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Tell Congress to reject the
'Highly Qualified Effective Teacher' Mandate

The Aspen Institute's NCLB Commission issued its report proposing changes to the so-called No Child Left Behind Act. The Commission has spent the past year gathering information about NCLB and preparing a detailed series of recommendations for changes to the law.

While the Commission’s report makes some positive recommendations in areas such as using growth models in the NCLB accountability system,

unfortunately, many of the commission’s proposals are ill-conceived, and one in particular represents A SLAP AT EVERY TEACHER WHO HAS ALREADY ACHIEVED HIGHLY QUALIFIED STATUS UNDER NCLB.

The Commission would add on top of the current requirements a new Highly Qualified Effective Teacher” (HQET) requirement. This new mandate would apply to all reading, math, and science teachers. It would define and rank teachers based on student test scores and a principal’s evaluation. It is only a matter of time before this could be imposed on all teachers!

Teachers in each state would be ranked and those in the top 75 percent each year would be considered a "highly qualified effective teacher.” Those who do not meet this HQET requirement would have three additional years to meet the mandate and would also receive individualized professional development. If they continue to not meet this mandate, their principal would send a letter to their students' parents informing them their child’s teacher was not effective. If after two more years they still do not meet this mandate, they would not be allowed to teach in a Title I school.

We all know one test on one day doesn’t measure student learning and it certainly shouldn’t be used to grade teachers. These are just more meaningless hoops to jump through and set teachers up for failure!

For a summary of the Aspen proposal, NEA’s five reasons to oppose it, and our policies to improve teacher quality, please go to: http://www.nea.org/lac/index.html

Together we can stop these dangerous plans and instead convince
Congress to provide teachers with the tools and resources they need
to be successful. Here are two things you can do to help us stop this madness:

1. Immediately email your members of Congress (both your Representative and two U.S. Senators) and tell them to reject the NCLB Commission’s ill-conceived “highly qualified effective teacher” mandate. Ask them instead to support NEA’s Positive Agenda for ESEA Reauthorization. Go to our Legislative Action Center to send your email messages and for additional information on the HQET proposal.

2. Work with your state and local associations to organize for the ESEA Reauthorization and advance our Positive Agenda by contributing to the
NEA Fund for Children and Public Education.

Collectively, the 3.2 million members of NEA can make a difference! Together we can reach our goal of ensuring that every child has a great public school. Thanks for your help. If you have any questions, please email eseainfo@nea.org