Nicholas Tampio, a professor of political science at Fordham University, argues that the Every Student Succeeds Act is a sham. Instead of dismantling the harmful policies of corporate reform, it shifts the burden of imposing them to the states. By his reading, the warped soul of NCLB and Race to the Top was preserved with their emphasis on high-stakes testing.
The opt out movement must grow and grow until every state government and Congress recognizes that parents won’t tolerate the worship of high-stakes testing. We will not sacrifice our children and grandchildren to the gods of testing. The achievement gap is a product of standardized tests. The standardized tests faithfully reproduce family income, not the ability to learn. American students need a great education, like the one Bill Gates wants for his children at the Lakeside School, like the one Rahm Emanuel wants for his children at the University of Chicago Lab School, like the one President Obama wants for his children at the Sidwell Friends School. An education that includes the arts, foreign languages, history, science, physical education, literature, civics, time for play, time for exploration, time for projects, time for recess. NOT an “education” that is centered on standardized tests, where children are rated and ranked by their ability to mark the correct bubbles. We want an education that encourages children to ask question, not an education that prepares them to give the “right” answer.
He writes:
How can people say that the new bill is a U-turn from the education policies of the past 14 years? Under it, the federal government would not be able tell states what academic standards to adopt or how student test scores should be used in teacher evaluations. Nonetheless, states would have to submit accountability plans to the Department of Education for approval, and these accountability plans would have to weigh test scores more than any other factor. Furthermore, under the act, states would have to use “evidence-based interventions” in the bottom 5 percent of schools, determined, again, by test scores.
In short, states would be free to choose test-based accountability policies approved by the secretary of education or lose access to federal Title I funds that sustain schools in low-income communities across the country. In a move that belies Alexander’s claim about local control, the Department of Education has offered to establish “office hours” for states or districts that wish to meet its “policy objectives and requirements under the law.”
Does the bill at least permit states to escape the Common Core? It is hard to see how. According to the bill, each state would have to adopt “challenging state academic standards.” The Obama administration’s testing action plan stipulates that assessment systems should measure student knowledge and skills against “state-developed college- and career-ready standards” — which has long been code for the Common Core. So, yes, states could invest hundreds of millions of dollars to write new academic standards and make aligned tests, but there is no guarantee that the secretary of education would approve standards or tests that implicitly chastise the administration’s education policies.
Advocates of high-stakes Common Core testing have applauded the Every Student Achieves Act. Catherine Brown, the director of education policy at the Center for American Progress, said, “At the end of the day the bill appears to allow the department to set parameters in key areas and enforce statutory requirements.” John Engler of the Business Roundtable likewise applauded the bill for keeping test scores “a central feature” of state accountability systems. Lanea Erickson at Third Way praised the bill for throwing “some much-needed water on the political firestorm around testing.”
These advocates have not changed their minds about the Common Core or testing. They are just happy to shift the responsibility for administering it to the states rather than the federal government if that would help defuse parent and educator animosity. They misunderstand the justified anger that fuels the test refusal movement.
Same ole, same ole….. Why do we expect people incapable of doing their own job well (governing) to figure out how others can do their jobs better (educating)?
“The bill dismantles NCLB but allows more charters, more room for TFA, “Pay for Success” for investors, and a bunch of other things that teachers worry about. And of course the teachers object to annual testing, which wastes instructional time and narrows curriculum.” (BATS)
This is a fantasy of a farce of a fallacy.
Agree
ESSA = ASSE Backwards
Do we dare ask what next?
CBE
SLO/SGPs
Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys.
The passage of ESSA leaves us in a far worse place than we began, less able to ignore or fight back against its ridiculous provisions. How do we change the minds or those who refuse to listen to anything we say?
Thiis is exactly why I opposed the ESSA. We are about to learn the same bitter lesson that Mickey Mouse learned in The Sorcerers Apprentice when he tried to destroy the broom carrying the buckets of water by chopping it into bits, and was then horrified to see each bit become whole. We now have 50 brooms to deal with, even though it’s still the same exact deformer/federal spell driving them all on. The irony is that the primary driver of this dispersal of bad policy out to the 50 states is the strong success of the Opt Out movement. The best and in fact easiest response to this is for all Opt Outers is to NOT abandon each other by focusing on the fight at the local level as the deformers desire and instead continue to come to each other’s aid at the local level while continuing to draw attention to the federal influence pulling the levers behind the curtain. The biggest new problem the ESSA has brought to the forefront is the fact that state governments are way more corruptable and for sale than the Feds are. The Deformers are counting on this to advance their agenda. Sad to say, but the ESSA has opened the door and rolled out the red carpet to exactly the kind of legislative environment that they can best thrive in. http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/11/09/18693/only-three-states-score-higher-d-state-integrity-investigation-11-flunk
Good analogy…earlier I was thinking that we may have gotten rid of the wicked witch of the east but now we’ve got to deal with the wicked witch of the west. Where are Glenda and the ruby slippers?
Let us give thanks to Diane Ravitch for airing another side of the story. How many people are capable of that?
This is the part I find so disturbing, fed-led-Ed mandating the collection of a needs assessment that identifies the academic, physical, nonacademic, health, mental health, and other needs of students, families, and community residents. This is the collection of non-cognitive data paid for by the taxpayers.
In addition, think of the money (our money) that is going to be wasted at the state level growing the bureaucracy to comply & report up to the DOE.
Finally, Let us not forget that the fed-led ed has no legal authority in any state education system. Learning happens between a student, a parent and a teacher. Year by year and child by child. The parents, students, teachers, school executives and public servants have an obligation to resist fed-led ed wherever and whenever we have the opportunity.
“Let us not forget that the fed-led ed has no legal authority in any state education system.”
Exactly! The Fed got into education through the back door of civil rights. And how has that turned out? The so-called “achievement gap” (actually an opportunity gap) has widened, children of color are now confined in “no excuses” charter schools/[prisons, the school to prison pipeline has grown, and racism rears its ugly head more and more often. What “fed-led ed” HAS accomplished is a consolidation and expansion of social class distinctions. Could it be that’s what they wanted in the first place?
Is the Fed held to any “standards?” Apparently not! Why are states not taking the Fed to court over their meddling and failed policies? What will it take to enlist people in a “Take Back Our Schools” movement?