In an article on the Edweek blog, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Cory Booker, and Senator Chris Murphy reiterated their support for the George W. Bush approach to accountability. Arne Duncan and John King agree. despite 15 years of failed federal test-and-punish accountability, they want more. They are described as “accountability hawks.”
Alyson Klein writes:
“As congressional aides work feverishly behind the scenes, accountability hawks are making their case: Thursday a trio of Democratic senators—Cory Booker of New Jersey, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts—who have been leading the charge on accountability throughout the reauthorization process—plus U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and incoming Essentially Secretary John King had a big event on Capitol Hill today to shine a spotlight on the issue.
“Their essential argument: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, signed fifty years ago, is a civil rights law at heart, and this latest version has to continue that tradition. They say the new law must call for states to help schools with perennially low-student achievement, low graduation rates, and big achievement gaps.
“There has to be accountability back up the chain,” Warren said. “The idea that we would pass a major piece of legislation about education and just shove it to the states and say ‘Do what you want.’ … I think it’s appalling.” (My guess is states would take issue with that.)
Their big fear is that the federal government will stop punishing schools with low test scores and low graduation rates. Over the past 15 years of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, thousands of public schools have been shut down; the overwhelming majority of these schools are in impoverished and racially segregated communities.
How does it help students to close their schools? They need extra resources, smaller classes, experienced teachers, health clinics, tutoring, and other supports, not federal threats, sanctions, or privatization.
The pressure that the accountability hawks demand actually hurt the educational opportunities of low-income and high-needs students. Not only are they threatened with turmoil and instability, but their schools narrow the curriculum to what is tested. They lose out on the arts, sciences, field trips, group projects, history, even recess.
If Senators Warren, Booker, and Murphy really wanted to help the children most at risk, they would make sure their schools have the resources they need; they would take action against school segregation; and they would support job-creating programs (like investing in infrastructure) to help improve their families’ income.
NCLB and RTTT–the twin pillars of privatization–have failed.
It is time for federal policy that helps children and their families and that strengthens public education.
If the Senators really want accountability, they should recognize that it starts at the top–with Congress and the administration, with Governors and legislators–not at the bottom. Threats and rewards don’t improve education. Collaboration works, not competition and sticks.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Accountability? Yes VAM ? BS
Every time any mention is made of the educational policy preferences of the Democrats, particularly the progressives, the amount of vitriol for the President and his record on Education issues plays a big role in the comments. I thnk most loyal readers of this Blog can all agree that Mr. Obama’s record on Education stinks worse than the leftover fish heated in the microwave in the teachers lunchroom; but the problem isn’t just the President – it’s all of them!
That problem is the blanket of BS that surrounds these “progressives” in DC. And the blanket is provided by the coroporate interests that have been doing this for at least a decade and a half. By disguising their message in civil rights people like Gates, Broad et al have convinced these people that not only do these policies work, but that the public likes them and wants these reforms for their public schools.
We, as in the public school supporters, must find a way to lift that blanket and shed some light on the consequences of these horrible policies. I get frustrated by those that make angry statements about how terrible President Obama is declaring him the worst, most destructive, etc., etc. Do we really think things would have been better with a President Romney or the future looks brighter with a President Rubio ?
The only group that will most likely listen to “us” are the progressive Democrats. NEA and AFT mistakenly endorsed Hillary too soon, but now is the time to make her work for that endorsement and hold it over her head. Let’s talk to the candidates and demand that our voices count.
There is some time left before November 2016 to be heard.
There are other choices besides corporatist Democrats and wing-nut Republicans. If the Democrats won’t listen, we need to go elsewhere.
Where would you go. The Green party is superb in my view but are their members electable? I most sincerely wish so but pragmatism sets in, Sometimes one must choose between the lesser of two or more evils.
I am tremendously disappointed in Elizabeth Warren on this. I don’t know but would hope that she could be persuaded if she is given the facts. Maybe not. I don’t know but she has been one of the most anti corporate voices in Congress.
I do not know what to think about her now.
If everyone who worried about the Green Party being “electable” would just vote for them, they would be electable.
