The new Every Student Succeeds Act passed the Senate by an overwhelming vote. It will be law as soon as the President signs it, which he has said he will do. No Child Left Behind is history, a cruel law that set goals so far out of reach that it was certain to label every school in the nation a failure. Because of NCLB, data became more important than education. It was a boon for the standardized testing industry. It labeled and ranked schools by test scores and led to cheating, teaching to bad tests, gaming the system (by districts and states), and narrowing the curriculum. Thanks to this dreadful law, many schools abandoned or reduced time for the arts, physical education, recess, science, history, and foreign languages. NCLB was the platform for the even harsher, even more punitive, even more disastrous Race to the Top.
The fight for better education for all now shifts to the states. As Mercedes Schneider reports here, the 1,061 page act was released to the public on November 30. It is now December 9. Who read the entire act? We know from Kenneth Zeichner’s reading of the section on teacher education that the new law opens the doors to alternative routes, in some cases enables institutions to award graduate degrees that have no faculty with graduate degrees (Relay, Match). We know from Mercedes Schneider’s work that Teach for America moles on the Congressional staff protected TFA. We know from the crowing of charter organizations that the bill protects them.
There is much we don’t know. What we can say for certain is that the fight for the survival of public education and the teaching profession now shifts to the states. The battle to repel the monetization of education funds goes on. The struggle to allow teachers to teach goes on. The battle to prevent technology entrepreneurs from replacing teachers and mechanizing teaching goes on.
Now, as never before, our role as citizens and defenders of the common good is necessary. The Network for Public Education will continue to be in the forefront of the struggles ahead. Plan to join us at our annual meeting in Raleigh on April 16-17 to discuss how we can make our schools ready for all our children, not just a few. And how we can repel the privatization movement in its efforts to capture and profit from what belongs to all of us.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
NCLB is dead. Long live NCLB.
Time to abolish the U.S. Department of Education
By Michael Hynes, Patchogue-Medford Superintendent of Schools
As an educator, I have no use for the U.S. Department of Education.
The fact is, as parents and educators begin to understand the infinite failures of federal initiatives such as No Child Left Behind, the carrot-on-a-stick incentive on steroids called Race to the Top and the soon-to-be-passed version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act — dubbed the Every Student Succeeds Act — this bloated department of non-educators has wasted tax dollars and ruined millions of children’s lives over the past four decades.
It is an experiment gone awry and it’s time for the U.S. Department of Education to go.
It’s as simple as that.
Now that our new acting secretary of education will be John King — the man who oversaw New York State’s disastrous rollout of the Common Core State Standards — that only makes my claim that much stronger.
The U.S. Department of Education was formed in 1980 by combining offices from several federal agencies. It now has 4,400 employees and a $68 billion budget.
The department claims to establish policies on federal financial aid for education. It also collects data on our schools and shares research. Finally, it asserts to focus national attention on key educational issues and pretends to prohibit discrimination and ensure equal access to education.
My question is, when was the last time this institution actually produced something positive for our children? According to the Department of Education’s website, its mission is to “promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”
In practice, it has churned out one bad policy after another, policies that have been wreaking havoc on our public schools. This department has left a wake of children who have been tested to death and also degraded educators by reducing them to numbers.
What may have sounded like a good idea at the time, some 35 years ago, has proven to be both inefficient and unconstitutional. I don’t believe in federal control of our schools. I feel many of our parents and teachers can figure out for themselves how to educate our children. The challenge of a great education is best addressed as close to the student as possible. Local control should chart its own courses on education.
I fear the latest iteration of a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act will perpetuate and enforce the terrible educational mindset of “How intelligent are you?” instead of “How are you intelligent?”
You can bet that the Department of Education won’t be far behind waiting to craft and enforce ridiculous policies, technology driven programs and unfunded mandates that schools will have to comply with.
By abolishing this behemoth, we will be better served to identify a child’s strength’s and interests while providing opportunities for all children to soar at the local level — right where all this belongs.
The Department of Education has become a means for private enterprise to take over testing, text books and curriculum of our children.
States rights should prevail in this nightmare.
I agree. Abolish the Department of Education and give states the right to educate their children, without bowing to Pearson, SBAC or PARCC.
I think they DO have to examine if they’re actually helping the schools they claim to serve if they want continued public support. I really objected to the Obama Administration programs where schools had to “compete” for federal money. It’s their money. I read a Duncan speech once where he sternly informed the school that the grant wasn’t a “gift”- they had earned it! Of course it isn’t a “gift” from him. It isn’t his money. People in the country “earned” it once and sent it in. I’m not clear why they have to “earn” it again to get some back.
It’s an odd attitude, the idea that public schools have to compete to earn the favor of another public entity. Where did that come from? How did they end up as a beggars rather than equals?
As superintendent what have you done, Michael, to fight the insanities? Have you ordered your district to not administer the flawed, error filled and completely invalid standardized tests? Have you refused to institute teacher evaluations that use those scores? Have you sent all the materials back to the state with a note saying you refuse to be part of insanities that are educational standards and standardized testing?
