Get Involved – Help Ensure Congress Overhauls No Child Left Behind

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee will vote starting October 19 on a new NLCB/ESEA. The main bill, introduced by Chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Ranking Member Mike Enzi (R-WY), is about as bad as NCLB. It will require tens of millions of new tests and a heavy reliance on test scores to judge teachers, principals and “low scoring” schools. Congress must hear your voice if we are to block the worst provisions and have a chance to win beneficial changes. 

Here are resources and actions you can take to fight the harms of NCLB/ESEA and push for Congress to completely overhaul the law. For a FairTest summary and critique of key parts of the Harkin-Enzi bill, see here. For more complete background information, be sure to see our NCLB page under the K-12 Tab above.

Act Now! to influence what the Senate HELP Committee does when it rewrites the law. Fax, phone, email, but let them know what you think. Contact information is below.

• Please read these ideas before you fax, phone or email.

• Five short talking points for a phone call.

• Models of writing about personal experience with NCLB’s damaging effects.

• FairTest key recommendations to the Senate, to use in a fax or email.

How to contact your members of Congress and Education Committee leaders:

• This link will provide you with a map. Click on each state to get that state's  Senators and Representatives -  names, phone number, fax number, and the link to a form that allows you to send an email (sometimes only available to people from the Member's state). http://www.contactingthecongress.org/. On the menu list on that page is a link to Committees.
  It also provides you with a list of the members of each committee and their phone, fax and email info.
   
• The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions member list (name, phone, fax, email link), along with how to contact the committee itself, is at http://www.contactingthecongress.org/cgi-bin/newcommittee.cgi?site=ctc2011&lang=&commcode=shelp
   
• The House Committee on Education and Labor member list (name, phone, fax and email link), along with how to contact the committee itself, is at http://www.contactingthecongress.org/cgi-bin/newcommittee.cgi?site=ctc2011&lang=&commcode=heducation.

There are other ways to influence federal law and policy and win positive changes to NCLB. See FairTest's Eight Ways to Work for the Overhaul of the Federal Education Law (NCLB)