Dienne is right. “Electability” is the story told by the inside candidates who don’t want alternatives to themselves to emerge. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of NYC, got his flacks to spread the story that the $100mil of his own wealth he was spending to win an illegal third term as mayor made him Unbeatable. The story settled over NYC like old gas. Turned out, Bloomberg won illegal third term by a small margin and indeed was beatable had his opponent fought harder. “Lesser of Two Evils” has been around as a sop to the Dems for decades, and look what they’ve done to the 99%.
Remember, a socialist won the mayoral race in Seattle and has implemented many of her policies. We can make Democrats unelectable since they don’t care about us. They need to pay for their assumption that we have no where to go. The threat of the Republicans does not scare me, the Democrats have been more effective at making my life in school misery.
They should care enough to read some research before supporting failed, faux accountability. Instead, they allow themselves to listen to the politicized noise du jour. More testing does not improve outcomes for students. Linking teacher evaluation to student performance on standardized tests is another fallacy that is accepted as fact among many politicians. Politicians should do their homework before they open their mouths.
I could not disagree more. Voting for the lesser of these evils is voting for evil.
If a Republican President tried to implement the BS that Obama has, some progressive resistance would have emerged. ( perhaps not out of any moral belief but for selfish political reasons)
I suggest there are some battles worth fighting. Voting for Booker, Murphy, or Warren (sorry) is like voting for a Broad backed Republican.
This is not the first time Congress was wrong in a bipartisan way, and the major media outlets just followed them blindly. Think of the Iraq war(s).
Are there any examples in (US?) history for Congress reversing an incorrect strategy?
I think the job of the Feds should be ensuring equal opportunity when the States fail to do so and outside of politicians should withdraw their noses from that which they know not of.
(ed) outside of that
Until we offer a “better” accountability solution than test-and-punish, we will be forever stuck with test scores being used to wag the system. The catch is, it has to appear “better” to the politicians, a solution they can sell to advocates for minority and special needs students. And only then do we stand a chance of trading our “better” accountability plan for their test-and-punish madness. Their tunnel-vision on this issue reveals their true colors. Warren, Booker, Murphy, et. al. see nothing else. Not even the simple fact that 14 years of status quo, test-and-punish reform has done nothing to provide equal opportunities for the groups they pretend to care about.
We’ve always had local accountability that worked just fine until the federal government tried to impose a one size fits all test and punish regime. Evaluation through real qualified administrators supervising the real teaching of teachers is far more useful than using standardized testing as a kill switch after the computer punches in the voodoo math score. Giving compromised governors with agendas the right to tweak and play with teachers’ careers is an abomination. What good is due process if they can eliminate rights with a bunch of politicized mumbo jumbo?
The accountability that the politicians are looking for is very different. They don’t want to hear teachers say, just trust us. They want tangible, concrete data that proves what we could have told them before they blew up the public school system with their test-and-punish reforms. They worship meaningless tests score data because of its political expediency, not because of its reliability. Our best bet is for grade span testing (3,6,8,11) with NO threats and NO labels and NO punishment. Why can’t Warren and Booker others agree to a simple test-and-support policy instead? Supports like developmentally appropriate pre-K, smaller class sizes, pre-natal and post natal health care, and hope in the form of jobs that pay a living wage. If they can’t blame schools and teachers for the academic gaps, they don’t want anything to do with it. So after billions and billions of wasted hours, wasted dollars, and wasted opportunity costs the best they can do is ask for more of the same failed strategies.
I know what they want. Taking an economic system and superimposing it on education has resulted in a false equivalency. Teaching and learning are far too complex to reduce to data that we get from a computer based on “god knows what.” They are looking for a convenient way to label teachers, and it’s turning into a bogus witch hunt. We all know the lack of reliability of linking teacher performance to student test scores, but they’ll use it anyway because they got a green light from the AFT.
Grade span testing is a better choice for sure. I think it may be a hard sell for Cuomo who wants to break “the public education monopoly.” He wants a convenient pseudo-impartial way to fire teachers. Why do you think he made VAM 50%?
