When California officials decided to skip its regular state tests while making the transition to the new Common Core tests, Secretary Arne Duncan warned them that he wouldn’t permit it.
California’s leaders ignored Duncan’s warnings and threats. The state legislature passed the legislation to suspend the state tests.
What a paradox! No one has pushed harder for states to adopt the Common Core (untested) standards than Duncan, yet here he was threatening to punish a state that was doing what he supposedly wanted.
Lewis Freedberg of Edsource in California commented:
“Veteran education watchers in California could not recall a presidential cabinet officer ever attempting to block state legislation and certainly not in the heavy handed way U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan attempted to do on Monday night.”
Federalism seems to be an unknown concept to Duncan.
..
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Revealing themselves for who they really are.
Good On for California! How was double-test-dipping going to help Duncan’s PR campaign for the “validity” of his school reform efforts? Because in that pea-shooter brains was some sort of scheme for bragging on comparisons between state and CC test data.
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Go California.. All states need to get on board…
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What a paradox indeed! It would leave one to wonder about the competence and qualifiactions of Mr. Duncan to continue in the position that he presently holds! perhaps President obama should replace him with an educator.
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That’s because Duncan is a mental midget who makes George W. Bush look like Einstein.
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And where does President Obama go in this hierarchy of intelligence?
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“As California goes, so goes the nation.”
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We certainly hope so!
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Transition meaning they planned to give a supposedly “common core aligned test” instead of that bad school stuff they used to do? Doesn’t he want that transition? Could it be he was hoping to hammer more students with inappropriately difficult NSA-style secured CC tests, invalid and top-secret scoring practices aligned to curriculum not fully implemented and adjusted to AS WELL as the old tests to prove some sort of point? Game changers are different than game players. He needs to pack it up, take his basketball and leave the sandbox. He’s playing the wrong game.
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Is it fair to say that the same people who aren’t willing to field test the standards are wanting more time to field test the assessments?
http://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?DISPATCHED=true&cid=25983841&item=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.edweek.org%2Fedweek%2Fcurriculum%2F2013%2F09%2Fthorny_questions_arise_about_use_of_field_test_results.html
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David…in following your link to another article on California with a photo of our State Supt. Torlakson featured, the woman in the lower left corner wearing a teal sweater is my own State Senator, Fran Paveley. Fran and her husband were both teachers and perhaps Diane might send her a note eliciting her opinions of CC.
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oops…Fran is seated in the lower right corner of the photo. She is one of the very good legislators who fights for her constituents.
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To common core or not to common core. Here in Cali-where 40% of HS graduates need remediation in math or English I don’t think it much matters. ( 90% pass the High Exit exam-go figure?) And for every teacher there is at least one administrator-but I guess they can’t spell bloat either.
Our public libraries are free, the zoos, museums, aquariums and such have free days and family discounts. If people don’t take advantage of the opportunities available to them there is not much the schools can do. Oh by the by our poor are obese but that oxymoron is ignored or explained away-after all they are working 2 or 3 jobs right? Common core, open borders, self esteem, critical Lincoln skills, teaching to the test, and on and on and on. Humpty Dumpty anyone?
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Wow. Where do you get your info and your disdain? FAUX News? One admin for every teacher? Not every city has a museum/aquarium/zoo, and the free day may be a work day. Don’t be so quick to judge. Obesity is common among the poor, and it has been well documented that a reason for that is that unhealthy fast food is MUCH cheaper than healthy food, not to mention that many poverty-stricken areas don’t have markets with fresh foods, but they have plenty of fast-food places. Open borders? Who has open borders? Certainly not the US. What we DO have are Big Business interests (Agriculture, anyone?) who like cheap labor. “Build it and they will come.” Or are you referring to the Supreme Court’s decision that all children are entitled to a free education k-12, regardless of their immigration status? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plyler_v._Doe If so, please take that up with them. “Self esteem”? Like the parents who get mad *at me* because I fail their child on an assignment that was plagiarized? What are “Lincoln” skills? Are you actually a CA educator, or do you just like to troll the “socialist” boards?
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Well,
I don’t think he’s this James Brown:
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What are “critical Lincoln skills”?
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For some recent perspective on a foreseeable train wreck, I provide the following two links of pieces posted on 2-26-13:
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/26/why-i-cannot-support-the-common-core-standards/
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/26/why-i-oppose-common-core-standards-ravitch/
Two excerpts from the first link:
“I have long advocated for voluntary national standards, believing that it would be helpful to states and districts to have general guidelines about what students should know and be able to do as they progress through school.
Such standards, I believe, should be voluntary, not imposed by the federal government; before implemented widely, they should be thoroughly tested to see how they work in real classrooms; and they should be free of any mandates that tell teachers how to teach because there are many ways to be a good teacher, not just one.”
Followed by:
“I have come to the conclusion that the Common Core standards effort is fundamentally flawed by the process with which they have been foisted upon the nation.
The Common Core standards have been adopted in 46 states and the District of Columbia without any field test. They are being imposed on the children of this nation despite the fact that no one has any idea how they will affect students, teachers, or schools. We are a nation of guinea pigs, almost all trying an unknown new program at the same time.”