If not, you have failed in your job as a citizen and human being.
Abolish Education, Commerce, … and … oops.
But I do agree. NCLB has been a disaster for most.
Now we’ll get a grand experiment in the conservative argument for state’s rights.
The question is “Is the devil you know less or more harmful than the devil you don’t know?” I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, cheer or jeer, or just wait for the other shoe to drop.
This is SICK! It’s a GRAB for POWER and $$$$$. I am more than DISGUSTED.
What a sad day for children, but yes, we’ll keep fighting
What a sad day for our children…
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/12/congress-and-obama-feign-a-course-correction-on-testing.html
What a sad day for our children.
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/12/congress-and-obama-feign-a-course-correction-on-testing.html
A very sad day for our children. Even at the state level they have to get approval from the feds still. Nothing has changed.
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2015/12/congress-and-obama-feign-a-course-correction-on-testing.html
Every Democrat and almost all Republicans voted for the federalization of education, the privatization of public schools and deprofessionalizing teaching. Any victory here as a Pyrrhic victory.
This law also continues to condemn students who cannot learn at grade level due to disabilities to a lifetime of believing they are stupid and failures. Only 1% of the MOST SEVERE of students with disabilities can be assessed alternatively from the state’s standards. Gone are the days where we create individual goals for the IEP. Gone are the days where progress was considered success in meeting these goals. Gone are the days of individualized instruction and assessing students with disabilities by looking at both strengths and weaknesses. Instead, these students must be assessed at chronological grade level. So, if you have a fifth grader who began the year reading at a first grade level and by the end of the year is reading at the 4th grade level, instead of noting how much progress has been made and celebrating this child’s success, we are still considering that student and his teacher as failures for his inability to read at a fifth grade level. It is even worse in NY, where to graduate from high school with a “Regents Diploma (required only by NYS for NYS students) you must pass the “Regents Exams”. Students with disabilities who could not pass previously, were given an alternate exam called the “RTCs” (Regents Competency Test) and graduated with a local diploma. No more. If a student cannot pass the Regents, he gets no diploma. Period. Instead, a student can work toward a certificate called a CDOS (Career Development and Occupational Studies). First of all, it outs a student even before a job interview as a person with a disability. Secondly, since it isn’t a diploma, the student cannot join the military and cannot go to college. Thirdly, how many jobs are left in this country that don’t require AT LEAST a high school diploma??? The Federal Government and NYS are basically stating to these students; unless you fit in the one size fits all idea of a successful student, you are failures and will never amount to anything. In my opinion, the public schools of the future will no longer provide special education students an education. Parents who have money will see to it that their children go to private schools. I have no idea what will become of the students who are less fortunate economically. In the not too distant past, parents fought to get laws on the books to make sure these students received a “Fair and Appropriate Education (FAPE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). All has been undone. Our government should be deeply ashamed for the damage they have done and, by the passage of this law, are committed to continue to do with this law.
This is long overdue, but the damage done to students and teachers will go on for a long time. Not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars spent.
There is a lot of disappointment in Illinois that this passed because Goldman Sachs,
As stated by Diane Ravitch in her blog and Bev Johns:
Pay for Success in Utah denied special education to over 99 percent of the students that were in the early childhood Pay for Success program.Goldman Sachs has received a first payment of over $250,000 based on over 99 percent of students NOT being identified for special education.Based on these results, Goldman Sachs may receive
an over 100 percent return on its investment as it will receive yearly payments based on students continuing to NOT be identified for special education (multiple yearly payments for one student).
“If special education is reduced to less than 1 percent of students, for all practical purposes it will cease to exist,” says Bev Johns, Chair of the Illinois Special Education Coalition.
Goldman Sachs has also funded a Pay for Success program for the Chicago Public Schools based on paying Goldman on the number of students NOT identified for special education, but results for Chicago from that program are not yet available.
“Success is not the elimination of special education.Success is not failing to identify students as needing the specialized and individualized instruction required by IDEA,” states Johns.“We simply cannot expect the general education teacher to do it all, to know it all, and to achieve academic excellence for each and every student,” says Johns.
As a former special education teacher, I know this dilemna first hand. The question is why were the Democrats so strongly for it–what was the basis for their support. I’m totally confused as to what went wrong here.
Wall St, particularly Goldman Sachs, runs Washington.
Almost every one here appears to be against ESEA. It is rather unfortunate. Here is a viewpoint from California as reported by LASchool report.
http://laschoolreport.com/37752-2/
“LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines and board President Steve Zimmer joined a chorus of praise today from state education leaders as the Senate passed a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law, which is now known as the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The bill now awaiting the signature of President Obama cuts back on federal oversight of education and shifts much of the power to the states, which will be crafting their own accountability systems that will go into effect for the 2017-18 school years.
LA Unified, along with five other districts part of the California Office of Reform Education (CORE), has been receiving federal waivers from the provisions of NCLB after demonstrating its accountability system was more robust that what NCLB called for.
