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No, ICE May Not Enter Your Home Without a Judicial Warrant

By dianeravitch
January 28, 2026 //
2

The deployment of ICE to detain and arrest undocumented immigrants threatens to become a war against U.S. citizens who object to ICE’s brutal tactics. We have all seen the videos of ICE agents smashing car windows, knocking men and women to the ground, grabbing women by their hair, pummeling people on the ground, operating in teams of 5 or 6 as they beat up those they choose.

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution forbids ICE from entering homes. This article appeared on the blog CAFE, where seasoned prosecutors and law professors comment on matters of law and hold the federal government accountable.

No ICE Cannot Enter Your Home Without a Warrant — and Why Doing So Is Very Dangerous For All of Us
By Perry A. Carbone and Mimi Rocah

Dear Insider,

A leaked internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) memo claims that ICE agents may enter people’s homes without a judicial warrant. That claim is wrong as a legal matter— and it threatens one of the most basic freedoms Americans have: the right to be safe in their own homes.

The memo—dated May 12, 2025 and signed by Acting Director Todd Lyons—was leaked by two whistleblowers and shared with Senator Richard Blumenthal. According to the whistleblowers, the memo was directed to all personnel but was distributed in a secretive manner to selected personnel.
We spent many years as federal prosecutors enforcing federal law – about 50 years between the two of us. We know firsthand the power of law enforcement authority and how important it is that it be exercised within constitutional limits, especially within the sacrosanct safety of a person’s home.

Our homes have special protection under the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects people from unreasonable government searches and seizures and explicitly names “houses” as protected spaces: “The right of the people to be secure in their … houses … against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause….”
 
The Supreme Court has repeatedly made this protection crystal clear.

In Payton v. New York (1980), the Court held that police may not enter a home to make an arrest without a judicial warrant, unless there is an emergency or the resident consents, calling  physical entry of the home “the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed.”

In Kyllo v. United States (2001), the Court reaffirmed that the home is a place where privacy protection is at its highest. Even using technology to detect heat patterns inside a home — without ever physically entering — violated the Fourth Amendment if it was done without a warrant.

In Florida v. Jardines (2013), the Court held that bringing a drug-sniffing dog to the front porch of a home to investigate constituted an unlawful “search” under the Fourth Amendment, if done without a search warrant.
If the Constitution forbids the government from using technology and animals to sense what happens inside a home, it certainly forbids crossing the threshold without judicial approval.

The whistleblower disclosure shows ICE claiming its agents may enter homes without judicial warrants because immigration enforcement is “civil.” But the Fourth Amendment does not contain a “civil enforcement” carveout. And the relevant Supreme Court’s cases do not turn on whether a matter is labeled “civil” or “criminal.”  There is no “immigration exception” to the Constitution.

The ICE memo reportedly relies on Form I-205, a “warrant of removal/deportation” created within the executive branch and not signed by a judge. It authorizes officers to use “necessary and reasonable force” to enter certain residences to arrest people with final removal orders.

That is incompatible with the Fourth Amendment’s demand for judicial oversight. A judicial warrant is one that is issued by an individual who is ”neutral and detached” and can determine probable cause. An administrative warrant, by contrast, is issued by the government agency itself and so does not meet the Constitution and Court’s repeated requirement of being issued by someone “neutral” and “detached.”  Federal agencies do not get to rewrite the Constitution through internal memos. Put simply, an administrative warrant is the government agency authorizing itself to enter a home — the constitutional equivalent of letting the fox write its own warrant to enter the henhouse.

This is not an immigration issue. It is a constitutional issue with consequences for all Americans. Yes, it will have huge implications for immigrants, who have long been advisednot to open their door to federal agents unless they have a warrant signed by a judge. But it will not end there. If ICE is permitted to enter homes without judicial warrants, the consequences will not stop with immigration enforcement. Other agencies will follow the same path — and they will do so using the same logic: that civil enforcement, public safety, or administrative necessity justifies bypassing judicial oversight.

One can easily imagine a parade of horribles:

  • Tax enforcement: IRS agents entering homes to seize records or property based solely on internal agency warrants, without a judge ever reviewing probable cause.
  • Health and safety enforcement:Public health officials entering private residences to conduct inspections or remove occupants during disease outbreaks without judicial authorization.
  • Child welfare investigations: Social services entering homes to investigate allegations based only on agency paperwork, without court approval.
  • Firearms regulation: Regulatory agents entering homes to inspect compliance with gun laws without judicial warrants.
  • Local law enforcement: Police departments reclassifying certain arrests as “civil” or “administrative” to avoid the warrant requirement altogether.

