Minutes ago, a bipartisan majority of the Senate approved the Every Child Achieves Act, which is the bill forged by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn) and Patty Murray (D-WA). This is the long-overdue reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, the legislation passed by Congress in 2001 and signed into law on January 8, 2002. The underlying legislation is the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, whose purpose was to authorize federal aid to education targeted to schools that enrolled significant numbers of children living in poverty. The original bill was about equity, not testing and accountability.
The Senate bill retains annual testing, but removes federal sanctions attached to test results. Any rewards or sanctions attached to test scores will be left to states. The Senate rejected private school vouchers; nine Republican Senators joined with Democrats to defeat the voucher proposal. The bill also strengthens current prohibitions against the Secretary of Education dictating specific curriculum, standards, and tests to states, as well as barring the Secretary from tying test scores to teacher evaluations. The bill repudiates the punitive measures of of NCLB and RTTT.
The House of Representatives has already passed its own bill, called the Student Success Act. A conference committee representing both houses will meet to iron out their differences and craft a bill that will then be presented for a vote in both houses.
As I get additional details, I will post them.
Speaking for the Network for Public Education, I will say that we are pleased to see a decisive rejection of federal micromanagement of curriculum, standards, and assessments, as well as the prohibition of federal imposition of particular modes of evaluating teachers. We oppose annual student testing; no high-performing nation in the world administers annual tests, and there is no good reason for us to do so. We reject the claim that children who are not subjected to annual standardized tests suffer harm or will be neglected. We believe that the standardized tests are shallow and have a disparate impact on children who are Black and Brown, children with disabilities, and children who are English language learners. We believe such tests degrade the quality of education and unfairly stigmatize children as “failures.” We also regret this bill’s financial support for charter schools, which on average do not perform as well as public schools, and in many jurisdictions, perform far worse than public schools. We would have preferred a bill that outlawed the allocation of federal funds to for-profit K-12 schools and that abandoned time-wasting annual testing.
Nonetheless, we support the Senate bill because it draws a close to the punitive methods of NCLB and RTTT. It is an important step forward for children, teachers, and public education. The battle over “reform” now shifts to the states, but we welcome an era in which the voices of parents, educators, and students can mobilize to influence policies in their communities and states. We believe that grassroots groups have a better chance of being heard locally than in Washington, D.C., where Beltway insiders think they speak for the public. We will continue to organize and carry our fight for better education to every state.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Explain how parents, in 50 different states, opt out now. Also, can states still tie test scores to teachers evaluations?
Linda,
Change starts when parents opt out. Decisions will be made by states.
Let the games begin…survival of the fittest and there is no need to read dystopia. We are living it.
The original mission of common core, two testing consortiums, national standards is now DEAD.
But testing is alive and well at the state level because they have no viable alternative. Nothing has changed
Is there anything in that bill that punishes parents from opting out? I know Sen Mike Lee’s amendment to “allow” parents to opt out failed. But no one can give me permission to opt out – I am free to do so. I’m just wondering if there were consequences or the bill allowed states or school districts to punish students if they opt out.
One of my old Rutgers Public Policy profs said : “Change is incremental.” We’re getting there. Slowly, but surely.
This is exactly what I’ve been telling the good people who say this bill did not go far enough. Legislation is incremental. You do not do nothing until the perfect legislation is crafted. How much more damage would be done in the meantime?
I am saving your comments to share with the teaxhers who are fired and who lose their teaching certificates due to high-stakes testing and VAM laws in their home states.
I a,sure they will take great comfort in knowing that they are simply an unmet increment mark and losing the money and time they devoted to becoming a certified teacher is part of the process approved by so many here.
How they will earn a living, feed their families, put their own kids through college, or anything else will be the luck of themdraw depending which state they reside in apvut that’t the new American way, isn’t it. The lucky and fortunate do well and receive favorable treatment and the rest of us just wither away.
We will win this war against public education!
See Mercedes and who voted no. Three Dems: Booker, Murphy, Warren.
To see Warren vote Nay with Vitter and Cruz is a shock…Booker is to be expected.
Warren voted NO because she was for the Murphy amendment (she co-sponsored it)…more stringent accountability…of achievement and fed funds. When the Murphy amendment was rejected… she Voted NO for supporting the entire ESEA rewrite….
Warren wants more NCLB style accountability
Is the Collins amendment still intact?
Unless I am mistaken, there are openings for last minute “edits” before this bill gets into final form. In that interval of time, lobbyists look for sweet spots that allow for editorial changes not likely to be noticed until “it is too late.”
The Network for Public education must truly become organized for state by state advocacy and reporting on “the condition of public education” and with an alternative to the foundation-funded reports by EdWeek. This is big effort. It will benefit from coordinated effort, mutual support, and a very simple architecture for routine communications and alerts.
That’s a pretty good margin, which bodes well bipartisan support for making progress on changing and improving federal education law. Why did the nays vote so? Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Elizabeth Warren, similar thinking or differing reasons?
