General News
NCLB reauthorization ‘delayed’ until next administration
Nov 15, 2007 11:41 AM
“I have some very good news: No Child Left Behind reauthorization is delayed for this session of Congress,” UFT President Randi Weingarten announced at the Nov. 7 Delegate Assembly.
The AFT’s effort to “mend it — not end it,” along with opposition from the National Education Association, had chipped away at support for House Education Committee Chair George Miller’s reauthorization bill, which in many ways made NCLB worse by requiring districts to have a performance pay plan that awarded individual teachers for their students’ test scores.
Meanwhile, President Bush was unwilling to make the changes necessary to fix NCLB.
“The cure was certainly worse than the disease and that was cut off,” said Weingarten.
No formal reauthorization legislation will be introduced this session, Weingarten told delegates. NCLB, the successor to Title I, provides significant funds to schools with students who are poor. The Bush administration — with bipartisan support — changed Title I in 2001 to include standardized testing systems as a key condition for whether states would get federal funds. As a result, NCLB has become viewed as a testing — not learning — strategy.
Weingarten said that there were a lot of factors behind the delay, but one of the tide-turners was the city’s agreement with the UFT to launch a novel schoolwide bonus pilot. When Mayor Bloomberg walked away from individual merit pay that led others to do likewise.
Even without Congressional action, NCLB remains in effect, said Weingarten, and that “probably means that NCLB reauthorization is now going to be delayed until the next president of the United States” is in office.
Weingarten said the UFT will have to be involved in the 2008 elections.
“I don’t know how to emphasize the direct correlation between the next presidential election and NCLB,” she said. “If Rudy Giuliani is president, you can imagine what will happen with NCLB.”
As she spoke, delegates filled out 2008 election volunteer forms, which will be distributed shortly to all members at chapter meetings.
Turning to 55/25, Weingarten said that the union and city have been working on a draft of the state legislation and expected to complete it by the next day (Nov. 8). By law, the state Legislature must approve the pension enhancement.
“Our goal, if the Legislature comes back between now and the end of the year, is to get it done then and not wait until the 2008 legislative session,” she said.
Home child care providers welcomed
other resolutions
Following the big victory in which 28,000 home child care providers voted overwhelmingly to join the UFT, Michelle Bodden, UFT vice president for elementary schools and a key leader of the organizing drive, said the new members were “thrilled about joining.” She motivated a resolution putting the union on record thanking members who took part in the campaign, welcoming this fresh wave of UFTers and pledging that “the UFT begin work immediately to secure a contract for our newest members.” The resolution passed unanimously.
Retiree Chapter Chair Tom Pappas argued in support of a resolution to “Stop the Privatization of Medicare.” He said the private health plans misnamed as “Medicare Advantage Plus” were “no advantage to senior citizens and consumers but only to the insurance industry.” He called it “the latest scheme of the bad guys to whittle away at Medicare until it disappears” and knocked the notion that the private plans offered any real competition.
“If private industry can do it, why does it cost 19 percent more,” Pappas asked about overpayments to the private plans even as Medicare funding was being cut.
District 6 Representative Martin Plotkin motivated a resolution that called on the UFT to make a humanitarian effort to help the people hurt by Tropical Storm Noel, which dumped up to 20 inches of rain on the Dominican Republic and Haiti in late October. The storm’s 50-mph winds left in its wake some 3,000 homes destroyed, 12,000 people homeless, and scores dead. Towns were isolated, schools were flooded and power and communication across the island of Hispaniola were disrupted.
The resolution asks school-based members to help the storm’s victims by contributing to the UFT Disaster Relief Fund. The resolution passed unanimously after Plotkin, whose Upper Manhattan district educates predominantly Dominican students, urged that every UFTer give generously.
UFT members wishing to donate should send checks payable to the UFT Disaster Relief Fund with a notation that the money should be earmarked for Dominican/Haitian relief and send them to the UFT, c/o Jeff Zahler, 52 Broadway, New York, NY 10004.
A resolution from the floor that its supporters hoped to put on the December DA’s agenda called on the union to establish a citywide committee that would “organize actions against racism.” The effort failed after opponents noted that the resolution’s call for a new committee was redundant. Critics said it would duplicate the work of the Social and Economic Justice Committee.
While the resolution failed to get on the December meeting calendar, Weingarten pledged that she would ask that the Social and Economic Justice Committee immediately take up this issue.