Once the government can enter a home based on its own approval, the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement becomes optional — a procedural inconvenience rather than a constitutional command.

And that erosion won’t stop at homes. If agency-issued warrants suffice for entry, then agency-issued authorizations will soon suffice for searches of phones, computers, bank accounts, and digital records — all areas the Supreme Court has increasingly treated as deserving heightened constitutional protection.

The Fourth Amendment was written precisely to prevent this outcome: a system in which government officials authorize their own intrusions. Judicial warrants are not a technicality — they are the firewall between liberty and unchecked power. And when that firewall falls, it does not fall selectively. It falls for everyone.

The home is the heart of American liberty. The Fourth Amendment draws a bright line at the front door — and for good reason. This leaked ICE memo crosses that line. It is legally wrong. It is constitutionally dangerous. And it should concern everyone who values privacy, liberty, and the rule of law — regardless of their views on immigration.

Stay Informed, 
Mimi & Perry 

CAFE Contributor Mimi Rocah is the former District Attorney for Westchester County, and previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Division Chief for the Southern District of New York. She is currently an adjunct professor at Fordham School of Law.

Perry A. Carbone served as Chief of the White Plains Division at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York; he previously served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the District of New Jersey.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Extremism, Freedom, Justice

ICE Ignores Constitution

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2026 //
6

The Department of Homeland Security decided that ICE agents were exempt from the Fourth Amendment, which prevents police from entering homes without a warrant signed by a judge.

U.S. District Court judge Jeffrey Bryan ruled last Saturday in Minneapolis that ICE had to abide by the Fourth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment says:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This means that law officers can’t burst into your home without a judge’s warrant.

The Fourth Amendment underpins the phrase that “a man’s home is his castle.”

Recently, ICE decided that its agents did not need a judge’s warrant and that an “administrative warrant” would suffice. The administrative warrant would be signed by an ICE employee.

ICE decided that with an “administrative warrant,” it could batter down doors and enter homes to seize suspects.

Federal Judge Bryan said they could not.

Wired magazine summarized the situation:

A FEDERAL JUDGE in Minnesota ruled last Saturday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents violated the Fourth Amendment after they forcibly entered a Minnesota man’s home without a judicial warrant. The conduct of the agents closely mirrors a previously undisclosed ICE directive that claims agents are permitted to enter people’s homes using an administrative warrant, rather than a warrant signed by a judge.

The ruling, issued by US District Court judge Jeffrey Bryan in response to a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on January 17, did not assess the legality of ICE’s internal guidance itself. But it squarely holds that federal agents violated the United States Constitution when they entered a residence without consent and without a judge-signed warrant—the same conditions ICE leadership has privately told officers is sufficient for home arrests, according to a complaint filed by Whistleblower Aid, a nonprofit legal group representing whistleblowers from the public and private sector.

In a sworn declaration, Garrison Gibson, a Liberian national who has lived in Minnesota for years under an ICE order of supervision, says agents arrived at his home in the early morning on January 11 while his family slept inside. He says he refused to open the door and repeatedly demanded to see a judicial warrant. According to the declaration, the agents initially left, then returned with a larger group, deployed pepper spray toward neighbors who had gathered outside, and used a battering ram to force the door open.

The declaration was filed as part of a January 12 Minnesota lawsuit against Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem challenging federal immigration enforcement operations in the Twin Cities, which state officials characterize as an unconstitutional “invasion” by ICE and other agents that has roiled Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

Federal officials did not contest Gibson’s habeas petition.

Gibson, who reportedly fled the Liberian civil war as a child, says agents entered his home without showing a warrant. His wife, who was filming at the time, warned that children were inside, he says, and that agents holding rifles stood in their doorway. “One agent repeatedly claimed ‘We’re getting the papers’ in response to her demand to see the warrant,” he says. “But without showing a warrant, and apparently without having one, five to six agents moved in as if they were entering a war zone.”

Only after he was handcuffed, Gibson says, did the agents show his wife an administrative warrant.

