WEAC members stand up against Bush administration education program

WEAC members and other union members turned out by the hundreds to protest Bush administration policies during the president's appearance in Janesville last week.

Protesters lined a street leading up to the hotel where President Bush spoke on Friday.

"President Bush's so-called 'No Child Left Behind' law has a great name but it's a bad law," retired Janesville teacher Dorothy Vogel said at a rally. "It imposes a one-size-fits-all approach on children, regardless of their individual learning differences and needs. President Bush and his administration have imposed impossible standards on our educational system. The law labels children as failures, imposes punitive sanctions instead of solutions, and sets rigid requirements without adequate financial support."

Vogel said the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, misleadingly called the "No Child Left Behind" law by the administration, needs to be fixed and fully funded.

"Politicians should honor America's priorities by providing adequate and equitable funding for public schools rather than mandating without funding," she said. "It is important that you contact your legislators and ask them to correct their legislation. This legislation gets an F."

GSSAP gears up

WEAC members are talking to their school boards and community members, buying red apparel for I See Red Day, and solidifying strategies as the Great Schools Statewide Action Plan moves into high gear.

The WEAC Representative Assembly adopted the Great Schools Statewide Action Plan in April. The goal is to win support for a revised system of school funding that ensures that every child has access to an adequately funded public education and a fair collective bargaining law for teachers and education support professionals. Those goals include repeal of school district revenue controls, which have robbed schools of the resources needed to maintain quality education, and repeal of the Qualified Economic Offer (QEO) law, which has stripped teachers of their collective bargaining rights and driven them out of our great schools.