This is the ninth and final installment in a series of exchanges about the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). I wrote the questions, and David P. Cleary, chief of staff to Senator Lamar Alexander, wrote the answers.
I may have overlooked important issues. David has agreed to write a follow-up post if there are any additional questions that need explaining. I thank David Cleary, other members of the staff, and especially Senator Alexander for taking the time to explain the ramifications of the new law.
How does ESSA affect Common Core? Some says ESSA “locks in” CCSS. True or false.
Short answer: No. This one is absolutely the biggest whopper we’ve heard.
Some advocates have tried to pretend that there were no mandates to adopt Common Core, but in the same breath point with glee to how many states adopted Common Core in order to secure a waiver from the broken NCLB or a grant under Race to the Top.
States are completely, totally, 100 percent free to set their standards on their own and relegate the Common Core State Standards to history, if they choose.
Long Answer:
States do have to have academic standards in order to receive federal education funds. That’s been a federal requirement for a very long time.
Here’s what the new law requires:
States have to have “challenging State academic standards.” This requirement has been in effect since at least the 1994 Improving America’s Schools Act. But “challenging” means what the states want it to mean. The Secretary and peer reviewers are strictly prohibited from reviewing the content of state standards, as the State does not have to submit the standards for review or approval, prohibited in section 1111(b)(1)(A) under the new law.
It’s the equivalent of checking a box.
The Secretary cannot require a state to add to or delete from its standards, or interfere with state standards, as dictated by section 1111(e)(1)(B)(ii) in the new law. In section 8527(d), there is an explicit prohibition on any federal approval or certification of standards.
Under ESSA, state standards have to be aligned so that the end point of the state standards in k-12 is aligned with the entrance requirements for the public system of higher education and career and technical state standards. This seemed like a logical requirement: students and parents expect that when the student leaves high school, the student is then prepared to go on to higher education or career and technical education.
Common Core advocates saying that this “locks in” Common Core are the equivalent of the rooster taking credit for the rising of the sun. It’s pure poppycock.
There are all sorts of ways a state could set their standards under ESSA. Some will keep Common Core (whether admitting to it or trying to rebrand it), some will keep parts of Common Core and make changes in areas, some will completely abandon Common Core and adopt their own system or work together with a smaller group of states to develop something that works for them. It is purely a state decision.
What Congress eliminated were the mandates in the waivers, the incentives in the Race to the Top (and we didn’t authorize the Department to do something like Race to the Top again), and any other method of coercing or incentivizing the adoption of Common Core standards or any particular set of standards deemed “acceptable” by Washington bureaucrats. The law is clear – no officer or employee of the federal government can mandate, direct, or control a state’s standards, or condition or incentivize the receipt of any grant, contract, or cooperative agreement on the adopt of Common Core State Standards, as described in section 8526A of the new law. States can enter voluntary partnerships to develop and implement standards, but the new law states in section 1111(j) that that Secretary cannot attempt to influence, incentivize, or coerce participation in partnerships or the adoption of the Common Core.
Now it is up to states to decide what to do, without any interference from Washington. For those concerned about Common Core, the responsibility falls to them to keep an eye on what their state decides to do.
From Chairman Alexander’s perspective this is exactly what he set out to do: restore responsibility to state and local leaders what to do about educational decisions. If a state decides to move away from Common Core, they don’t have to call Washington and ask permission—they can just do it.
And this began the new state-led, standards initiative: RTTB (Race to the Bottom)!
Someone should tell Republican candidates for the presidency that one of their first moves in office cannot be ” repealing” the Common Core. Heard from the lips of Marco Rubio last night.
Note that the Gates Foundation, among others will not stop pushing the Common Core and associated college and career agenda. It was a major investment, and it is still a prominent part of the Foundation’s projects to control the priorities for public education and teacher education, and professional development and instructional resources from publishers.
The Common Core has not been removed from policies in many states, but it has been “rebranded” primarily by removing from the original and absurd requirement for verbatim use. Note also that the CCSS has migrated to and become embedded in the College Board and in NAEP.
ESSA did not kill the Common Core.
Thanks to the staff trying to answer the questions that Diane asked.
“Someone should tell Republican candidates for the presidency that one of their first moves in office cannot be ” repealing” the Common Core. Heard from the lips of Marco Rubio last night.”
It’s just so blatantly self-serving. Republicans at the state level adopted Common Core because they chose to. If one has any doubt that they adopted Common Core because they chose to, one has only to look at the Medicaid expansion, which came with a big pot of federal money which many of them refused. They somehow resisted “coercion” there.
The Common Core is unpopular with their base so now they want to claim they had no choice because it isn’t in their partisan interest to admit that ed reform is bipartisan, and the differences between the 2 Parties on public education amount to bickering over technical details of a lock-step “reform” agenda.
Republicans are denying it and Democrats have decided they can simply avoid the subject of K-12 education altogether.
Profiles in courage, both sides.
What happens when a child doesn’t want to be college and/or career ready for whatever reason or cause?
What happens when a teacher wants to blame their ineffectiveness on a student who “doesn’t want to be college and/or career ready for whatever reason or cause“?
I’d expect that teacher to have data that shows what the student did in class or didn’t do. For instance, grade books that show if work was turned in or not. Labeling a teacher incompetent who has the misfortune of too many children with no interest in learning is disingenuous and foolish.
For instance, when I taught that one period of Journalism that was an elective class, every student was on his or her way to college and 99% of the grades were always A’s and B’s. But I also taught grade level high school English to classes with reading levels ranging from 2nd grade to college level. Students didn’t fail because of me, the teacher. They failed because the didn’t work and it takes work to learn. In all but one class in thirty years there were always students who earned A’s and B’s and those who failed.
