The president of the National Education Association said the No Child Left Behind Act should be revamped.

Dennis Van Roekel, an Iowa native who became president of the NEA this month, spoke about education issues and politics to a crowd at the Des Moines Area Community College’s West Campus in West Des Moines on Tuesday night.

Lynn Campbell, bureau chief for www.iowapolitics.com, moderated the event, sponsored by the Iowa State Education Association and DMACC.

No Child Left Behind is scheduled for a rewrite, and Van Roekel said the current plan was not working.

“It needs an overhaul, not just some tinkering,” he said.

One of the problems with the current act is that teachers end up focusing on just one group of students’ test scores, and fail to teach students in other grades as well if those grades are not up for assessment, Van Roekel said.

He called for more research to assess student learning. The current mechanism of standardized testing does not work, he said, but we could find a better way to assess student learning if we did more research.

The NEA endorsed Barack Obama earlier this year, and Van Roekel said he is the only candidate who has put forward a comprehensive education plan. He especially supported the emphasis on early childhood education plans.

“Pre-kindergarten education is going to become more and more critical,” Van Roekel said.

The NEA also supports Obama’s plan for more money for college outreach programs for low-income families.

“Currently, high academic achieving poor children have the same probability of getting into [college] as low achieving ones,” Van Roekel said. “There’s got to be a way to get those kids into college.”

Campbell asked if there should be cuts in the education plan, given the current economic crisis, but Van Roekel said he sees an investment in education as an investment in the economy.

Van Roekel called McCain’s plan for a spending freeze, with the exceptions of defense and veterans programs, “short-sighted.”

The states that have the best economies are those that are able to teach and retain workers, he said.

“What we do today ensures opportunities for long after we’re gone, and there’s too much short-sightedness,” Van Roekel said.