A nice quote from DFER's Charles Barone in this Time article about NCLB renewal being a bipartisan effort:

union leaders — perhaps still reeling from Obama's recent support for the decision to fire 93 teachers at a struggling school in Central Falls, R.I. — skewered the new White House plan, charging that it shifted an unfair burden onto educators. "We were expecting to see a much broader effort to truly transform public education for kids," Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, said in a statement. "Instead, we see too much top-down scapegoating of teachers and not enough collaboration." The plan puts "100% of the responsibility on teachers and gives them 0% authority," says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

The unions, which have long been a key Democratic constituency, issued such scathing assessments of Obama's education-reform blueprint that even some fellow party members were mystified. "It's like they didn't read the document," says Charles Barone, director of federal policy at Democrats for Education Reform. "Apparently their definition of a partnership is that they're the bully and you're the weakling on the playground."

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Education Reform: Obama's Bipartisan Issue?

By Alex Altman Wednesday, Mar. 17, 2010

www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1972820,00.html#ixzz0ic0meOg8