The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, whose most recent 2002 reauthorization is called the No Child Left Behind Act, was due for reauthorization in 2007. Congress has not addressed this important piece of legislation. An overhaul of this law is needed when Congress reauthorizes ESEA. Ask Congress to:
- recognize that it is unfair and immoral to demand equal outcomes on standardized tests without equalizing the resources at federal and state levels that create the opportunity for children to learn;
- address with resources the generational educational debt of poverty and segregation;
- improve the most vulnerable public schools and turn away from blaming teachers and punishing the schools that serve poor children;
- develop the unique gifts of each child, created in the image of God, rather than worshiping standardization;
- test children only in ways that improve instruction, measure real performance, and encourage exploration, imagination, and critical thinking;
- set a visionary and at the same time workable school improvement time line to replace the utopian 2014 deadline;
- address economic and social issues outside the school day that impair learning.
Take Action
Become an endorser of the Broader, BOLDER Approach to Education, a statement released early in 2008 by over sixty prominent leaders from many areas of American life, including Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches. Distribute a bulletin insert about the four goals of the Broader, BOLDER Approach to Education at your church. This group advocates that Congress address comprehensively the issues that impair learning for children in poverty: improve public schools, guarantee health care, guarantee early childhood education, and provide enrichments that middle class children take for granted.
Important UCC Justice and Witness Ministries Resources Address Reauthorization
This year's 2010 Message on Public Education explores the politically charged issue of immigration as it affects public schools and children who are new to our country, their communities, and their schools. NCLB contains major problems for English Language learners. (We hope you will share with us how you used this resource.) If you would like additional printed copies for discussion in your congregation, please contact Jan Resseger (216-736-3711) or ressegerj@ucc.org.
The 2009 Message on Public Education, lifts up the importance of schools to form each whole child, created in the image of God, in contrast to the test-and-punish philosophy of the federal education law, No Child Left Behind, that has dangerously narrowed the curriculum in schools serving America's poorest children. If you would like additional printed copies for discussion in your congregation, please contact Jan Resseger (216-736-3711) or ressegerj@ucc.org.
Our Partners
The National Council of Churches Committee on Public Education and Literacy
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Speakers at the Committee's national conference on March 13, 2009, Transforming No Child Left Behind , urged participants to address the opportunity to learn and to speak for education that addresses the needs of the whole child, not standardization.
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The NCC Committee has prepared a faith-based study guide for discussion of Linda Perlstein's excellent expose of NCLB's test-and-punish strategy.
The Schott Foundation for Public Education's Opportunity to Learn Campaign is bringing together a diverse group of partners to call on Congress to address disparities in Opportunity to Learn when Congress reauthorizes the federal education law. Although the No Child Left Behind Act has documented serious achievement gaps through comparison of standardized test scores, the federal education law has been largely silent about alarming resource inequity across states, within states, and even within school districts. State school finance systems, still heavily reliant on local property taxes, only magnify disparities in family resources in an America where some children live in pockets of concentrated poverty and others in pockets of concentrated affluence.
The Forum on Educational Accountability is a an alliance of national organizations including the UCC Justice and Witness Ministries, growing from signers of the Joint Organizational Statement on the No Child Left Behind Act, a sign-on begun in 2004, now endorsed by 151 national organizations. The group recently created Empowering Schools and Improving Learning, a comprehensive 2009 blueprint for overhauling the federal education law, currently called No Child Left Behind. Over 80 national organizations have signed on this plan for improving the federal education law when the law comes up for reauthorization.
Rethink Learning Now is a national grassroots effort including the United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries, to restore the focus of public education reform to its rightful place—on learning, and on the core conditions that best support it.