Maybe we should use the Teach for America model for legislators. That might shake things up. Put some younger folks in, ready to work 60 hours a week, give them 5 weeks of training and let them loose to do some real reform. Sounds like a hoot to me!
I don’t think they could be much worse than what we have. The House may wind up without a speaker because the republicans are so unruly. The subs may even be able to get something decent passed.
A part of the problem is that TFA has infiltrated many congressional offices by placing staffers on education in positions were they advise our reps. Warren is advised by Josh Delaney; his bio from LinkedIn sounds pretty reform:
Legislative Assistant
U.S. Senate, Office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
September 2014 – Present (1 year 2 months)Washington D.C. Metro Area
Policy Intern
Alliance for Excellent Education
May 2014 – August 2014 (4 months)washington d.c. metro area
Support the Policy and Advocacy Department through research & secondary education policy analysis.
Special Education Teacher
Teach for America
August 2011 – August 2013 (2 years 1 month)
9th Grade Special Education Algebra Co-Teacher, Cross Keys High School in Dekalb County, GA. Co-taught 9th Grade Mathematics 1 and Common Core Algebra to students with and without disabilities.
Policy Fellow
Governor’s Office of Student Achievement
June 2013 – July 2013 (2 months)greater atlanta area
Created Promising Practices in Common Core Implementation; a report for the Governor’s Office detailing Common Core State Standards implementation strategies across the country. This report recommended strategies the Georgia Department of Education should consider adopting during implementation of Common Core.
Wrote and published e-bulletins on the GOSA website, detailing happenings in education on behalf of the Governor’s Office.
Co-founder & Vice-Chairman
Metro Atlanta Policy Leadership Track
June 2012 – June 2013 (1 year 1 month)Greater Atlanta Area
Founded and led a board of six members to create programming for Teach for America (TFA) corps members with an interest in education policy, reform, and advocacy. Hosted monthly events including lectures, panels, debates, and networking nights with education advocates and policy leaders. Secured sponsorship from national organization (Leadership for Educational Equity) for advocacy training sessions for TFA corps members and alumni to engage with educational issues in Georgia General Assembly Legislative Session and with local elections.
Christine,
You hit the nail on the head. There is a billionaire (I think his name is Arthur Rock) who pays the salaries of TFA interns, and they are attached to education committees in both houses. When I met Senator Harkin, chair of the Senate HELP committee, his education advisor for former TFA.
Diane,
Are you able to meet directly with Elizabeth Warren?
Aaron,
I met with Elizabeth Warren about 18 months ago. I was impressed by her intellect. She insisted she was a very dedicated friend of public schools. Not so sure anymore. Of course, good politicians have a way of telling you what you want to hear.
Senator Warren leaves me unimpressed in the area of public education, though I like her in other areas. She always has. A definite weak spot.
This is exactly what I was going to say. When the Badass Teachers Assn went to Washington DC and set up 60 meetings with legislators, they found TFA aides all over the halls of Congress through the Capital Hill Fellows Program. They wrote about it here http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/search?q=Teach+for+America. I’ve even gotten good at spotting them in my state legislators’ field offices.
I am so disappointed to read this man’s bio – I have a lot of respect for Senator Warren, but as a teacher with a Master’s Degree in Multicategorical Special Education, I am APPALLED that this former TFA scab was a special education teacher. It takes far more than 5 weeks of training to be teacher, let alone a special education teacher.
I am even more appalled that he has such a trusted position with Senator Warren. Please, Senator, dismiss this man. I am sure Campbell Brown will welcome him with open arms at the 74.
“Warren is advised by Josh Delaney; his bio from LinkedIn sounds pretty reform:” “There is a billionaire (I think his name is Arthur Rock) who pays the salaries of TFA interns, and they are attached to education committees in both houses.”
Can these pointed out to Warren and others? Warren seems very suspicious of billionaires…
If just one senator reverses her position, the drama of it would necessarily be picked up by the media.
