Teachers union disses education agenda

While the rest of us were celebrating the Fourth of July with family and fireworks, delegates to the National Education Association's Representative Assembly in New Orleans were debating whether to publicly oppose the Obama administration's central education initiatives.

The NEA is the parent organization of Idaho's teachers union, the Idaho Education Association.

Delegates voted to take a position of "no confidence" in the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top guidelines and the use of competitive grants as a basis for reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as the No Child Left Behind Act.

Education Week blogger Stephen Sawchuk called it "a symbolic slam on the Obama administration" that "stopped short of actually calling out the president."

"The debate over the item provided the clearest picture yet of both the internal and external difficulties the NEA faces pushing against an education agenda promoted by a Democratic administration, rather than a Republican one," Sawchuk reported.

Earlier this year, Idaho dropped out of Race to the Top, a $4.3 billion competitive grant program that rewards states for innovative redesigns in education.

Race to the Top is also the program that House Democrats voted last week to reduce funding for to create a $10 billion job fund to avert teacher layoffs.