One day after the judge ordered Gibson’s immediate release, ICE agents took him back into custody when he appeared for a routine immigration check-in at a Minnesota immigration office, according to his attorney, Marc Prokosch, who said Gibson arrived believing the court order had resolved the matter.

“We were there for a check-in, and the original officer said, ‘This looks good, I’ll be right back,’” Prokosch told the Associated Press. “And then there was a lot of chaos, and about five officers came out and then they said, ‘We’re going to be taking him back into custody.’ I was like, ‘Really, you want to do this again?’”

The re-arrest did not reverse the court’s finding that ICE violated the Fourth Amendment during the warrantless home entry, but underscores how the agency retains civil detention authority even if a judge rules that a specific arrest was unconstitutional.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Ethics, Extremism, Justice, Minneapolis

Obamas Issue Statement About Murder of Alex Pretti

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2026 //
10

Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama released a statement about the murder of Alex Pretti.

Will we hear from former President George W. Bush?

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Democracy, Ethics, Evil, Justice, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Obama

Bill Clinton Issues a Statement About the Present Crisis

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2026 //
8

Former President Bill Clinton released the following statement about what’s happening in Minneapolis and other places, as Trump unleashes the armed, masked ICE agents to arrest, harass, and murder our fellow citizens in pursuit of undocumented immigrants .

Well said. Where are other retired Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Senators?

Please speak up, Former Presidents Bush and Obama.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Guns, Trump, Tyranny

Victim Killed by ICE Was an Intensive Care Nurse

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2026 //
16

Station KARE in Minneapolis reported:

MINNEAPOLIS — The man shot and killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis on Saturday has been identified as Alex Pretti.

The Associated Press reported Pretti’s parents confirmed his identity, and that he worked as an ICU nurse.

State records show Pretti was issued a nursing license in 2021, we’ve also confirmed he worked for some time at US Dept of Veterans Affairs as a nurse. 

Pretti was an American citizen.

Alex Pretti

Before Pretti’s killing, Governor Tim Walz activated the Minnesota National Guard to assist local police in maintaining safety.

The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that Pretti had criminal record. He had parking tickets. He was a licensed gun owner.

Just moments earlier, Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino said at a press conference that the man who was killed “wanted to do maximum damage to agents.” 

Walz rejected that as a false narrative.

“Thank God we have video,” Walz said. “It’s nonsense people. It’s nonsense and it’s lies.”

When killed by 10 shots, Alex Pretti did not have a gun in his hand. An ICE officer removed his licensed gun, which he never drew.

https://share.google/UFqwwza96UUJkQoKc

Categories Accountability, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Another U.S. Citizen Killed by ICE in Minneapolis

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2026 //
15

The video is startling. Between 3-6 armed, masked ICE agents surround a man, wrestle him to the ground, throw punches at him while he seems to be completely immobilized.

Then shots ring out, and the detainee is dead.

The Department of Homeland Security says he was armed and dangerous. The ICE agents killed him while defending themselves.

The sheriff said he was 37 years old. He believes the victim was an American citizen.

Yesterday, Minnesota held a general strike to protest the military occupation of Minneapolis. There were no incidents of violence.

Some Minneapolis businesses have opened their doors to help people who need to get out of the tear gas or pepper spray.

State and local officials have demanded that the federal government pull ICE out of Minneapolis.

Trump has prepared 1,500 US military to join the 3,000 ICE agents currently in Minneapolis, to subdue protestors. .

Is this America or Germany in 1933?

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Trump

Federal Judge Questions Trump’s Demolition of East Wing and Cobstruction of Ballroom

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2026 //
6

As is well known, the day after the first #No Kings Day, Trump began demolition of the East Wing of the White House. He announced that he was adding a huge ballroom that would be almost twice the size of the White House. He didn’t bother with required reviews and approvals from “independent” commissions, which are required by statute.

Before anyone could absorb the shock, the East Wing was gone. Reminded that he needed to go through a formal approval process, Trump fired the members of the two commissions and replaced ed them with his loyalists. Approval, even post facto, would be no problem, thanks to his lapdogs.

But the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which he does not control, filed a lawsuit to stop work.

A federal judge, Richard Leon, appointed by President George W. Bush, appears to view their lawsuit sympathetically.

CNN reported:

A federal judge expressed deep skepticism Thursday that the White House has legal authority to construct President Donald Trump’s massive new ballroom without express authorization from Congress.

