Let's put our Democratic majority to use folks. Please recommend this e-mail from the NCSE (National Council for Science and the Environment) I just received from my Ecological Society of America Listserv.
Environmental Education and the No Child Left Behind Act
ACTION ALERT
Urge Congress to Authorize Environmental
Education in the "No Child Left Behind Act"
As a member of the Campaign for Environmental
Literacy, the National Council for Science and
the Environment, encourages you to speak out on
this opportunity. The federal No Child Left
Behind Act (NCLB) is up for
reauthorization. This presents a golden
opportunity for Congress to include environmental
education (EE) in the new version of this
far-reaching education legislation that impacts schools nationwide.
We urge you to take action now! The House
Committee on Education and Labor is considering
language that supports EE in the latest proposed
bill, expected to be voted on during the week of July 9
With the nation facing complicated environmental
issues like climate change that will challenge us
for years to come, it is critical that schools
provide our young people with a solid grounding
in environmental education. Unfortunately,
environmental education is being left behind as
an unintended consequence of the federal
education law called No Child Left Behind Act
(NCLB). Right now, Congress is rewriting NCLB and
has the opportunity to include environmental
education in the new version. Please contact your
legislators today and to let them know how
important environmental education is in preparing
today's students for the challenges of tomorrow.
Go here
www.fundee.org/campaigns/nclb/
for more information.
The Problem
Environmental education is facing a national
crisis. Many schools are being forced to scale
back or eliminate environmental education
programs. Fewer and fewer students are able to
take part in related classroom instruction and
field investigations, however effective or
popular. State and local administrators and
teachers point to two factors behind this recent and disturbing shift:
(1) the emphasis on high-stakes math and reading
tests that has discouraged interdisciplinary
instruction, and (2) a lack of funding for these critical programs.
The Solution
Now is the time to tell your legislators that
environmental education should be a priority for
inclusion in the NCLB and can be included in these ways:
-- Provide funding to help states develop
rigorous environmental education standards, as
well as to improve teacher training in environmental education.
-- Require state educational agencies to create
plans for integrating environmental education
into their K-12 curriculum to ensure that
graduates are environmentally literate.
What You Can Do
- Write an email urging your Senators and
Congressmembers to support inclusion of
environmental education in NCLB.
Go Here:
www.fundee.org/campaigns/nclb/>www.fundee.org/campaigns/nclb/
and click on "Take Action" for a sample email
that you can easily send in 15 seconds.
- Call your Senators and Congressmember's office
and ask to speak to the education staff person.
Let him or her know how important it is to you
that environmental education be included in NCLB
and mention the talking points above.
Go here:
http://www.congress.org/...
to find your legislator
By making a few changes to NCLB, we can
dramatically improve our schools' ability to
prepare children for real-world challenges and
careers and ensure an environmentally sustainable future.
The National Council for Science and the
Environment (NCSE) is a non-profit organization
working to improve the scientific basis for
environmental decisionmaking. NCSE is supported
by nearly 500 academic, scientific,
environmental, government and business organizations.