A majority of delegates from the National Education Association (NEA) has approved a plan designed to increase lobbying efforts with the U.S. Congress to reform the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). NEA also has spent more than $8 million paying groups to conduct research and garnering political opposition to the law.

While NEA contends it agrees with NCLB's goals of improving school standards and employing skilled public school teachers, it feels implementation of the law, which focuses on student test scores and punishing schools for failure to meet standards, is flawed. NEA believes focusing on stringent test scores undermines public education and argues that success should be based on a series of benchmarks that reflect the differing abilities and demographics of public school students.

See: http://www.nea.org/newsreleases/2006/nr060704b.html

Published Wednesday, Jul. 19, 2006