From Warren’s Facebook page:
The first version of the Elementary & Secondary Education Act was a landmark Civil Rights law. In the 1960s, the American people, through the federal government, committed to improving educational opportunity for children living in poverty, children of color, children with disabilities, and other groups of kids who had been underserved, mistreated, or outright ignored by public schools. The bill that the Senate passed today does not live up to that powerful legacy.
In many ways, this bill represents a significant improvement from No Child Left Behind, moving away from rigid standardized tests and respecting the vital work that our teachers do every day–and I strongly support those changes. But this bill is also about money, and it eliminates basic, fundamental safeguards to ensure that federal dollars are actually used to improve both schools and educational outcomes for those students who are often ignored.
I supported this bill in the Education Committee on the promise that it would improve, but over the past two weeks, Republicans have blocked every attempt to establish even minimum safeguards to ensure that money would be used effectively. I am deeply concerned that billions in taxpayer dollars will not actually reach those schools and students who need them the most, and I cannot support this legislation until this critical issue is meaningfully addressed.
Unfortunately, Warren has supported every testing and accountability measure. I would like to see her think more deeply about wasting money on tests instead of spending it wisely to reduce class size and improved the wages of teachers.
One of the few good things about NCLB was its focus on disaggregation – i.e. not just looking at district and school bottom lines but also top line outcomes for traditionally underserved children. The Murphy amendment – whose only Republican supporter was Ohio’s Portman (who not coincidentally is up for reelection against a fairly popular former Governor) – was intended to strengthen that intent. Alas, it failed and the accountability for educational commitments to those children are considerably weakened under the Senate bill.
Honest minds can differ over whether that defeat was sufficient to warrant opposing the overall bill. I would agree with the majority that it wasn’t given the current composition of the Senate. But maybe Warren deserves the benefit of the doubt? After all, she DID vote for the bill in Committee – hardly an indicator that Warren was or is in bed with Arne and his cronies.
So I am trying to understand. Is it up to the states then to adopt or not adopt the Common Core?
Yes and without the threat of having to return RttT money if they don’t which really translated into NCLB waivers more as a more universal stick since they didn’t need to offer a carrot anymore.
The reality is states have no idea what to do differently mainly because we have been making no effort to present a viable alternative to CC.
This is what I have been saying all along. If we sit here with our heads up our butts, the states will slither back to the same old thing because that’s all they know.
Civil rights organizations won’t change until they have something to replace CC.
Nothing will ever change unless we make that alternative loud and clear. Opt out set the table but no one is ready for the main course.
WAKE UP!
Yes.. but it ming be a little too late because state school districts HAVE SPENT SO MUCH MONEY on common core and parcc including all the technology and locked positions involved in implementation that it might be like a tandem truck suddenly trying to jam on the breaks! I guess many districts go along with the status quo for a while (this will mean a few more years of lost education for those students stuck in the process).
One bill is “Achieve,” the other is “Success.” What’s wrong with simply, “Educate?”
“Educate” is less about the economy and more about the student’s fulfillment. Too soft!
The tyranny of testing is also alive and well in local districts. The Broad Foundation has planted many superintendents with the sole purpose of proving fault. It’s good to see ESEA turn the page, but challenges remain with the corporate invasion.
Now…How to bribe the states with megalomaniacal Governors like Cuomo into stopping as well.
Opting out is democracy in it’s purest stage. Only parents can end this madness. This bill is a step in the right direction. Now it’s up to local control to make things right. Fight on!
Exactly.
What did Democrats get for public schools? Other than testing, I mean. Anything?
They’re not going to tell us they voted for this on the assumption public schools would receive “support” again, are they? Because that was obviously a big lie last time.
I am glad they’re doing it because I think this gives them a face-and-ego saving way of dumping the test-based teacher evaluation systems without admitting they poured time and money into a dumb idea that did way more harm than good.
Those go, I bet. If states have any sense they’ll dump them immediately.
This is a sad day for America. As long as the mandated testing continues, the mandated collection of 400 points of data on every child continues. It’s all about the data.
“The technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities.” – Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, 1970.
Brzezinski was Obama’s professor at Columbia University and he is Obama’s foreign adviser now.
The Common Core is an essential part of implementing Technocracy because the tests provide the excuse needed to collect data. Technocracy was a popular movement in the 1930s which has become the inspiration for Sustainable Development, the Smart Grid, and the Common Core.
A technocratic world is one in which politicians will be replaced by scientists and experts. Representative government will be replaced by a Scientific Dictatorship– not a dictator, but a system. This is happening without us noticing. Our congress is no longer responsive to us and school boards no longer have control over curriculum, testing or even teacher evaluations. Technocracy intends to replace capitalism with an energy-based economy. Carbon credits will be rationed to all but the elite who will continue to jet around.
Bill Gates unveiled Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) back in 1999. The lead company is Microsoft. The SIF3 website is hosted by Microsoft and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. The website features this statement: “SIF is the first, largest and most implemented open global standard for seamless, real time data transfer and usage.”
