We wish it weren’t true, but public education is all about politics, As education remains one of the top issues for California voters, every elected official wants to tout his or her own plan for reform.
Our local school board decides what books will be used in our classrooms and approves our salary schedules. The state sets standards for student learning and establishes our testing and accountability system. The Legislature and the Governor also decide how much money will go to each school each year. And, we probably don’t have to remind you that it was the Federal government, led by President Bush that brought us the No Child Left Behind Act.
It seems everything our elected leaders do impacts our schools and our professional lives. That’s why it’s important that we let our voices — the voices of classroom teachers — be heard on November 2nd.
Through a very rigorous and democratic recommendation process, CTA is recommending John Kerry for President.
This November teachers have a chance to make a choice as to the kind of president we want leading the fight for quality public schools. George Bush’s record on public education speaks for itself, and it does not speak very well. His failed education policies and broken promises to our children have made teaching and learning more difficult. Rather than helping our schools, he has placed additional and unnecessary burdens on all of us, burdens that do nothing to improve our schools.
No Child Left Behind. It certainly is a nice phrase, but that’s all it’s been for president Bush. He has shortchanged his own law by more than $9.4 billion this year, for a total of $24 billion less than what he promised over the past three years.
Teachers want a president who wants to fix NCLB and then fully fund its mandates. Instead, President Bush and Education Secretary Rod Paige, give us a mandate to certify all teachers as highly qualified (a credential redundancy we don’t need) and they give our District no money to implement this new bureaucracy.
Teachers want a president who supports multiple assessments and measures to determine a school’s success, not one who will judge, label, and sometimes punish schools based on the results of a couple of standardized tests.