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The NEA has just released a major new paper on the federal role in education entitled Great Public Schools for Every Student by 2020. 

In doing so, they join a number of other groups that have deemed it high time to clarify the federal role after seven years of NCLB--and before a new administration arrives in January.  (See, for example, the recent report by the Forum for Education and Democracy and the even more recent statement released by a distiguished task force calling for a "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education.")

NEA's report begins with the premise that NCLB has thrown the federal role out of whack, creating "top-down, command-and-control, federally prescriptive testing and accountability mandates" that have narrowed curricula, robbed assessment of its power as an instructional tool and failed to close achievement gaps. 

With the aim of ensuring universal access to great public schools by 2020, the NEA document outlines six priorities for federal involvement in education:  

1. Support the profession of teaching.
2. Guarantee sustained federal funding of Title I and IDEA.
3. Protect and achieve equal access for students to services and supports they need to be successful.
4. Support state-based public school transformation through authentic and transparent accountability.
5. Establish high quality education research and development.
6. Support innovation and best practices.

NEA envisions schools, districts and states as the "primary engines of public school transformation," and the report points to promising state-level initiatives to transform education in North Carolina and Ohio, among other states. 

NEA concludes the report with a list of their own commitments to supporting their aim of universal access to great public schools:

1. Call upon the administration to convene stakeholders at a White House Summit on Education to craft a policy framework that will fully serve every student
2. Create models for parents, educators and other stakeholders to develop, implement and support state-based educational improvement strategies
3. Engage with the states to develop a new framework on school improvement and accountability systems that support authentic student learning
4. Advocate for our 3.2 million members and urge a new vision
5. Routinely meet with the U.S. Department of Education Secretary and staff to assess progress of the initiative and identify the actions to take.

Stay tuned for more thoughts about the NEA's ambitious project and its implications