Teacher Union Seeks ‘Living Labs’ for School Reforms in Every State

The head of the National Education Assn. proposed Friday creating at least one experimental district in each state with no holds barred on school reforms.

Teachers, parents, school boards, local businesses and others involved in these 50 districts would have the union’s blessings to “turn their school systems upside down or inside out” in pursuit of improvements, NEA President Mary Hatwood Futrell said.

At a press conference, Futrell said she will ask her state affiliates to work with governors, legislators and state education officials to reach a consensus on designating “at least one entire school district in every state as an experimental, living laboratory to fundamentally restructure America’s schools.”

Bold action is needed to revive a school reform movement that has started to flag from insufficient funding, she said.

Her proposal drew qualified praise from a persistent critic of the NEA, Education Secretary William J. Bennett.

In a statement issued from Houston he said: “It’s rather ironic to hear a call for reform from the organization that has done the most to resist meaningful education reforms in recent years. But if they are serious, it will be a welcome and refreshing change to have NEA begin supporting real education reform.”

Futrell’s counterpart at the American Federation of Teachers, Albert Shanker, has already scheduled a speech at the National Press Club on Thursday to unveil what his union calls “a new and practical plan for teachers to begin radically restructuring America’s public schools.”