The House Education and Labor Committee invited more than 40 people to speak at today’s hearing on their draft bill to reauthorize NCLB.
But today’s most important NCLB statement may be on this Web page. In it, the California Teachers Association says:
“NCLB is again now up for reauthorization. And the proposal by California Congressman George Miller and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi does nothing to improve the law. California teachers are calling on Congress to vote NO on the Miller/Pelosi NCLB reauthorization plan.”
The CTA doesn’t like many proposals in the drafts (see here, here, and here) issued by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, R-Calif. They oppose the experiments with pay-for-performance, merit pay, and other things they say would violate their collective bargaining rights, Dean E. Vogel, CTA’s vice president, told me in the hall outside of House hearing room. Vogel led a contingent of six CTA members to lobby against the bill. “We’re ready in California to go to war,” Vogel told me.
I have three points to make here, all political:
1.) CTA, traditionally an ally of Democrats, is taking on the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic chairman of the House education committee. That doesn’t happen very often.
2.) Speaker Pelosi, Rep. Miller, and Rep. McKeon are all from California. That makes it the most important state in the debate in the House.
3.) To promote it’s campaign, CTA took out a premium ad on the Daily Kos. The union is clearly trying to drum up opposition to NCLB among the Netroots Democrats.
Bonus link:
Here’s the CTA press release given out at a press conference in Burlingame, Calif. In it, CTA president David A. Sanchez said: “Unfortunately, the Miller/Pelosi reauthorization plan would only make the law worse.”