US District Judge Richard Leon said during a hearing in a challenge to the project that the White House was attempting to “end-run” Congress’ role in the historic undertaking. Leon appeared ready to at least partially side with the nation’s top historic preservation group in a lawsuit it brought late last year.

The judge said government lawyers defending the project were adopting “a pretty expansive interpretation of the language” of a federal law they’re leaning on in the case. That law, which authorizes the president to spend taxpayer dollars to maintain the People’s House, is meant to cover “very small sized projects,” Leon said, pointing to air conditioning and heating, lighting, and other standard maintenance.

“It’s not (for) $400 million worth of destruction and construction,” the judge told Justice Department attorney Yaakov Roth.

As Roth pointed to two other White House projects that didn’t receive congressional approval, Leon quickly pushed back and accused the lawyer of downplaying the significance of the ballroom project, which is expected to dramatically expand the size of the building.

The other projects Roth cited – Gerald Ford’s swimming pool and cabana and a tennis pavilion overseen by first lady Melania Trump during the president’s first term – did little to advance their arguments, the judge said.

“The ‘77 Gerald Ford swimming pool? You compare that to tearing down and building a new East Wing? Come on. Be serious,” the judge said.

The sprawling ballroom project has an estimated size of approximately 89,000 square feet, according to lead architect Shalom Baranes. By contrast, the primary White House structure, the Executive Mansion, is just 55,000 square feet.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation seeks a stop-work order and a determination by Congress to hear from the public and review the project.

Categories Accountability, Disruption, Ethics, Trump

Houston: Students and Teachers Flee HISD After State Takeover and Top-Down Reforms

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2026 //
2

In 2023, the state of Texas took control of the Houston Independent School District because of an absurd state law that allows a state takeover of an entire district if only one school is “failing” for five years. In Houston, that one school was Phyllis Wheatley High Schol, which had disproportionately high numbers of students with disabilities, English language learners, and impoverished students. Wheatley was improving, but not enough to avert the takeover.

HISD went to court to block the takeover by the state, but eventually lost in 2023.

The State ousted the board and installed a new superintendent, former military officer Mike Miles, who had had a rocky tenure as superintendent in Dallas (teachers left in droves in response to Miles’ autocratic style.) Miles also started charter schools.

Miles imposed a standardized “New Education System” and ousted experienced (but noncompliant) principals.

A new study conducted by the Educatuon Research Center at the University of Houston found that a significant number of students and teachers had left the district since the state takeover. The beneficiaries of this exodus were charter schools–especially YES Prep and KIPP–and nearby school districts.

HISD enrolls about 168,400 students this year. It has lost 13,000 students since the takeover in 2023. Enrollment is growing in other districts, not declining.

Loss of enrollment means loss of state and federal funding.

The biggest enrollment losses occurred in schools closely implementing Mike Miles’ mandates. Researchers “found that campuses strictly implementing reforms lost more students. Certain magnet and specialty program schools with more autonomy gained students.”

Researchers said that this exodus from public schools to charter schools did not happen statewide.

The exodus of experienced teachers has led to a sharp increase in first-year teachers and uncertified teachers. The number of first-year teachers increased by 562 teachers, or 64.7%, since the takeover, according to the UH research center…

Area school districts and charters are hiring more HISD teachers after the first year of the takeover than they did previously, according to the report. Fort Bend ISD hired the most former HISD teachers, bringing on 207. Katy ISD ranked second in 2024–25, followed by Cypress-Fairbanks ISD.

The share of uncertified teachers in HISD’s teacher workforce increased to nearly 20% in 2024-25, even though research shows certified and experienced teachers improves student success.

Templeton said there is a trend of relying more on uncertified teachers statewide, but not to the extent seen in HISD.

“The increase in uncertified teachers and the increase of novice teachers … that increase was greater in HISD than the other districts surrounding it,” Templeton said.

Teacher turnover soared in Dallas when Mike Miles became Superintendent. In his first year, he ruled as an autocrat, and nearly 1,000 teachers quit. Over his three years, the rate of teacher resignations increased from the low teens to about 22% annually.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Houston, State Takeover, Students, Teachers

Peter Greene: No Accountability for Cybercharters in North Carolina

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2026 //
3

The deal with charters, we are frequently told, is a trade of autonomy for accountability. Let charters do things their own way, charter fans say. If they can’t produce, then shut them down. Hold them accountable.

