NEA State Leaders Lobby Senators on NCLB Changes

By Alain Jehlen With letters and phone calls pouring in from educators around the country and visits from 15 NEA state affiliate leaders, a key Senate committee this week began consideration of a bipartisan bill to change No Child Left Behind (NCLB). However, the debate stalled after less than two hours on Tuesday when Sen. Rand [...]

NEA Members Win NBC ‘Education Nation’ Essay Contest

By Alain Jehlen A reality show about the life of a kindergarten teacher? Why not? It’s as tough a job as they come. No major network has yet committed to the series, but California kindergarten teacher and NEA member Patricia Raina did win an NBC essay contest with the idea, and she’ll be heading east to take [...]

NCLB Gets Curiouser and Curiouser

By Alain Jehlen Eighty-nine percent of Florida’s schools are subpar according to No Child Left Behind. But there’s a way thousands of Florida students can quickly become “proficient”: move to another state. These are just a few of the recent signs that Alice in Wonderland has come to America’s public schools as the 2014 deadline [...]

Leadership In a Small Town

By Alain Jehlen Before Sam Phillips started fighting for grown-ups, he fought for students. Phillips is an American Indian and a utility maintenance employee in the Potter Valley Community Unified School District, a rural K-12 district with fewer than 300 students 130 miles north of San Francisco. His own daughter had disabilities and he felt [...]

Is Increasing Class Size a Good Way To Save School Dollars?

By Alain Jehlen Does it matter to kids if more students are added to their classes? This question is the subject of important debates across the country as politicians look for ways to close giant budget gaps caused by the faltering economy. A recent Brookings Institute report by Grover Whitehurst and Matthew Chingos pointed to [...]

Education Groups Call for Relief from NCLB Mandates

By Alain Jehlen Three national education organizations, including the National Education Association (NEA), petitioned the Department of Education this week to use its regulatory powers to stop further harm to the nation’s public schools due to the so-called “No Child Left Behind” (NCLB) law. The law is overdue for revision and there is a growing [...]

Beware Pro-Charter School “Parent” Groups

By Alain Jehlen Parents are among the strongest supporters of public education. So attacks by groups claiming to represent parents are particularly painful for public educators. After all, nobody becomes a parent or an educator in order to get rich. But sometimes a group that claims to represent parents actually has anti-public school activists in [...]

New Teachers Struggle in Hostile Political Climate

By Alain Jehlen The continuing attacks on educators and school funding are hurting not just today’s schools, but tomorrow’s as well: Fewer people want to teach. At least, that’s true in California, according to the Los Angeles Times, which recently reported the number of teaching credentials issued by the state dropped 29 percent over the [...]

Florida’s Testing Success: An Inflated Reputation?

By Alain Jehlen The American public has been overrun with inspiring stories of miracle cures for education ills that don’t involve a lot of money, time, or educator input—and turn out to be mirages. Florida under Jeb Bush is no exception. The former governor has recently emerged in the media as an education reform leader, thanks [...]

Teacher Tenure Under Fire: “I Couldn’t Believe It Happened to Me”

By Alain Jehlen Most teachers are likely to go through their entire career without being unfairly targeted for dismissal by administrators. But that shouldn’t be left to chance. For example, what if this happened to you? You’re a high school teacher. You work out with your students a rubric for grading a small-group project. One [...]

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