"It has to do more to promote local innovation and autonomy and at the same time be mindful that in the vast majority of schools that have been identified as chronically low-performing, state and local school officials have not undertaken the fundamental reforms necessary to fix the structural problems that stand between millions of children and a high quality education.

"By far the biggest obstacles, though, are political. Despite an attempt to incorporate many of the changes sought by teachers' unions and school administrators, there was serious blowback over the weekend from both major teachers' unions. 

"Are teachers' unions distorting what's in the plan? Or did they tear a page out of their old playbooks without reading the blueprint?

"Both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers had previously stressed that they will take a tough look at union policies to improve teacher effectiveness and remove underperforming teachers. Both have stated that they want a 'partnership' with government to improve public schools. But, based on their rabid comments over the last few days, and in fact over the course of the entire debate over Race to the Top and ESEA, it turns out that their definition of 'partnership' is terribly unproductive.

"Over the course of this year, DFER will continue to work with those policymakers, advocacy groups, and rank-and-file educators who want to put an end to this kind of nonsense and escape the stranglehold that out-of-touch leaders have over our public schools. We will be following the ESEA debate and legislative action closely, and will measure the success or failure of that effort against the principles we laid out two weeks ago, in conjunction with 17 other school reform organizations.

"In the final analysis, on issues like accountability, teacher quality, and school turnarounds, it will come down to this: can Congress and the President reach agreement on a bill that puts the long-term interests of parents and children first? Or will they succumb to political pressure by adults who have a vested interest in blocking real change? This is the ultimate standard against we will measure any ESEA legislation."

Click here to download the "Statement of Principles on ESEA" that DFER and other reform groups support.

Click here to download ESEA Issue Brief #1, on Accountability.

The following are statements delivered over the weekend by President Obama, Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers:

President Obama:

"Reforming our schools to deliver a world-class education is a shared responsibility - the task cannot be shouldered by our nation's teachers and principals alone. We must foster school environments where teachers have the time to collaborate, the opportunities to lead, and the respect that all professionals deserve. We must recognize the importance of communities and families in supporting their children's education, because a parent is a child's first teacher."

Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association:

"The NEA cannot support this plan... We were expecting school turnaround efforts to be research-based and fully collaborative. Instead, we see too much top-down scapegoating of teachers and not enough collaboration." 

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers:

"Right now, this doesn't make sense, so we're surprised. From everything that we've seen, this blueprint places 100 percent of the responsibility on teachers and gives them zero percent of the authority...Teachers should be empowered and supported -- not scapegoated."