A Tale of Two Approaches-The AFT, the NEA, and NCLB

Abstract

When President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) into law on January 8, 2002, neither the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) nor the National Education Association (NEA) was on record supporting the new legislation. What has transpired since the enactment of the statute is the story of the two organizations' different approaches to the law. This chapter takes up the topic of the responses of the NEA and AFT to the early days of implementation of NCLB. As this chapter will show, though the organizations are largely in accord about what they view as the deficiencies of the law, they have taken very different strategic approaches to efforts to secure statutory changes. The NEA efforts have focused on public denunciation of the law. The AFT, on balance, has taken a more considered, and sometimes less predictable, approach. In large measure, these strategies mirror the organizations' reactions to education reform more generally over the last 2 decades.