Forgive all the acronyms but that is the way that headlines work.
The School Superintendents Association wrote a strong letter to Senator Tom Harkin about the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the basic federal legislation for elementary and secondary education, which is currently known as No Child Left Behind.
NCLB is generally recognized to be a disaster. The best evidence of its failure is the ever louder cries for “reform.” If NCLB had worked, why would we need more and more reforming, using the same failed methods?
AASA does not have kind words for Race to the Top and urges Congress not to codify it into law.
The AASA clears away the legislative debris, recognizes the over-reach of the federal Department of Education, recommends the removal of the claptrap associated with NCLB, and urges the restoration of a healthy federalism, with a balance of powers among federal, state, and local authorities.
A welcome dose of reality.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The whole thing is worth a read but pay special attention to this bit:
“Assessments: This bears repeating: Now more than ten years in to the NCLB approach of one‐time snap‐shot testing, we note that the 2011 bill, while opening a conversation around growth measures, is still heavily reliant on the idea of testing every child, every year through one single high‐stakes summative assessment. We had hoped that ten years of experience and research would result in legislation that moved further away from reliance on standardized tests. Value added calculations are too unstable to be used for high stakes decisions.”
In other words, superintendents — the “bosses”, not the teachers — agree that the use of “value added” measurements (VAM) for high stakes decisions (like graduation and teacher evaluation) is not a good idea because VAM scores are too unstable.
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And yet they (superintendents) still use them. Civil disobediance on the part of superintendents?? Never! Resign in order to not implement educational malpractice?? Nope! Fight NCLB and RaTT from the get go?? Naw! Cojones?? None!
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Yesterday, you posted a link to a Washington Post article by Valerie Strauss, about children and poverty. My browser saved the link, but when I went back for a second look, the post had been redacted (error #404, page not found). Was that intentional?
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/14/the-most-important-problem-facing-american-children-today/
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I have that, thank you. Why was the post redacted???
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Michael,
It is complicated. When I write some posts, several at one sitting, I save them for future posting. When I then try to post for a specific time, like two days from now, the WordPress ignores my schedule and posts them all at once. That happened last night. I was trying to schedule four posts over the next 2-3 days, and BOOM, all of them were published around 11:30 pm. I tried to repost them for later and that is why you could not find the one you were looking for.
Does that make sense? No, I don’t understand it either. Just put it down to my technical incompetence, nothing more.
Diane
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Diane, Thank you. Poverty, or at least the disparity of income in this country, is the heart of the issue. It appears that children are the unintended (or are they) victims of globalism.
You are performing a public service, WordPress should make your work a priority. M
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Michael Langford, I meant to post it later and rescheduled it. I will post again today.
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Diane, Did your administrative assistant screw up again? 😉
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Hannah, I will check with my administrative assistant. What did she do wrong now? I recently promoted her to Chief Executive Knowledge Officer of my corporation. Be sure you use the right title. If she goofed, I will demote her to administrative assistant.
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Diane (CEKO), after a grueling school week, this particular comment made me laugh out loud. Thank you for being you. Love your serious side AND your silly side.
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hmmm… I suspect she didn’t really PASS the test to become a CEKO… perhaps someone erased several of her incorrect answers and replaced them with the correct answers… maybe you should have the company hired to test her investigated for cheating…
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What test was it? The WISC (Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing) or the CC (Common disCord)?
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Secretaries today are a dime a dozen –just like in 1950, sadly: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/top-job-for-women-secretary-same-as-1950_n_2599560.html
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I hope this stand by our organization will illustrate that Michelle Rhee et al are outliers…most superintendents are realists and not the champions of privatization that find their ways into headlines.
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Hallelujah.
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I posted a link to this article on projo.com (in response to their recent article regarding Deborah Gist’s contract renewal being advocated by business groups). One poster asserted that AASA was a “lobbying group” asking for money and not interested in accountability. Or was he talking about the business group that was advocating for Gist’s contract renewal? That would actually make more sense, I think.
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Woah.. Hold off on all the praises, folks! AASA needs to be very careful about what it asks for and they really should have read the requirements of the Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge (RttT-ELC), to see where the federal government is most likely headed with testing in K12.
AASA complained about the use of once a year high-stakes summative assessments. In RttT-ELC, formative assessments that are valid and reliable are now required. This means that teachers must administer standardized tests to Preschoolers on a regular basis throughout the year. That sends the message to teachers that they are not trusted to design their own tests and that authentic measures have no value, including systematic observations and work samplings.
Rupert Murdoch’s Amplify has already been awarded a $12.5 million contract “to develop a digital library of formative assessment professional learning tools for educators” that is linked to the Common Core.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplacek12/2013/03/amplify_insight_wins_contract_from_common_core_testing_consortium.html
Do you think this is going to be about qualitative assessment?? Do you think formative assessments will not become high-stakes? If the feds are requiring this much standardized testing of babies, I have no doubt they will soon be requiring standardized formative tests in K12, too. And if corporate “reformers” think they can document a pattern of teacher behavior throughout the year that they believe is indicative of “bad teachers,” do you really think that formative data will never become high-stakes and used against teachers, in a rush to fire them?
AASA really needs to add an Addendum to this document indicating that standardized testing and high-stakes should not be required for formative assessments throughout the year.
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