Action Teachers, parents, scholars, and policy analysts have convened this roundtable in hopes of repealing the CURRENT authorization of the ESEA (No Child Left Behind Act). While we recognize that many individuals signed onto the legislation with the best of intentions, it is our hope that we can help them see the damage NCLB has done. While no one has yet leveled an effective, widespread challenge to the law, we are hopeful. We are hopeful that the thousands of disenfranchised educators, disillusioned parents, overburdened students and hyper-regulated school districts will work together to reclaim our free, public, and locally controlled schools. From there we can explore multiple paths of learning... Recognizing an American history rich with stories of oppressed groups working with others to change the conditions of their lives, we understand the power of concerted, coordinated, and unified opposition to injustice. Therefore, we call on teachers, students, parents, administrators, scholars, legislators, and other concerned citizens to join us in opposition to the individuals and organizations who have turned children into numbers and teachers into bureaucrats. While there are hundreds of organizations, and tens of thousands of people, working to end NCLB, our efforts are dispersed and ineffective. Our mission is to coordinate and focus multiple campaigns in order to make better use of ideas and resources. At the same time, we intend to increase citizen awareness about NCLB's disastrous effects on teaching, learning, equity, and democracy, inviting non-educators to join us in ending this legislation. In the public sphere, think tanks, institutes and foundations have used newspapers, television, radio and the internet to promote (1) the idea that widespread school failure threatens the survival of our country and (2) that this “failure” can only be remedied through strict accountability measures and privatization initiatives. At present their op-eds, talking points, distortions and lies go largely unchallenged. We seek to end their media dominance by providing financial and theoretical support for individuals and organizations wishing to publicly contest the reauthorization of NCLB. We understand that awareness is part of the problem, as most Americans have not paid due attention to education policy. It is our belief that an advertising campaign will help inform our friends and neighbors about the terrible impact NCLB is having on our schools and communities. At the same time we are positioning teachers, scholars, parents and other concerned citizens to pursue a coordinated public campaign to oppose reauthorization. This effort will involve letters to editors, columnists and legislators, a vigorous campaign to make journalists listen to teachers, web activism and, most importantly, teachers willing to meet in all fifty state capitals to deliver petitions. As we are part of a 501(c)(3), we cannot engage in lobbying. We can, however, speak with concerned citizens about the effects NCLB has had on our classrooms, our communities, and our country, and you can help us. read about how you can participate
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