The Bells are Tolling: NCLB
By Camille Zombro, SDEA President and
Marc Capitelli, SDEA Vice President

You can hear them clearly now. They are so sad that the sound itself carries darkness and foreboding. No longer do you need to strain to catch them on the wind. Their long mournful sound cuts to the core of our soul. For whom do these bells toll? They toll to announce what will be... the death of our children's public education, the death of the foundation of our democracy, the promise of America shattered.

Your local union, SDEA, has stood to protect the children, and you, from this law that is so insidious in its title, "No Child Left Behind", that many were lulled to sleep. For seven years we said loudly and with great clarity that this law is so flawed that there is no fix. We said loudly and clearly that this law is so heinous that it is destroying public education. We said loudly and clearly that it would never be funded because our country's priorities no longer include those who cannot pay.

SDEA, with a few scattered organizations around the country, have been alerting the country that the "British are coming", but the alert from our act of Paul Revere has fallen silent in the night. We called for a national debate with all stakeholders about the future of public education and how to fund it with stable, sustainable income. Our affiliate unions did not want to hear our call, but now they do.

We have but a few seconds left on the clock to stand together and tell our congress that this law must not stand. The attempt to fix it by education committee chair Miller and our local education committee member Davis has become, not a fix, but a cruel addition that will snuff the life out of our schools.

The draft contains such benign sounding programs like "John Glenn Academies", "Math Success for All", "Achievement Through Technology" and dozens of other movie title names that disguise the truth. This proposed law does not fix the inherent problems of NCLB and does not fund it to ensure success. There is no let up in the use of test scores to evaluate schools.

Their fix in elementary schools is to allow a "growth model" to represent up to 15% of the evaluation while the remaining 85% remains the current method. The kicker is the 15% allowed for growth model is based on STANDARDIZED TESTING! One still measures success only on achieving "proficiency" not on growth.

The proposed law will enable the District to move you from school to school to achieve "experience" balance. This is a blatant attack on the collective bargaining rights we've fought to achieve for so many years.

It authorizes "battle pay" instead of eliminating the conditions that make schools "high need". Do you want more money to work in tough schools or the resources needed to serve the needs of your students? Every survey we know of says that YOU want the resources needed to serve your students, not more money for you to put up with dysfunctional schools.

Merit Pay is proposed for "exemplary, highly qualified" teachers and principals who agree to serve for four years in a "high-need" public school. The bill imposes a particular version of merit pay, placing a cap on what can be earned, and narrowly defines an "exemplary" teacher through student test scores and classroom observations conducted by a principal and a "master" teacher.

New requirements would mandate that states create data systems linking a unique teacher identifier to student records, including student scores on state-required tests. This is in opposition to CTA policy that precludes student academic outcomes being used as the basis for evaluation, sanction, pay, or promotion of unit members and must be vigorously opposed.

You Must Act

You must not sit on the sidelines. No "educators should stay out of politics" allowed. That thinking is what got us into the maelstrom of NCLB. Now is the time! Spend 15 minutes and stand up for our children, for public education, the future of our profession, and the future of our country.

Contact:
Congressman George Miller, Chair of the House Education and Labor Committee
Phone: (510) 262-6500 or (202) 225-2095
Email: George.Miller@mail.house.gov

Congresswoman Susan Davis, Member of the House Education and Labor Committee
Phone: (619) 280-5353 or (202) 225-2040
Email: susan.davis@mail.house.gov

Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives
Phone: (415) 556-4862 or (202) 225-4965
Email: sf.nancy@mail.house.gov

We are in the eye of Hurricane NCLB at the moment. It is seemingly calm, but we know that the trailing wall of this "perfect storm" is poised to obliterate the foundations of our country. If this passes, historians will look back on the fall of 2007 as the end of America's greatness and the period beginning our long downward spiral.

We are in the eleventh hour, the fifty-ninth minute with only a few ticks of the clock left. We have a mighty struggle that we must engage in without proper preparation. There is so little time left to resist that none of us can remain on the sidelines any longer. Our action is required now. We cannot ask, "for the whom the bell tolls" because we know it tolls for our children's public education and for our great country.

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Call, email, or write Camille at:
San Diego Education Association
10393 San Diego Mission Road, Suite 100
San Diego, California 92108

(619) 283-4411 zombro_c@sdea.net

Call, email, or write Marc at:
San Diego Education Association
10393 San Diego Mission Road, Suite 100
San Diego, California 92108

(858) 853-0612 cap@alum.calberkeley.org