If administration is doing its job, tests and VAM will not reveal an incompetent teacher. Observations reveal that.
During the Los Angeles Vergara trial, the two Harvard Professors who were witnesses for the billionaire oligarch who paid for the lawyers and bribed the parents with children who never had the teacher who was dragged into court, sat on the witness stand and said from years of observations, they concluded—guessed—that between 1% to 3% of teachers were incompetent. For that guesstimate on the witness stand, the judge ruled in favor of the billionaire’s law suit.
Just working with the higher 3% guesstimate of alleged incompetent teachers, looking at California reveals how unjust, corrupt and foolish using results of tests and VAM are to label the bottom 5% of teachers incompetent annually. There is always going to be a bottom 5% when test scores are used. The teachers could be incredible but the students they taught were not.
California has 6,235,520 students enrolled during the 2014,-15 scdhool year, 10,393 schools, and 295,025 teachers.
3% x 295,025 = 8,851
That means about 1,500 schools could not have even one incompetence Teacher, but using VAM and an arbitrary rule that the bottom 5% of teachers are incompetent and must go means thousands of teachers every year would lose their jobs who are not incompetent—they just had the misfortune of too many students, who probably lived in poverty, who didn’t care if they learned or not.
But using VAM as the method to identify incompetent teachers without any observation to see how well they teach and without knowing how they teach, who they taught, almost 15,000 teachers would have to lose their jobs annually.
In addition, every 20 years, there would be a total turnover of classroom teachers in California. How many young college graduates would want to become a teacher in a world ruled by VAM and its annual 5% rule?
Few if any teachers would ever reach retirement age.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sd/cb/ceffingertipfacts.asp
Virginia, this is the absolutely last time I will let you post about VAM. You have done it 20-30 times. Enough is enough.
Then that child and its parents should be happy with any score on any new test.
For this category of parent/guardian, the child learning anything, doing homework, reading books, etc, still is and was never important. The only thing that was important, if the parent/guardian even cared that much, was for the child to feel good all the time, be entertained by teachers, no boredom allowed or not learning was the teacher’s fault, and the child must have fun and feel good all the time with a guaranteed photo op at HS graduation even if the child never did any classwork or homework four four years. Any grade less than a passing grade would result in a complaint and request for a transfer to another class for their child to escape that mean teacher.
VAsgp
Once again you enlighten us with your ignorance. But you too have an excuse: the degree to which some students openly and remorselessly reject their opportunities in the classroom cannot possibly be comprehended if not witnessed first hand. Behaviors completely foreign to anyone with your rigid, authoritarian military background. Behaviors ranging from harmless, abject apathy to being dangerously defiant and disruptive. The type of student Lloyd is referring to is for all intents and purposes, unreachable and and unteachable. The causes and reasons are, in many instances understandable, but still not acceptable. But like every armchair quarterback, you talk a big game, but refuse to put your money where your overblown ego is. The LAUSD will take you in flash to fill any number of STEM positions you so dearly cherish. Come on, give it a go, what do you have to lose other than your ignorance.
Would it not be beneficial yo have appropriate standards or objectives for those students who are trainable but not able to participate in a competitive workforce? Would it not be beneficial to have connections to work that is available for those in need of an alternative plan?
I know people whose children simply cannot compete to enter the workforce and who can’t perform adequately on any kind of standardized testing due to mental, academic, physical, or psychological differences.
If we are to truly meet all needs, we have to meet the students where they are, not try to force them into a preconceived niche or role for which they are not equipped to enter.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/01/27/estimate-common-core-to-cost-California-nearly-10-billion-nation-80-billion/
Governor Kasich is traveling the country trumpeting the success of his ed reforms- which are identical to the Obama Administration’s ed reforms, BTW- not a dime’s worth of difference between President Obama and Governor Kasich on public ed.
Ohio newspapers are calling him on it 🙂
Not that he’ll see any local commentary. He rarely drops by this state anymore.
http://www.toledoblade.com/MarilouJohanek/2016/01/23/Gov-Kasich-has-a-secret-Scandal-at-the-education-department.html
“States are completely, totally, 100 percent free to . . . relegate the Common Core State Standards to history . . . .
Welcome CCSS to the ash heap of FAILED reform plans.
The final nail in the coffin will be Coleman’s looming CC/SAT FIASCO.
College admissions officers must now navigate through the mess left behind by Gates and Co.
While I haven’t been thrilled with the answers, I applaud Mr. Cleary for taking the time and thought to give these short and long answers to the very important questions Diane has raised. Thank you, Mr. Cleary.
howardat58 facetiously remarks,
“Then that child and its parents should be happy with any score on any new test.”
Teacher made assessments are very valid and will inform parents if their child is grasping the information and the possible causes of a poor grade such as being the clown of the class and not taking his tasks seriously.
Be it known, there were and still are valid assessments out there. Marie Clay’s Diagnostic Test for emergent readers is standardized but it is administered in a non-threatening way. The person administering the test doesn’t reveal his/her recording. The child can’t tell if a mark is negative or positive so if the child doesn’t see the recording procedure the child won’t become apprehensive. At the very beginning a conversation ensues to ensure that the student is relaxed and not apprehensive.
So Mary DeFalco, let me get this straight.
All teacher developed assessments are good and valid because they can never be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the teacher, just the knowledge of the student. We can ignore the fact that these are proven to be inconsistent and often highly inflated, correct?
All standardized assessments which compare the performance/growth of students in one class/school/district with another class/school/district are bad and invalid because they might be used to demonstrate more than 1% of teachers/principals are ineffective. We can ignore the fact that these tests are consistent across all districts throughout the country, right?
Thanks for letting us know how we should frame the different assessments. However, I think Duane would disagree with # above, right Duane?
Reblogged this on Teachers in Distress.