Although prodded by their friends at the NEA and the AFT, Democrats are not inclined to dramatically overhaul No Child Left Behind.

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By Lisa Caruso, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Monday, Jan. 29, 2007

National Education Association President Reg Weaver, who has led the country's largest teachers union for more than four years, had never talked directly to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings until earlier this month. But on January 9, Spellings held an hour-long sit-down with officials from the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers to discuss reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law.

Asked why the Education secretary convened the meeting with the unions, Weaver replied, "November the 7th." He added, "I have never had a meeting or received an invitation from Secretary Spellings to have a conversation about anything."

AFT Executive Vice President Antonia Cortese, who also met face-to-face with Spellings for the first time on January 9, offered a similar assessment: "We all know the results of the election."

The two unions, which together represent 4.5 million education professionals, would be pivotal players in reauthorizing No Child Left Behind no matter which party was in power. But as two of the Democrats' most loyal, generous, and politically active allies, the NEA and the AFT have high expectations for their friends on Capitol Hill as Congress prepares to reauthorize the landmark five-year-old law, which expires this year.

"We're very optimistic that we are going from a 'Do-Nothing' Congress to a Congress that does something," Cortese said.

Although reauthorizing No Child Left Behind is by far both unions' top priority, they also want to win more money for Head Start, student loans, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, school modernization and construction, teacher training, and dropout prevention, among other programs. Also on their To Do list is reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

In the 2006 election cycle, the NEA's political action committee gave $1.8 million to candidates for federal office; Democrats received 89 percent of that amount and Republicans 11 percent, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The AFT's PAC donated more than $2 million, steering 99 percent of the money to Democrats and 1 percent to Republicans.

Both PACs contributed the maximum $10,000 to the re-election campaign of House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., while Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., received $5,200 from the NEA's PAC and $5,000 from the AFT.

The two unions sent hundreds of activists into the field to work on behalf of mostly Democratic candidates. Now the unions are mounting intensive grassroots campaigns to press for sweeping changes in No Child Left Behind. The law requires all public schools to teach children to read and write at grade level by 2014, and it uses standardized tests to hold accountable schools that fail to make progress toward that goal.

Although the NEA has been the more vocal and aggressive critic of the law, both unions consider it "fundamentally flawed" and advocate loosening its testing and accountability requirements and significantly boosting its funding levels. The NEA has called for using multiple benchmarks, not just test scores, to measure students' progress. Both groups advocate using "growth models" to track a student's progress over time and reward improvement as well as results -- but not to penalize schools or teachers. Other structural changes they are proposing include making it harder to designate schools as failing.

But for all the money and organizing muscle the teachers unions contributed to the Democrats' win, and for all the resources and energy they are pouring into lobbying Congress, the unions are likely to be disappointed in their drive to dramatically overhaul No Child Left Behind, education policy experts say.

Because of the law's complexity, the lack of consensus in both parties, and the looming 2008 presidential contest, most observers don't even expect No Child Left Behind to be reauthorized before 2009. But the unions and Congress intend to start laying the groundwork this year.

In contrast with the teachers unions, Miller and Kennedy have said repeatedly that the law needs only to be improved. And the Bush administration believes, as Spellings told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on No Child Left Behind's five-year anniversary on January 8, that "the core principles are as sound and as righteous as they were five years ago and we must build on them."

The unions are "being unrealistic, in the sense that they're thinking, 'This is our chance, we've got to do it now,'" said Mike Antonucci, director of the Education Intelligence Agency, a private education and labor research firm and watchdog group that monitors the teachers unions. "They've both published a wish list and are both looking at this like contract negotiations. I don't think they expect that they're going to get everything they're asking for."

The unions' position, noted Andrew Rotherham,, co-director of the independent education think tank Education Sector, "is a controversial position and not uniformly embraced by the Democratic Caucus in either chamber."

The NEA, the AFT, and Democratic leaders do agree on the need to significantly boost education spending. They charge that the Bush administration has shortchanged the law by $55 million over the last five years. But union leaders stressed that they aren't interested in throwing more money at No Child Left Behind without significantly reworking the act. "What we won't accept is that we get resources without any changes," the AFT's Cortese said.

Yet Miller and Kennedy have largely confined their criticism of the law to the funding shortfall. As the ranking members of their respective committees in 2001, Miller and Kennedy were instrumental in writing No Child Left Behind and working with President Bush to see it enacted. Both chairmen remain its strongest Democratic backers in Congress.

Kennedy's detailed proposal for "strengthening" the law would not change No Child Left Behind's requirements that students make "adequate yearly progress" and that schools be held accountable when students fail to do so. He also would not touch its requirements for public school choice and for private tutoring for students in failing schools. Nor would Kennedy change the mandate that students have a "highly qualified teacher."

Miller has not laid out his own proposals on the law but has said, "There's a very strong commitment to the basic fundamental integrity of this legislation and our obligation to close the achievement gap in this country."

The chairmen and the unions agree on some role for "growth models" that gauge student progress, and they concur on the need for special testing for disabled students and students still learning English. All advocate creating financial incentives to ensure that children are taught by highly qualified teachers.

Both Weaver and Cortese emphasized their areas of convergence with Kennedy and Miller and other education leaders in Congress. "There will be a chorus of people that will be singing from the same hymnal as relates to highly qualified teachers, some kind of growth model, and funding," Weaver said, "as well as something that speaks to special-needs students and non-English-speakers."

The two unions don't entirely agree on how to rewrite No Child Left Behind, although education experts say that they differ more over tactics than over strategic goals. The NEA has pursued several court challenges to the law, and since 2004 has led a coalition of 100 education, civil-rights, religious, and disability groups pushing for extensive alterations to it.

Education experts consider the NEA less willing to compromise than the AFT, which has stressed its desire to be a "constructive partner" in working with Congress and the administration and is not a member of the NEA-led coalition, the Forum on Educational Accountability.

Despite their differences, "I think you're going to find them working together as much as they can," said Jack Jennings, president of the Center on Education Policy, an independent education think tank. "On funding, they will be as one."

Although unions are unlikely to win any fundamental changes to No Child Left Behind, they need the Democrats just as much as Democrats need them, said Antonucci, a critic of the unions. "Democrats don't want to be seen as tools of the teachers unions, but they need the unions, not so much for the money but for the foot soldiers, he said. "And the unions need the Democrats because only the Democrats will enact their agenda."

Teachers Unions Key Players: National Education Association; American Federation of Teachers On the Front Burner: Overhaul and fully fund No Child Left Behind; secure more money for education programs; reauthorize the Higher Education Act Sleeper Issues: Require states to create a "learning environment index" to measure conditions that contribute to student achievement; offer grants to states to develop common standards, curricula, and assessments -- Lisa Caruso

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