From the local school boards in Texas to the teachers at Garfield High School in Seattle to the Providence Student Union, the movement against high-stakes testing is growing everyday.
The Washington Post reports here that the public is rising up against the Bush-Obama education agenda.
Across the nation, students, parents, and teachers have had it.
Officials keep pouring millions into testing while cutting the budget for everything else.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Ah, but the Federal Government ISN’T pouring money into testing or any other aspect of Education. They now simply use NCLB waivers to blackmail states and districts into spending their own money on testing in order to protect the shrinking funds (read that sequestered). At some point, I hope someone will do a cost-benefit analysis and realize the costs are higher than the returns.
In fact, some districts in NY State have done this analysis and found it will cost them 4 times what they could hope to get in Title I or other Federal aid. Problem is that NYS Dept of Ed gets to keep 50% of all Race To The Top funds, and those funds keep the department running. NYSED only gets 7% of it’s budget from State revenues. They depend on RTTT (and on professional licensing to run their higher Ed and professional licensing departments) to function AT ALL. Instead of insisting that the legislature and the governor appropriate funds to run NYSED, they’ve shifted into panic mode, to protect their federal revenue stream.
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Ah, the devil is in the financing details. . . .
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um, is this serious?
Jersey boy wonder a new top DOE exec
By YOAV GONEN and M.L. NESTEL
Last Updated: 2:04 PM, April 13, 2013
Posted: 12:55 AM, April 13, 2013
Dudes, I’m the new COO!
City education officials yesterday appointed a fresh-faced 27-year-old — who graduated from college just in 2007 — as the chief operating officer of the nation’s largest school system.
Andrew Buher, a graduate of New Jersey’s Rider University, has had a meteoric rise to the pinnacle of the 135,000-employee Department of Education since he was hired in September 2010 as a “special assistant.”
Since then, in just 30 months, the political-science and public-policy major has more than doubled his salary — from $75,000 to $152,000 — while working his way up to chief of staff to the chancellor.
With his appointment as COO, Buher will be getting his fourth raise in fewer than three years — though a DOE spokeswoman said the size of his salary bump has yet to be determined.
But Buher’s predecessor as COO, Veronica Conforme, earned $202,000.
“Andrew’s experience managing key operations, his deep knowledge of the system and his commitment to driving solutions that work for students make him the ideal person to serve as our chief operating officer,” Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said of the young third-year staffer.
Buher echoed Walcott’s enthusiasm. “I am excited and honored by this opportunity,” he said.
Buher grew up in Lawrence, NJ, and briefly attended Tulane University in New Orleans until returning home following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
As a senior at Rider, Buher became the first student from the college to receive a presidential fellowship from the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress in Washington, DC.
He also interned as a policy adviser in the office of then-NJ Gov. Jon Corzine.
He worked with several charter schools in New York City before earning a master’s degree in public policy and administration from Columbia in 2010.
Last year, he got married to Caroline Burns — also a New Jersey native and Columbia graduate, who works in physical therapy.
“Andrew was someone who carried himself with a degree of professionalism; he was always in business attire or, at the least, business casual,” said Jesse Forsythe, who was Buher’s teammate at Rider University’s mock-United Nations group.
“He was looked to as the guy who could handle the situation.”
Conforme, Buher’s predecessor, is leaving to become a vice president at the College Board.
She had worked at the DOE for eight years — including as chief financial officer and deputy chief schools officer for operations — before being appointed COO in 2011.
Also yesterday, Deputy Chancellor Marc Sternberg was tapped to be senior deputy chancellor for strategy and policy.
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I was pleased to see two boards of education on Long Island adopt resolutions against high stakes testing. Bravo to these brave boards.
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Good. Then maybe we can move on with finding some solutions to cleaning up after RTTT! I am sooooo ready for people to discuss real solutions.
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From Gotham Schools: With donor’s help, city launches Common Core ads before tests
“The campaign is being funded by a private donation to the Fund for Public Schools by an anonymous donor, whose identity got only one clue today. “The funder doesn’t want to be identified, but it’s not Michael Bloomberg,” Walcott said.”
http://gothamschools.org/2013/04/15/with-donors-help-city-launches-common-core-ads-before-tests/
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They appear desperate. May God take pity in them.
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Typo..on them.
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To NYC Mother’s point, anyone watching the PGA Masters on Sunday, would see (if they sat through the commercials) that ExxonMobile sponsored on ad (which aired during every single commercial break) in support of math and science common core. The propaganda quality was thick enough to cut with a knife.
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And I bet not one executive would be able to explain what the standards are…love how they repeat state over and over. It is brainwashing. I can’t even stand to listen to them anymore. They also have another commercial about the lack of trained workers. I am not a trainer….imagine what schools could do with the advertising money alone. What a waste!
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Teachers fight subversively. Right now there are millions of them across the country and they are telling their friends, relatives, neighbors, parents and former students exactly what they think about the Great American Fraud that is being called “reform.” Just give it time.
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President Obama, whose policies might have helped fuel the testing explosion, also has suggested that standardized testing has spun out of control. The article blames NCLB and Bush, there is really no understanding the Common Core or Standards education. Apparently it’s all Republican and MAYBE Obama. Really testing is the thing seen by parents and the media and what is in the background is not studied. Teacher’s unions are complicit by accepting the Common Core when they should have refused.
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Decisions by the head of NEA and AFT do not reflect the opinions of the rank and file workers. Randi and Dennis hobnob with the wrong people…they don’t associate with the front line workers.
But Linda J. Is correct….teachers know how to subvert especially when this is happening TO us and our children. Word is spreading…parents, teachers and students are uniting.
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Well if the NEA is supposedly the largest democratic deliberative body in the world then, yes, the “leadership” of the NEA does reflect the opinions of the rank and file. So guilty as charged. The teachers themselves have brought this on through their complicity and compliance with these insane mandates.
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No one ever asked me and I have written asking just that. When did the rank and file vote on accepting the national standards? Data collection? Never, that’s when.
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“President Obama, whose policies might have helped fuel the testing explosion, also has suggested that standardized testing has spun out of control.Apparently it’s all Republican and MAYBE Obama.” HA HA AH HA HA AH AH HA HA HA!!!!!!
When the Obomber “suggests” something you can be sure that it is just political cover. Kind of like he suggested he’d put his walking shoes on and be with workers on strike. Keep drinking the Obomber super COOL AID!
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(Said in my best Richard Dawson Family Feud voice) Admittedly not scientific but the survey on the site says. . . . .
Standardized Testing
Do standardized tests for students provide a fair assessment of their teachers and schools?
No.
90%
Yes.
10%
1051 people have taken this poll.
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Each and every day noticing more and more mainstream media outlets reporting on the CCSS, standardized testing, APPR debacle!
Thanks Diane for all you do.
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It’s hard to hide failure. Short-term maybe, but eventually the disaster that is NCLB and Race to the Top will be impossible to ignore.
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Like in 2014, when 100% of American students don’t meet or exceed AYP!
Oh, wait, now THAT’s why the Common Core tests were created!
There’s the excuse: students not used to these tests, tests too hard, not enough time to take.
WE are the problem if WE don’t end it.
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Too bad the Post editorial board doesn’t read Valerie, Emma Brown or Lyndsey Layton. They could learn a thing or two.
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