Welcome to the new Legislative Affairs section of the NCEA Website. We are working to make this portion of the website a one-stop-shop for all the news on the political goings on with Community Education. The NCEA Platform, position papers, testimony, statistics, supported legislation, are examples of what you’ll find here as we make these resources available to our membership in a way that is easy to access.

March 2007
March has been a busy month for everyone in the D.C. area, especially for the staff at NCEA’s home office in Fairfax, Va. With the No Child Left Behind act up for reauthorization and NCEA’s own Day on the Hill (DOTH) event, March has been an eventful month for the NCEA Staff.

We were very pleased with year’s DOTH as the attendees comprised a solid representation of Community Education efforts across the country. A number of excellent speakers addressed those in attendance on the new political landscape that will influence education policy. Additional briefings on the activities of the Department of Education and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) provided additional detail on the direction of education policy.

Armed with additional insight on what’s at stake at the federal level, NCEA members met with their legislators in Washington to voice their concerns and support a reauthorization that would engage the community as partners in education. Some of the information that was shared at the event will be posted here on our Website; I encourage you to come back soon to get a taste of what went on March 18^th through the 20^th.

On March 28^th the Senate HELP Committee held its first hearing on Parent and Community Involvement as it relates to the reauthorization. I would strongly encourage you to watch the recording that is now available on-line here. Please be sure to come back again in the next two weeks as NCEA will post its own written testimony submitted to the Committee for the record.

More documents and information will be available on our Website in the next several months. I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Sincerely,

Robert Ek
NCEA Research and Legislative Manager