The Tampa Bay Times published an editorial saying that the U.S. Department was “out of line” for threatening to yank Florida’s NCLB waiver.
Duncan took away Washington State’s waiver because the legislature refused to tie teacher evaluations to student test score. So now, schools across the state must send home letters saying that their child attends a “failing” school because it had not achieved 100% proficiency on tests of reading and math.
Duncan took away Oklahoma’s waiver because the Legislature repealed the state’s participation in the Common Core, and the governor signed the law.
What did Florida do to offend the U.S. Department of Education?
“Duncan’s staff has put Florida on notice that the state is at risk of violating NCLB standards that require all children to be counted equally in accountability formulas. Earlier this year, with the support of educators and advocates, the Legislature agreed to give non-English-speaking students two years in a U.S. school before including their standardized test scores in school grading formulas. The change was an acknowledgement of the huge learning curve such children face and that schools should not be penalized if those students can’t read, comprehend and write English at grade level within a year.
“Yet to the federal bureaucrats enforcing the unpopular NCLB law, such common sense doesn’t matter. They have given Florida a year to make changes or risk losing its NCLB waiver, which has allowed the state to substitute its own accountability efforts for some of the most unworkable federal mandates. Those include the idealistic but unreasonable federal standard for 2014 that each child at a school must be working at grade level for the school not to be deemed “failing.”
Thus, if Florida wants to keep its waiver, the Florida legislature must change the law so that English learners are allowed only one year to master English ad be tested in English.
The editorial concludes:
“Ultimately, the continued flaws in NCLB are Congress’ fault, because it has failed repeatedly to adopt reforms. But the last thing federal enforcers should be doing is punishing a state for embracing a commonsense reform. Education Secretary Duncan needs to find a better solution.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Then I give Arne one year to master teaching and learning or he needs to be spun around.
As a Floridian, I welcome losing the waiver over this. It is crazy to think that a child (or anyone) could perform at grade level after just one year of English instruction. If we lose the waiver over this, maybe then we can ignore the other mandates with impunity (like tying teacher evaluations to test scores, which has resulted in our legislation requiring a formal final exam for every class, including art, PE and music), for ever grade K-12).
Most students who do not speak English need 5-7 years to master the language. Holding them responsible for being proficient in English written tests is wrong. It is especially wrong at the secondary level with its academic vocabulary.
Wrong??? Wrong???
No, they just lack grit or is that les falta el enarenar!
It’s malpractice.
Duncan is a total embarrassment.
No matter who is at fault for this decision, Democrats will likely pay a big price at the polls in November if Arne continues to play the federal government enforcer roll that prevents states from making common sense adjustments to better serve public school children and their families. Why is this so difficult for the Obama administration to understand?
That’s the real point here. Arne Duncan serves at the pleasure of the President. These are Obama’s policies he is carrying out. How pathetic is Obama. Has there ever been a worse President for education? Franklin Pierce? Obama has doubled down on NCLB which makes him, in my mind, certainly worse than W.
An upcoming article in the Vanderbilt Law Review argues that the administration’s waiver program is both illegal and a very, very bad precedent. University of South Carolina law professor Derek W. Black – from the Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-greene/law-professor-declares-ar_b_5749406.html?utm_hp_ref=education&ir=Education
Fist, he must stop his tantrums.
Duncan suffers from a serious case of “rules are rules” mentality, even if the rules are ridiculous. As an ESL/ELL teacher for over thirty-eight years, I saw more than my fair share of absurd rules regarding this population. Janet is right about what the research says, 5 to 7 or 8 years. The issue is much more complex than just English. These children are usually way behind in all academics due to poverty, wars, nutrition etc. Most of them can make up for lost time with the right type of instruction and TLC. In New York we were able to substitute the state ESL/ELL test for the regular ELA while they were receiving ESL instruction. They had to take the math and other content tests in their native language which was very tricky since many of them were not taught to read in their native language. For rare languages, the state had a list of translators that would translate the test. I had no idea about the validity of such a procedure, but this is how it was handled. I’m sure it was expensive for New York, and I am sure Florida doesn’t want to spend the money for such an involved system. Now that Scott has sneaked in a voucher bill, he can give them all vouchers to a new “global academy,” maybe owned by his wife or pal, Jeb Bush. He can “off load” them the way some districts have done with special needs populations.
To paraphrase L. Black: “I’m glad I took acid when I was younger so that I could prepare myself for the insane inanities” that come out of the Dunkster’s head (would have said brain but I’m not quite sure. . . )
Duck the Funkster.
(and no mal-intentions to all the truly funky folks in the world)
About ten years ago one of Chicago’s main expressways, the Dan Ryan (I-90/I-94) was under construction and there were signs advising motorists to take LSD. I thought that was the most sensible advice ever from a government agency, and probably equally applicable now in relation to education.
Unfortunately, what they meant was Lake Shore Drive. Oh well.
And Aliotta Haynes and Jeremiah still insist that Lake Shore Drive (1970) was about the street and not a mind altering substance. You decide:
Treating children equally does not provide equal opportunity. There is a difference between equal and equitable. Given that Mr. Duncan does not know this, one has to wonder why he is in the position of Secretary of Education. Where will the ineptitude stop?
“. . . one has to wonder why he is in the position. . .”
Please, Mary, for your own sake don’t do any wondering on that one, you head will explode.
“Education Secretary Duncan needs to find a DIFFERENT JOB.” — there, I fixed that error for the editorialist.
This is a good illustration of how the USDOE has been padded and filled with crazed ideologues and why, even if Duncan were to resign tomorrow, the horrors would continue unabated. These eduzombies are entrenched in state DOE’s, district administrations, higher ed leadership, and highly-paid political advisory organizations.
