NALC Food Drive

 Garners 70.5m Lbs.

WASHINGTON (PAI)—The Letter Carriers’ annual food drive garnered almost 70.5 

million pounds of food for the poor this year, union President William Young 

said. It was the third straight year that donations passed the 70-million pound 

mark.

“Once again the American people have come through with an amazing display of 

generosity,” Young said. “Hunger is a critical day-to-day issue for far too many 

families in our nation–including working Americans, children and the elderly–and 

Letter Carriers are proud to deliver donations from our customers to restock 

their community food banks and pantries.”

NEA To Lobby For Comprehensive Rewrite Of ‘Failing’ Bush School Law

ORLANDO, Fla. (PAI)—Saying its members believe GOP George W. Bush’s school law, 

the 5-year-old No Child Left Behind Act, gets “a failing grade,” the nation’s 

largest union voted to lobby for a comprehensive rewrite of the statute next 

year.

The 9,000 delegates to the National Education Association convention, in 

Orlando, voted July 5 for a set of principles that the 2.8-million-member union 

will follow when its members contact Congress about NCLB. The law expires in 

2007.

“We have lived with the negative consequences of a fundamentally flawed law for 

almost five years and now our members are saying it’s time for a change,” NEA 

President Reg Weaver declared.

The principles, developed by a special union committee for the past year, demand 

an increase in federal funds promised under the law and a decrease in the number 

of children per classroom in U.S. schools.

They also demand that student performance be measured by a variety of methods, 

not just “the sole reliance on standardized testing” that Bush’s law demands. 

And in a mark of immense dissatisfaction with Bush’s law, one resolution from 

the floor said all references to federal education law should call it the “LBJ 

Elementary and Secondary Education Act”—the original name of the federal law and 

the original president who pushed it through Congress in 1965. That omits Bush. 

NEA is the first of the nation’s two big teachers’ unions to debate the NCLB 

this year. The other, the 1.3-million-member American Federation of Teachers, 

will have NCLB on the agenda of its convention, July 20-23 in Boston, after 

releasing a report examining the quality of math, reading and science standards 

in each state and whether tests “are aligned to strong content standards.

Bush pushed his law through Congress with bipartisan support in 2001. It 

mandated testing of all students frequently during their K-12 years and ordered 

states to set rigid and rising student achievement and teacher and staff 

qualification standards.

It also said the tests would be the sole measure of achievement, and said that 

schools that fail would have their federal education aid funds yanked—with money 

promised to private schools and voucher systems. It also promised more federal 

funds to help the schools, but Bush has not followed through on that. 

NEA and several of its local affiliates, plus eight school boards, sued in 

federal court in Michigan to void the law, but lost. AFT preferred to work with 

Bush Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to improve and rationalize the law’s 

administration. 

“The NEA framework for ESEA reauthorization” says the revised federal education 

law not only needs more funding, but should be based on:

* “Quality programs and services that meet the full range of all children’s 

needs so they come to school every day ready and able to learn.”

* “High expectations and standards with a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum 

for all students.”

* Quality teaching and learning conditions, with a “qualified, caring, diverse, 

and stable workforce.”

* Shared responsibility for school accountability, prominently including 

“parental and community involvement and engagement.”

NCLB fails, a survey of NEA members added. Union members said it has not 

improved public education because of lack of money, its punitive nature—Right 

Wingers pushing the law openly hoped public schools would flunk and funds would 

be yanked—and sole reliance on standardized testing to measure student 

achievement.  

Forty-nine percent of NEA members strongly disapproved of NCLB and another 20 

percent disapproved, the survey said. Its approval percentage has deteriorated 

by 11 percentage points in three years, to 29 percent. More than half (57 

percent) said it needs a major rewrite, 21 percent back minor changes and 17 

percent want to dump it. Only 4 percent would keep it. 

“If NCLB was a standardized test, our members would give it a failing grade,” 

said Weaver, a middle school teacher. “And using the same Adequate Yearly 

Progress model that the law mandates, NCLB would be subject to restructuring.”

In a resolution from the floor, California delegate Carol Clarke urged NEA to 

declare “NCLB undermines existing state and school district structures and 

authorities.” 

Her resolution said Bush’s law ”shifts public dollars to the private sector” and 

its “’one size fits all’ testing for measuring student achievement and success 

harms students, destroys their motivation to learn and threatens their future.” 

She urged NEA to “publish materials concerning the negative consequences of NCLB 

and promoting positive and alternatives.” Clarke added that “teachers know first 

hand the Draconian measures of NCLB which undermine successful schools. NEA must