The billionaire really is Rock:
“The Capitol Hill Fellows do the work of regular congressional staffers. But in an arrangement that Hill ethics experts call highly unusual – though not illegal – their salaries are funded by a private individual. The entire $500,000 cost is picked up by Arthur Rock, a wealthy venture capitalist in San Francisco.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/teach-for-america-rises-as-political-powerhouse-098586
The people who want to blame schools for achievement gaps are at it again. The blamers, including senior officials at the Education Trust, have looked at some analyses of NAEP and PISA scores. They have not thought deeply about these scores. The scores seem to show achievement gaps happen because of a lot of the variability in scores can be within a school, and the magnitude of the gap is easily explained (haha) because teachers are not offering sufficiently rigorous and challenging content in to all students, irrespective of race.
So the headlines are bleak. They fuel the idea that there should be equal outcomes on tests, always high, for all students irrespective other factors. If only teachers would just do their job, then all variability in scores would be gone (and the test would be useless). Here are a few excerpts from the EdWeek report.
“In a study conducted for the National Center for Education Statistics, released last month, researchers for the American Institutes for Research found that the average black 8th grader attended a school that was more than half black, while white peers on average attended schools where only 10 percent of the population was black.”
That is not new news. It is evidence of the extent to which communities and schools in the USA remain segregated. The spin on the stats makes the implicit claim that all students who are not doing well in 8th grade algebra, but are stuck on arithmetic, are being tracked, insufficiently challenged, with teachers to blame for NOT setting the same expectations for all black students.
“’There are schools where African-Americans are achieving at high levels,” said Santelises of the Education Trust, who works with schools and districts trying to close achievement gaps.”
“One of the things we know about high-achieving schools is they have an equalizing culture,” Santelises said. “All kids have access to the same content, more language [arts], challenging math. What you see is less difference in the kind of expectations, learning experiences, and opportunities for the students throughout the school.” (What you may also see are decent resources and full throttle test prep, and selective admission or retention of students and so forth).
At the Education Trust there is never any explanation for outcomes other than blame the teacher. The media spins on these new analyses of NAEP and PISA scores will ignore the wide variations in the ability of students in almost every school to deal with “grade level content” in any subject. Tracking may well exist and for reasons that have merit, including some desperate efforts of teachers to work on the prerequisites for “grade level” performance.
The spin factories are stuck on the “gap in scores” as if it is actually possible to get all kids up to the same level of performance on standardized tests for a given grade or age….and still have a test that serves its main purpose, to ensure all students do NOT perform at the same level. The spin masters who cannot look beyond test scores will ignore the international data showing that 30 countries have the same sort of “within school” differences in test performance.
Even the researchers who are quoted in this report seem to think that scores should be in the same general range for all students in a given grade and subject. The worshipful attention given to data distributions and gaps in performance on standardized tests have been doing severe damage to schools here and elsewhere. I doubt if any candidate or sitting member of Congress will get beyond the “gap spin.”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/10/07/schools-help-widen-academic-gaps-studies-find.html
While it may not be possible to eliminate the gap, I do believe that it is possible to reduce the gap through equal access. There is a great deal of positive research that shows that students learn quite a bit from each other. We know that learning is social, and mixing diverse students helps lower achieving students to become aspirational and better students. Integration, which should be the law, would benefit poor students tremendously. I have seen the positive impact of an integrated school on the academic performance of poor students, and it is powerful.
What’s with Warren?
You’d think she of all people would be onto the charter scam!
And has Booker seen what’s going on in Newark and Camden?
Really appalled by all of them.
Booker is largely responsible for what is going on in Newark.
Joining the rest of the comments so far, I expect it from sell outs Booker and Murphy, but cannot fathom how Warren winds up attacking unions. Unbelievable.
It’s not just that. It’s that they’ve become completely incoherent.
This is the President, today:
“If we don’t refashion the social compact so workers are rewarded properly for the labor they put in, then we’re going to have problem,” said President Obama, in a keynote speech to the carefully selected workers, organizers and officials in attendance. “It’s not just going to be a problem for our politics, creating resentment and anxiety, it’s going to be a problem for our economy.”