Except somehow the accountability parts keeps not happening, as in North Carolina, where a couple of failing cyber charters have been renewed despite their continued failure to produce results.

North Carolina Cyber Academy and North Carolina Virtual Academy opened in 2015, the state’s first two cyber charters. That was just a year before the charter school industry itself issued a blistering report about the many ways in which cyber charters fail students and families. That’s the same year that charter-friendly CREDO issued a report indicating that students in cyber charters might as well just take a year-long nap. And of course it is five years before the nation launched the biggest experiment ever in distance learning and found that pretty much nobody was a fan.

NCVA appears to be actually operated by Stride (formerly K-12), a cyber charter business that has a list several miles long of misadventures and misbehaviors, much as one would expect from a business that is centered on making money and not all that interested in educating young humans. 

The two schools have underperformed, scoring straight D’s on the state’s evaluation system (NCVA did better than a D in 2023, the only time either school did so). North Carolina’s Charter Schools Review Board mostly didn’t seem to care as they renewed the two schools for another five years. As reported by T. Keung Hui for the Herald-Sun

“We’re renewing two schools for five years that have been continually low performing for all 10 years and have not met growth, except one school for one year, and yet the enrollment is almost 2,500 in one and 4,000,” said Rita Haire, a Review Board member. “Do they not understand the quality of education that’s being delivered?”

Much like cyber charters in Pennsylvania, the two North Carolina cybers are sitting on a huge pile of taxpayer dollars—  $16 million at Virtual Academy and $9.7 million at Cyber Academy. Maybe, some board members observed, that money could be spent on making the educational program results suck less (I’m paraphrasing). 

Bruce Friend is chair of the review board, runs a virtual academy of his own, and thinks cyber charters are just awesome. He says that the schools draw students who “transition” in and out through the year, which is why many states use them as alternative schools. I’m not sure which states he’s talking about, but at any rate, when he was cheerleading for North Carolina to get on the cyber charter train, his pitch was that flexibility and personalized education and building confidence. Nothing about a holding pen for students “transitioning” in and out. That’s a version of a standard cyber charter argument, which is that cybers get a disproportionate share of students who are already in academic trouble and come to cybers already behind the curve. I expect there is some truth to that, but if that is the cyber charter customer base, and they know it’s their customer base, why have they not gotten any better at educating those students? 

The Herald-Sun asked both cybers to offer a response. NCVA hasn’t so far (which is on brand for Stride), but NCCA chief Martez Hill said that it’s great to be renewed. His only offer to push back on the perception that they aren’t doing a great job is to note that NCCA has graduated more than 1,000 students in the last five years. This is no great achievement, since NCCA can graduate anyone they want to graduate. 

The board apparently doesn’t have a lot of flexibility. One member complained that they would pick apart the pieces of a bricks and mortar charter to hold them accountable, but can’t do that with the cybers. They also have no flexibility to, say, renew for only two or three years, but either had to okay a five year renewal or none at all.

None at all seems like the correct choice here, but that’s not how seven of the ten-member board saw it, so North Carolina taxpayers get another five years of not-particularly-effective cyber chartering with no real accountability and no reason to think these charters will do any better in the next five years than they have in the previous ten. But at least they’ll have autonomy

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Failure, North Carolina, Online Education

John Thompson: Bad, Failed Ideas Revived in Oklahoma

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2026 //
2

John Thompson, historian and retired teacher, reports on the latest education news from Oklahoma: the Chamber of Commerce is intent on reviving the failed test-and-punish agenda of the Bush-Obama years, plus the so-called “Mississippi Miracle,”which is credited with amazing results in reading.

John writes:

Once again, attacks on under-funded Oklahoma public schools are examples of the threats the nation’s schools face. Yes, we’ve gotten rid of State Superintendent Ryan Walters, but I’m more worried about today’s  “accountability-driven” mandates, such as those pushed by the Chamber of Commerce. 

On the other hand, our public schools have a history of receiving support from holistic, bottom-up efforts by a variety of excellent social work agencies, nonprofits, volunteers, and innovative educators.

These partners remind me of 1990’s, when student performance was growing. The head of the Oklahoma City Public School System curriculum department dropped into my History classroom, saying that she had been watching me teach, and I might like to try something new. She suggested that I start the year with the 20th century to get my kids hooked on history. Then, around Thanksgiving, we would return to the beginning of the subject, and reteach the 20th century.