One of the requirements of the Technocracy Study Course was the following: Provide specific registration of the consumption of each individual, plus a record and description of the individual. (Scott, Howard et al, Technocracy Study Course, P. 232)
The senate just delivered the personally identifiable information about all of our children and teachers into the hands of Zbigniew Bzezinski and David Rockefeller, two internationalists who have no love for America or her children. Sad, sad day.
CC$$ and testing = MOOLAH, lots and lots of moolah for the few. I am skeptical. This veil of decption = KA-CHING.
I agree that it’s all about data. The data collected by Dept. of Ed. drives their funding for many, many projects.
The “Dear Hillary” letter, written on Nov. 11, 1992 by Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), lays out a plan “to remold the entire American system” into “a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone,” coordinated by “a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels” where curriculum and “job matching” will be handled by counselors “accessing the integrated computer-based program.”
Tucker’s plan would change the mission of the schools from teaching children academic basics and knowledge to training them to serve the global economy in jobs selected by workforce boards. Nothing in this comprehensive plan has anything to do with teaching schoolchildren how to read, write, or calculate.
The letter begins like this:
“Dear Hillary: I still cannot believe you won. But utter delight that you did pervades all the circles in which I move. I met last Wednesday in David Rockefeller’s office with him, John Sculley, Dave Barram and David Haselkorn. It was a great celebration. Both John and David R. were more expansive than I have ever seen them—literally radiating happiness…The subject we were discussing was what you and Bill should do now about education, training, and labor market policy. Following that meeting, I chaired another in Washington on the same topic…Our purpose in these meetings was to propose concrete actions that the Clinton administration could take—between now and the inauguration, in the first 100 days and beyond.”
Excerpt from the portion of his letter titled Program Components:
Develop uniform reporting system for providers, requiring them to provide information in that format on characteristics of clients, their success rates by program, and the costs of those programs. Develop computer-based system for combining this data at local labor market board offices with employment data from the state so that counselors and clients can look at programs offered by colleges and other vendors in terms of cost, client characteristics, program design, and outcomes. Including subsequent employment histories for graduates.
It goes on for 18 pages. It is posted in its complete form here:
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_tucker/
I am very joyful for such great overdue advance against NCLB and RTTT. My only concern is, States still own the will to continue the punishment against low performing schools, and eventually tying teachers evaluations to student performance.
If you lived in New York with Governor Cuomo you wouldn’t be so joyful.
Or if you live in Indiana with Governor Pence. Stop trying to make this a partisan thing.
Well, I live in Florida, and Governor Scott’s agenda has education policy on the last page, if it’s there at all.
Dienne,
My comment was about me living in NY under King Tut – not about Cuomo being a Democrat.
This is absolutely not partisan. Both parties are complicit in the destruction of public education in our country. I’d even say it has been a bi-partisan concerted effort to do so.
As I keep trying to emphasize, it is not about party affiliation. It is about elite affiliation. Who is best buddies with David Rockefeller, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, and Michael Bloomberg or even lesser moguls like Michael Milken, Andrew Tisch?Those are the affiliations that predict the inevitable outcome of legislative votes.
I could care less who call themselves a Democrat or a Republican.
This is a sad day for every school-age child in America and especially those at risk and with disabilities. Children will be left to the whims of their states and local school districts. Inequity, inequality, disparity and the end of civil rights. No Child Left Behind every chiild but this bill is worse. I am devastated and outraged by countless who believe they believe in public educatiin while fighting for local control and no accountability. No reauthorization is better than this one.
Marcie you have had NCLB accountability for 12 years. What exactly has it achieved for kids with disabilities? This bill doesn’t undo IDEA. I really don’t get your thinking at all here. And I would like to understand your position. ESE students in Florida are far worse off after high-stakes accountability took over our schools and they have lost so much that we once had for them before the punitive punishments from test scores for teachers and schools took hold.
Now what to do about Governor Cuomo
Beat him at the next election
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
So states controlled by Walker, Cuomo and others like him/her basically have power over teachers’ evaluations and mandates. Watch ALEC and Walton bring in the big guns. How can we beat the likes of Cuomo with any other Democrat who are basically Neoliberals.
Nothing is settled, the problem becomes very difficult. The bad news is that states have no idea what to do other than what has always been done.
We must give all states a viable alternative to the testing fiasco or they will slide back to the same ole thing.
And even then it will be a tough battle.
As Senators Murray and Alexander guide the bill through the conference committee, Duncan and Booker (and the billionaire boys who hold their leashes) will attempt to keep test-and-punish for schools they label as the so-called “bottom five percent”. They call it ensuring that federal dollars are used to improve educational outcomes for those students who are often ignored.
Disregarding the fallacy that communities ignore their own children, I would like to ask them: If data collection and test-and-punish have failed parents, students, and teachers across the country since 2003, why would it work for five percent of schools now? That does not make sense at all.