Who is this “we” he’s talking about? The fast food workers who went on strike? They’re the only people I see doing anything about it. Last I heard he was busy pushing thru another crappy trade deal. All of a sudden he’s a labor organizer? 7 years into his term?
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/10/08/secrecy-of-obamas-tpp-trade-deal/
Testing, testing and more testing- they’re like a broken record in DC.
Can’t they come up with anything positive for kids in public schools? It’s so relentlessly grim and joyless. How much data do they need? The 7 hour Common Core tests aren’t enough? We need a federal punishment scheme to go along with them?
Oh, look! It must be election season! Democrats want to talk about wages again!
“President Obama has had a sometimes rocky relationship with unions — and the workers they represent. Just this week, union leaders expressed displeasure at the administration’s concluding of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal that unions fear will be bad for workers.
But that has not stopped Mr. Obama from wooing workers. On Wednesday, the White House will host the “Summit on Worker Voice,” an effort to give unions, organizers and some businesses a platform to discuss wages and other issues.
“It’s in the numbers,” Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, writes in an email Wednesday morning. “Firms with unionized workers have higher retention and higher productivity.”
I guess President Obama just discovered this “data”, 7 years into his Presidency and 5 years after state after state destroyed both public and private sector unions and the DC Democrats stood around like potted plants and watched it happen.
It’s from the same playbook Obama used in Alaska – open up he Arctic to drill for oil while renaming a mountain. The man is a prevaricating tool of the Pritzkers and the 1 percent. May public contempt shadow him everywhere he goes for the rest of his days – he’s earned it.
“If you hear a candidate say that the big problem with education is teachers, you should not vote for that person,”– Barack Obama, at a high school in Iowa a few weeks ago (with Arne Duncan at his side) — talking about Republicans, of course.
People like Obama and Warren obviously believe we are all stupid.
And given that we keep electing these elitist Hawvid types to high office and putting them in charge of important matters, they may actually be right.
Is there anybody in Congress at all who gets it? I remember reading about Rep. Mark Takano from Riverside, CA who is a former teacher and seemed to speak sense when everyone else was speaking nonsense about education. Has he introduced any education focused legislation? Is he joined by anyone else who makes sense? Has anybody been able to reach and talk to Bernie Sanders to see if he can understand? (He seems more likely than others to be reachable, given his overall pro-union, anti-privatization point of view and desire to tackle “child poverty”, but he also voted for the Murphy amendment with some “accountability” explanation.) I’d love to have even a small group of two or three Congresspeople to support.
“There has to be accountability back up the chain,” Warren said.
Yes, all the way to the top — though the rest of her statement makes it very clear that that is actually not what she had in mind.
“Accountability”
Accountability is for students
For janitors and teachers
For those who flip the burgers
For those who clean the bleachers
For those who wash the dishes
For those who build the roads
For those who catch the fishes
And do the laundry loads
For those who do the weeding
For those who walk the dogs
For those who clock the speeding
For those who slop the hogs
For those who build the school
For those who fix the pipe
For those who truck the fuel
And pick the fruit when ripe
It isn’t for the wealthy
Or those that they install
In LA and in DC
It’s not for them at all
It is utterly Orwellian. They tout ‘civil rights… but the civil rights of the tens of thousands of veteran teachers that these tests have erased, are unknown.
I have published this piece on my blog in 2004, and Perdaily picked it up in 2011, and Ihve posted it here FOREVER… this is what happened to me, and with the advent of VAM, it became a legal way to move teachers out the door.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Here is something personal, from me , Susan Lee Schwartz,http://www.opednews.com/author/comments/author40790.html
because I think it will shine a light on it for you, as it did for me WHO EXPERIENCED IT.
This IS an important insight into VAM, and the Common Core crap created to silence the voice of the professional educator, and replace the national conversation about what LEARNING LOOKS LIKE with a diatribe about those bad teachers!
You see, VAM — was not in existence when I, Susan Lee Schwartz, was eliminated… at the very moment when I was at the top of a four decade career, and the NYSEC Educator of Excellence.