It was a brilliant approach, supported by cognitive science. And it showed inner city students respect by nurturing meaningful, challenging instruction. The result was that my kids worked from bell-to-bell, from day one to their graduation day, learning how to learn.

I doubt that would be allowed today, when “everyone” is pressured to be on the “same page,” often requiring the same type of data-driven instruction.

Then, as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 approached, our principal gave us aligned and paced curriculum guidelines; They are now pervasive. She said that she knew we wouldn’t use it, but rather than throwing it away, we should keep it handy in case a top administrator visited the class.

Before NCLB, we had the autonomy to adjust our lessons in order to promote in-depth learning. For instance, when my students came to class carrying Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man, which they were reading in their English class, I would quickly change my schedule. Our History class would learn about Ellison’s childhood in Oklahoma City, and how his famous “Battle Royal” scene was inspired by a cruel joke that was played on him when he applied for a job.  

And, around that time, the bipartisan MAPS for Kids succeeded in saving the OKCPS from a financial collapse by raising taxes.  MAPS for Kids listened to educators, parents, top national education and cognitive science researchers, and students; it called for the meaningful instruction which treated high-challenge kids with the same respect and opportunities that are bestowed on students in the exurbs.  

I was in the room when MAPS and OKCPS leaders agreed that educators should receive a clear message – their job is to teach the Standards of Instruction, not to standardized tests.

I was then in the room when top district administrators were supposed to reveal the agreement to a committee of principals. The committee chair started with summaries of ridiculous policies that had been imposed over the years. Principals replied with absurd, but hilarious stories, about the tumultuous effects of non-educators’ political demands. 

But, the administrator then said that we would have to dramatically expand standardized testing. 

When I pushed back, a highly respected administrator put her hands on my shoulders, and said, “John, I’ve always  said you don’t make a hog heavier by weighing it. But this is politics. We have no choice.”

When NCLB and subsequent corporate school reforms were implemented, the supposed goal was using top-down, accountability mandates to rapidly transform schools serving our poorest children of color. But in my experience, those were the students who were most damaged by output-driven reforms that forced teachers to be “on the same page” when teaching the same lessons.

I didn’t have the expertise to get involved in the debates over aligned and paced instruction in pre-k and elementary schools, but the idea that it should be forced on high-challenge secondary students was absurd. Educators pushed back as much as we could, but our resistance was condemned as “low expectations.” And reformers who blamed us Baby Boomers for making “excuses,” sought to replace us with young teachers, such as those in Teach for America, who were trained in the culture of data-driven accountability

Reformers also brought frequent benchmark testing into schools. Lacking explicit stakes, benchmarks could have created a culture of testing for diagnostic, not accountability, purposes. In my experience, however, the test prep culture, combined with more frequent tests, further undermined the teacher autonomy required for holistic instruction.  

Today, the campaign for the “Science of Reading,” now known as the “Mississippi Miracle,” is driven by “extensive use of formative and benchmark assessments to track student progress and inform instructional differentiation.” The American Federation of Teachers’ president Randi Weingarten supported much or most of the “Science of Reading” but she “doesn’t advocate for what we have found so disrespectful: scripted curricula or ‘teacher proof’ programs.”

And we face new threats when, as is happening in Oklahoma,” the ideology-driven, reward-and-punish parts of the “Mississippi Miracle,” are combined with the Moms for Liberty’s focus on “back to basics” foundational skills and phonics.

Despite the lack of evidence that the Miracle increases long-lasting reading comprehension, as opposed to short-term test gains for 4th graders, Oklahoma’s Chambers remain committed to retention based on reading test scores, like we did in 2015-2016 when we were second to Mississippi in retaining k-3rd grade students. They ignore that tragic results which seemed likely to occur in 2004, and in 2012, and 2015 when Oklahoma briefly required the passing of four End-of-Instruction tests to graduate from high schools.  

But, I would remind the Chamber of its call for recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers in order to attract and retain business investors for Oklahoma. After all, the best way to attract high-quality teachers, and parents of students, is to allow for high-quality, holistic teaching and learning, not make them work in a 21st century version of a Model T assembly line.

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Failure, Literacy, Oklahoma, Research
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