WHEREAS, efforts to radically reform the No Child Left Behind Act (the failed reiteration of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act), were unsuccessful; and

WHEREAS, teachers and other personnel, especially in low-income urban and rural school districts, are being unduly criticized and blamed when schools do not make so-called "adequate yearly progress"; and

WHEREAS, AFT members are rightly angry and frustrated by those aspects of NCLB that have impeded, not helped, their work; and

WHEREAS, we will soon elect a new president and a new Congress that we hope will listen to the voice of educators,

RESOLVED, that the American Federation of Teachers, drawing on the collective wisdom of the educators it represents, move immediately to develop a proposal that builds on the intent of ESEA to ensure that our nation's most vulnerable students get the excellent education that they deserve.

(2008)