How did they do it, back then in the nineties?
Why the same way that you would get a hospital to fail… take out the professionals who understand the complexities of the discipline. Medicine and pedagogy are not easily grasped by the public, which it is why the pundits who explain education cannot be charlatans selling magic elixirs.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
How did they begin the war on public education?
They came after me, and all the ’teacher-practitioners’ who understood how the brain of emergent learners actually ACQUIRES both SKILLS and KNOWLEDGE. Thinking critically (analyzing) is a very complex skill, and it needs an expert who can plan lessons that meet age-appropriate objectives.
Replace that expert with an administrator, following a mandated ‘core’ unrelated to the needs of the human brain of a child, and the result is FAILING CHILDREN, and a failing school … which can be replaced by a CHARTER SCHOOL!
AHA!
They began by eradicating the voice of the classroom practitioner who would never use the anti-learning curricula which was the Common Core?
That was ME! For I had written my own curricula to meet the state objectives for the seventh grade, and the success of my students needed to DISAPPEAR, so I could be charged with incompetence. This a yea after Harvard and Pew selected my practice for study as the NYC cohort for the real NATIONAL STANDARDS research on THE PRINCIPLES OF effort-based LEARNING.*
http://www.intime.uni.edu/model/learning/lear.html
*NOTE I can link you to Lauren Resnick’s work on this,
Click to access Institute%20for%20Learning%20Overview.pdf
but NOWHERE is info on The Pew National Standards research! Zilch! Nada!
This zillion dollar research disappeared with the appearance of the NCLB and the Gates nonsense. If I had not been the cohort, and attended the LRDC seminars on the research, for 2 years, I would not know it exists! “THEY” do not want anyone to talk about LEARNING, when the conversation is directed at telling teachers what they must do!
This film, shows the result of this conversation and of taking out the most experienced teachers, in NYC, the LARGEST SCHOOL DISTRICT IN THE 15,880 that make up our PUBLIC SCHOOLS. The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman on Vimeo
Yes… with the complicity of the union in NYC, this was accomplished— at the very moment that my students scored THIRD IN NY STATE on the very first NYS English Language Exam (ELA)!
This occurred EVEN AS THE PRINCIPALS filled my lifetime employment file with unproven, nasty allegations and ‘documentation’ of my incompetence.
I saw my portfolio emptied of DECADES of excellent evaluations, letters and commentary with high praise from educators, parents and students, AWARDS, and my induction into WHO’S WHO AMONG AMERICA’S TEACHERS!
I can prove everything I say here, as I copied my file every year!.
Where was the union?
Where are they in LAUSD? http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
Yes, it is Orwellian, and it was carefully planned, so that the national conversation would be subverted from one about learning, which the professionals grasped, to one about teaching, which no one understood, but could easily be defined and attacked in the media.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Learning-not-Teacher-evalu-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-111001-956.html
Thus, they began to ‘terminate’ the contracts and the careers of the veteran teachers who made NYC schools such a path to opportunity for so many.
Anthony Cody revealed how that is affecting teachers now, a decade after my experience, in his book, which Diane excepted here, recently
THIS HAS GO TO STOP, and someone has to tell my story and the TRUTH ABOUT VAM TO Bernie Sanders, because that man, does not know… or he would have had something to say about it!
go read my THREE COMMENTS here,
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CURMUDGUCATION-Gates-Says-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Bill-Gates_Education_Money_Parents-151008-359.html#comment56632
where I posted Peter Greene’s wonderful blo.
Personally, I will be at the D caucus voting for Sanders, and bringing his voting record and other info with me to help sway others.
Disappointed at Warren.
I think it would be a good idea to do a massive survey of these politicinas to find out where their kids are going to school. Maybe such a survey already exists.
Their kids are in expensive private schools, or well funded, fancy public schools. Believe me. There is no need for a survey.
I didn’t think there was a single item with which I agreed with Elizabeth Warren. Thanks to Diane, I was proven wrong. Go VAMs!
Tell her about it Virginia, you may change her mind. Use the same persuasive arguments the judge fined you for.