UPDATED
By Liana Heitin and Stephen Sawchuk
Denver
Ed Week
Delegates to the National Education Association's annual convention passed a new business item July 4 calling for U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to resign.
The surprising move comes on the heels of union anger over moves across the United States to revise due-process protections, tenure, and seniority—some of which have been supported by Democrats, including the Obama administration.
Proposed by the union's powerful California affiliate, the item cites "the Department's failed education agenda focused on more high-stakes testing, grading and pitting public school students against each other based on test scores" as its rationale for demanding the secretary's resignation.
Similarly themed items were introduced at the 2013, 2012, 2011, and 2010 meetings, but have never before passed. (The union did, in 2011, approve an NBI severely chastising Duncan.)
