Goodbye Summer Break, Hello ESEA Reauthorization

A few months ago, Congress debated bills in the House and Senate to reauthorize the outdated Elementary and Secondary Education Act/No Child Left Behind (ESEA/NCLB). Like public schools across the nation, Congress is back in session, and it is time that the bills be moved forward for reconciliation and then signed into law. And it is imperative that effective, evidenced-based family engagement strategies are included in the reauthorization of the ESEA/NCLB.

A new school year means new expectations and new material to learn. It is essential that families are engaged and families and schools collaborate to support student achievement and ensure a successful year.

To strengthen family engagement in education, schools and districts need the resources and capacity to implement best practices that have been proven to positively impact student learning. This is why we need Congress to finally reauthorize the ESEA/NCLB. It is crucial that Congress finish its work and provide updates to the current law so all children receive a high-quality public education and reach their full potential.

What we need from Congress

  • Convene a conference committee as soon as possible to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate bills and produce a bill that can be signed into law.
  • Maintain the provisions in both ESEA/NCLB reauthorization bills that support state and local capacity building through Statewide Family Engagement Centers (SFECs).
  • Continue to invest in family engagement strategies for local education agencies in Title I.

Let’s get this school year of to a great start by arming schools and districts with the resources they need to provide a world-class education to every student. Congress can take the lead on this through a successful reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that includes necessary family engagement provisions.

You can stay in the loop on the ESEA/NCLB reauthorization or get action alerts from the PTA Takes Action Network. Join the network today.


Laura Bay is president of National PTA.

Comments

  1. Randolph Gomberg says:

    Dear Laura:
    In the last 50 years the psychiatric institution, allied with “Big Pharma” have been drugging our school children under the pretense they suffer from “Attention Deficit Disorder”. The results have been nothing short of disastrous and, frankly are sanctioned criminality. In practically every case of the sensational in-the-news school shootings, the perpetrators were on psychiatric medication, Columbine being the most dramatic publicized incident. Reform groups like CCHR & MindFreedom have collected hundreds of thousands of stories worldwide about the abuse schoolchildren have suffered being “medicated”. ADD-ADHD, in fact, is not a disease but a LABEL signifying a set of observed behavior. There is NO scientific proof for its causation or existence. Many ethical psychiatrists are now admitting it was created so the psychiatrists and pharmaceuticals could make a profit getting the kids hooked on their dangerous harmful medication.

    But beyond that, I want you to think of the QUALITY of life and your responsibility as a school teacher and/or parent: “medicating” a child to make them think better? This is right out of the Twilight Zone and The Matrix. IT IS MORALLY AND UNETHICALLY WRONG. Kids get sick and sometimes you have to treat them with anti-biotics, etc. But giving them dangerous harmful drugs that cause irreparable damage and result in violent behavior because they can’t focus on their studies? THAT is insane! I was a second grade school teacher at The Learning Academy in Burbank, CA in 1998 and we absolutely forbid the children to be even SEEN by psychiatrists. It’s time to take a stand against this insidious criminality against the psychiatric determination to drug and dumb down our school children. The PTA must make a position paper broadly known to its members and the public that it CONDEMNS the psychiatric drugging of our school children. Please act on this. The kids are our future. Their lives must not be destroyed by psychiatrists making them insane under the false pretense they are suffering from mental disabilities. Please help salvage our future.

    Thank You

    Randolph Gomberg
    894 NW Mignonette Ave
    Gresham, OR, 97030
    503-669-2127

Leave a Reply to Randolph Gomberg Cancel reply

*