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The American Federation of Teachers is launching an online, print, and radio ad campaign against the "Student Success Act," a Republican education bill expected to come for a vote in the House as early as Friday. The bill would
slash education funding, making sequester cuts permanent, and, according to the print ads (
run with the Education Trust), it "walks away from the expectation that
all children be served well"—the Republican bill allows states to use money intended for specific groups of (often disadvantaged) students to be used for other purposes.
A White House veto threat cites both of those concerns, among others, including provisions touching on assessment and cherished yet awful administration programs like Race to the Top. Opposition to this bill, then, is bringing together pro-teaching to the test forces like the Obama administration and anti-teaching to the test groups like the AFT; the AFT's radio ad focuses on the bill's provisions increasing federal control of teacher evaluations. Trust Republicans to be so awful they unite people in opposition who normally have very different views.