a formal assessment that shows they have the knowledge and ability to assist with instruction in reading, writing and math.

The third option will give local school districts a lot of flexibility in how they screen and hire paras. The AFT will be working with its affiliates to establish meaningful certification systems. The legislation also says that new hires have one year to meet the requirements, while giving current Title I paras three years to do so.

Responding to criticisms that some Title I paraprofessionals have actually been teaching students--a clear violation of the law--the AFT has been working with lawmakers to close loopholes that allow school districts to use paras inappropriately.