NEA to challenge ‘No Child’ law

The Associated Press reports that the National Education Association–the nation’s largest education union–approved a plan to aggressively lobby Congress to reform the No Child Left Behind Act. The organization has fought for change since 2001, but this is the biggest effort for change to date. Union leaders assert that the basic intentions of the law are good. However, the union feels that the “obsessive” focus on testing and punishing failure undermines the purpose of education. The union will push the government to move away from testing as the sole benchmark for success. Instead, they advocate a series of benchmarks that reflect differing abilities and demographics…