In advance of REIGN OF ERROR, I refer people to a simple “Principle of Data Interpretation” well enunciated in Diane’s previous book THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE GREAT AMERICAN SCHOOL SYSTEM (2011 paperback edition, updated and revised), p.3:
“School reformers sometimes resemble the characters in Dr. Seuss’s Solla Sollew, who are always searching for that mythical land ‘where they never have troubles, at least very few.’ Or like Dumbo, they are convinced they could fly if only they had a magic feather. In my writings, I have consistently warned that, in education, there are no shortcuts, no utopias, and no silver bullets. For certain, there are no magic feathers that enable elephants to fly.”
‘Nuff said.
🙂
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Thank you so much TA for this older link to Ravitch on CC. The comments are among the very best intellectual, and subject matter-informed, that I have read anywhere on this issue.
I am now embroiled in my community in a hateful and undemocratic controversy whereby two CC toadies, one an ill informed school board member, and the other a teacher chosen, and paid, to teach CC to teachers, are giving only a political ‘rahrah’ talk to the public to sell them on the new standards.
I have recommended to so many community members to read this blog site and hope they see your comments today which could not be more ‘right on’…please contact me if you have time at
joiningforces4ed@aol.com
so that I can ask you some questions off-blog and get your insights on what is going on in this suburban community north of LA.
Ellen
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Thank you- well presented.
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Re: “federalism ignored,” don’t forget the CORE confederacy of eight CA districts that decided to go their own way in pursuit of a NCLB waiver. State Supt. Torlakson issued a press release this morning noting support for AB 484 from the broad coalition of Californians Together:: “Shelly Spiegel-Coleman, Executive Director of Californians Together: ‘Approval …sends a clear message to every California school about our commitment to the urgent challenge ahead.'” Not a peep from the CORE confederates yet, but their Board is meeting today.
If the governor signs AB 484 as is, will it cost the CORE districts money? LAUSD’s Deasy implied as much when he “furiously” told Ed Week that he’d be forced to go to his board for money to run the usual tests. I’ve only read the Exec Summary of the CORE waiver, but it seems that both its School Quality Improvement System options for “…evaluating teacher effectiveness” require use of student performance / test results . (BTW, would love to see Bruce Baker dissect SQIS someday.) So if the state isn’t footing the bill for the traditional tests, and the test results are required for the waiver, how does CORE pay the testing bill? Anybody out there with more information?
Might be that the eight CORE districts are not going to get away with having their cake and eating it too.
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Duncan is a thug. This is about personal power and nothing about kids or education.
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SPOT ON!
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Truth.
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Under the Constitution that I teach, education is primarily a state responsibility.
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According to what Arne told me about you: “He’s teaching that communistic, socialistic crap and trying to subvert America.”
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Exclusively?
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I’m wondering…why haven’t the AG’s of any state sued Duncan? He is to enforce as a member of the executive branch, the laws that Congress passes regarding education. He’s not to create or legislate (legislative branch). Now that he’s overreached, let’s hope he gets slapped back.
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Unfortunately,
Congress has failed to act in re-authorizing a different version of ESEA.
Congressional Research Services analyzed the legality of both whether Duncan CAN grant waivers, HOW he can grant waivers, and, whether he could CONDITION those waivers on states committing to certain courses of action.
Click to access CRS-Report.pdf
The conclusions they reached were basically that he has the authority so long as he follows the prescribed legal processes, and, that he can prescribe that those waivers be conditional though there is some legal wiggle room that would need to be worked out based on a specific case and not “in general”.
Technically Duncan isn’t legislating – he’s doing exactly what the law gives him the ability to do barring a congressional law saying he can’t.
Now whether that SHOULD be the law and whether Congress should step in is another issue – I don’t agree with Duncan by a longshot – but – it seems like under Federal law it’d be a real long shot for a state AG to win this case since they don’t have to accept the waiver in the first place and the reason people need the waiver is because Congress hasn’t changed the mandate that makes the NCLB default that hurts schools in 2014.
So, California is going to be an interesting case since they’re basically betting that since they obviously won’t be 100% compliant in 2014, that they can do without federal funding (and can win a court case getting it back) or otherwise surrender a ton of control to the government and hurt a lot of schools under all the failure under NCLB issues.
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Nicely analyzed. Follow the money.
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Good luck, California! Hooray for trying to do the right thing!
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California may have issues, but it is big enough and diverse enough to make it without input from the pencilnecks in D.C. “Federal” money is just taxes they have taken from us. Washington needs to stop acting as if returning our own tax dollars is doing us a hug favor.
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Arne Duncan is not a loose cannon rolling on the deck. He continues to occupy his position because he executes Barack Obama’s policies in a way that Barack Obama likes.
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It’s the colossal arrogance of the ed deform crowd that continues to make me shake my head. Even if we credit good intentions (by no means a given), the belief that “we know best” permeates this crew like the belief in the infallibility of the market permeated the banking sector before the crash. As Wolfgang Pauli used to say when confronted with arguments that were spurious, these guys are “not even wrong.”
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But education policy is not Physics. IF the CCSS were any good, they MIGHT be right. Isn’t that a possibility?
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Maybe he’s afraid that if the students miss a year of testing, they will actually spend more time learning. Then parents, educators, and even students will start fighting back against the standardized testing.
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