“We are pleased with the overall balance in the bill regarding accountability and school improvement,” Cortines said in a statement. “As a leader in the CORE districts, which received a federal waiver from many of the unworkable NCLB requirements, we look forward to working with the California Department of Education in designing the state’s new school accountability system. We are hopeful that we will be able to continue implementing the many positive reforms included in our waiver. LAUSD is committed to its work to close the achievement gap, boost overall student achievement and increase high school graduation rates.”
Zimmer said he hopes the new direction will also come with new funds.
“With the passage of this bill, we implore Congress to increase funding in the Fiscal Year 2016 education appropriations bill for critical ESEA programs, including Title I, in order to assist states and school districts in implementing the reauthorized ESEA,” Zimmer said in a statement. “Increasing the federal share of funding for students with disabilities is also of utmost importance to us.”
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has already offered his praise of the bill when the House passed it on Dec. 2.
“This legislation ushers in a new era in education. I”m pleased that it follows the lead of California in so many important areas, including enhancing local control and providing more flexibility to the states to set up accountability systems that look at multiple measures of success rather than placing so much emphasis on one test,” Torlakson said in a statement. “California is currently in the process of doing just that. I am also glad the legislation encourages states to reduce unnecessary and wasteful testing just as California has done over the years.”
U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the chair of the Senate Afterschool Caucus, also praised the bill and the money it dedicates to after-school programs.
“This legislation preserves a dedicated funding stream for afterschool programs so that more than 1 million children will continue to have a safe, enriching place to go when the school day ends,” Boxer said in a statement. “The bill also helps states support high-quality afterschool programs, encourages parental engagement and ensures that afterschool activities complement the academic curriculum.”
Please remember that:
The bill passed by a 359-64 vote in the House. The bill also passed by a 81-17 vote in the Senate. Both house and senate votes show overwhelming bi-partisan support. Our elected representatives have spoken and it is time to let it be.
Let it be and sell out the children? Never! Henry David Thoreau would be outraged!
No, most of us support ESEA. It’s the bastardized version that’s come about since NCLB, RttT and now ESSA that we object to.
Dienne: you wrote—
“No, most of us support ESEA. It’s the bastardized version that’s come about since NCLB, RttT and now ESSA that we object to.”
Well and succinctly put. How could what you wrote be so badly misinterpreted?
😎
Small correction, I did not mean ESEA. I meant ESSA.
ESSA=Essentially the Same Standardized Acts succeeded from the political platform of NCLB and RTTT.
Raj: thank you for the clarification.
Happens to everyone.
😎
“The battle for public education shifts to the states.” Are you serious? Today is the biggest black mark on the civil rights of our school age children since 1964. I am angry today. I am angry at We the People for failing to protect and nurture the institution of public education and value our children as America’s kids. Our children have never been served as the property of local school districts and states. Fifty States of Public Education is now what we have. Equity, equality and the promise of meaningful educational benefit is gone. No reauthorization would have been better than this devastation. Our children would have been better served by waiting for the next Congress and even the next President. Today is not a day of celebration. Today is a wake and the funeral of Public Education.
I’ve come to agree. The more I read about ESSA the more I realize how awful it is. It’s the “states rights” version of public education. “States rights”, as history has taught us, can mean a state’s “right” to own human beings. Now I fear “states rights” is going to mean a state’s “right” to educate (or not) its children however it pleases (or doesn’t). Religion in education? States’ rights. Special education? States’ rights. Equal education? States’ rights. I think we’re going to regret de-fanging the federal government. In fact, there are times I think Arne knew he was overreaching and did it intentionally to generate just this kind of backlash to “the feds”.
The US Constitution does not call for federal education anything. Nothing. In fact, it does state that the powers not outlined in the Constitution (like education policy, healthcare, etc.) as being federally managed are in fact the responsibility of the state. Education, like health care, housing, etc. are all state issues. There should be zero federal input and funding. The US Dept of Ed didn’t even exist until 1979 when Carter created it. The workings of the federal government need to be dictated by the Constitution, not feelings and wants.
About ESSA….here is the bottom line…. ESSA is nothing more than the rearrangement of furniture in the house, or a rearrangement of chairs on the Titanic, or a new paint job on an ugly house, or lipstick on a pig…you get it. Anyway. There are some improvements (new curtains), but the windows are still dirty on the outside of the house. There is more flexibility in other areas such as testing and a combination of programs in another area. Other areas, such as accountability plans is not so clear –head scratcher. Standards – well- that is debatable….just like every other federal program…you take the money; the feds make the rules. Teacher prep programs will change —like the change you got with Obama.
The best thing for us educators to do is teach as good as we can where we can; if you can. Remember, Washington “knows best” ( insert sarcasm here). We have to move on and educate kids and that is what we will do. But there is one little tiny place in the law that WE THE PEOPLE should pay attention to – it says that CONGRESS has to approve of ANY new regulation the US Secretary of Ed tries to enact….if you want to hold your Congressman accountable or other elected officials accountable this would be the place to start.I have a feeling Congress will not do their job.