They will not go away without a fight and they have lots and lots of money and power backing them up.
People, at some point we are going to have to acknowledge that this is a revolution of the people in its birth pangs and stop pretending that there is a possibility of reasonableness or pain-free change taking place.
You are correct, Chris. The Gates Foundation has embedded itself into the USDOE with Obama’s blessings. How we get out of this mess is beyond me.
“DumBillical Cored”
DumBillical cored is now attached
Dissemblryo grows within
Within a year, it will be hatched
The public can not win
Geez, it’s just so quick he got his ego back. Where will Dunkenstein be back?
How about if Arne gets dropped off in some foreign country and give him one year to be tested at mastery level. This is so ridiculous and unreasonable.
Either Duncan is either an idiot or an ass. Probably both.
Delete one either.
Ellen T Klock: hear me out.
I guess better me than the owner of this blog—she has so many better things to do with her time—but again, I’ve received a flood of emails from an organization representing an offended group and demanding that I provide redress of grievances.
I have been asked to remind one and all that not only do the terms “idiot” and “ass” and others like “moron” unfairly malign a great part of the population, but that added injury is done when Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is associated with those to whom those labels are commonly attached.
A currently preferred term is “Reality Challenged” although some feel even this is too close to the crowd Secretary Duncan runs with, bearing the very similar “Rheeality Challenged” title.
Look, even those with an uncertain recognition of reality recognize a Rheeality Distortion Field when they see/feel one. So when Mr. Duncan can proudly occupy—at one and the same time—a position of opposition to standardized testing with support of standardized testing with a compromise position of half-support for and half-support against standardized testing—
Even the “Reality Challenged” recognize an improbable impossibility. Or as Dr. Raj Chetty might say, “For all you lovers of large data sets who avoid the human psychological tendency to forces on outliers, that’s the ‘Michael Jordan’ of cognitive dissonance!”
[¿? Of course it’s a fake quote. It’s called satire. Sheesh! That’s a silly objection. Rheeally! In a Johnsonally sort of way…]
So please, care with your terminology. How about the simple: “Arne Duncan is qualified to be the Secretary of Education because he plays basketball with the POTUS.”
Need I say more?
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
😎
I stand corrected. He IS both.
We have to see this from another perspective, as policies always have two sides.
The article says, “The change was an acknowledgement of the huge learning curve such children face and that schools should not be penalized if those students can’t read, comprehend and write English at grade level within a year.”
OK, so this benefits “the schools” and they are not penalized.
But Hispanic students ARE being penalized by leaving them in limbo! What has the state of Florida done with these children? Where is the bilingual education they are entitled to as required by NCLB ? This is not a good example of schools protecting themselves at the expense of children, especially Hispanic children who Florida’s schools will have to deal with like it or not.
This is a very interesting case of how one side of the equation is putting another, in this case the children, at risk.
Let’s see how this case develops.
So you’re saying that forcing non-English speakers to take and score “proficient” on a test that they can’t possibly be prepared for will somehow improve the services they are receiving?
If you are concerned with Latino/a children learning-per your acronym-then it would make sense to give them several years to get a good solid grammar base, rather then making them feel like failures. Btw, last year a young boy from Central America came to our school and took a five hour English reading test the first day for STAAR. He did not come back the second day.
So did that test help him like school, acclimate, improve, or feel good about American education? Just curious?
I think the schools and true teachers are the advocates for immigrants here, not you as an “advocate”. Pathetic abuse it was you advocate.
So sick of the immature self-righteous faux rage.
HispanEduc – I see your point, but I must agree with the comments made by Duane and Titleonetexasteacher.
Florida is not the only state with a large Hispanic population. In Buffalo, NY we also have schools which contain a large percentage of students who are limited to non English speakers. We do have ESL teachers and the children do learn. However, it is cruel and inhumane to expect them to pass an English exam that even native speakers find difficult. And the test results reflect this – with less than ten percent being “successful”. Then these children also have to take a battery of tests in Spanish as well.
Ultimately, what are the assessments assessing? Definitely not the progress a child is making in the public school system. More likely their ability (perhaps magic) in interpreting this individual test. And a language barrier just adds another level to this bewildering requirement forced upon school districts throughout the fifty states.
Since NCLB proficiency law has no age requirement when a student is to promoted from grade to grade, the school or district could develop an education model based upon proficiency grade levels that would be INDEPENDANT of age and attendance. In other words, a student could be in fourth grade by attendance and age, but could be placed, evaluated and promoted by educational PROFICIECY grade levels 1,2,3,4,5 6. The promotion by educational grade level could be by grading period, semester or the traditional school year. In this way, the student having academic difficulty would have more “effective time on task” to learn the appropriate material to the required proficiency requirement of the NCLB law. In addition, the academically advanced student could move through the traditional grades at a faster pace. The model places the responsibility of learning on the student, where it belongs, with the teacher, parent and others being facilitators to maximize the student’s learning process. In the promotion by proficiency model, all the students would be at about at the same academic level allowing for more effective student-class interactions and learning, larger classes( less expense) , and less discipline problems. Since the program is very different than the traditional K-12 model, it might be best to begin with a pilot model giving the students and parents the CHOICE of being in the program or not. Then, expand the program, if effective, to the rest of the school, district, and even the state after the model’s design and procedures are defined and implemented effectively at each level and discipline.
If Florida or other states adopted and effectively defined, implemented, and evaluated the advance by proficiency model, all students in the math and English disciplines could be promoted by promotional grade proficiency meeting the NCLB law mandate. In this way the NCLB law becomes a desired asset to student learning and achievement process instead of the current deficient and generally hated federal program.
Many tools, programs and models that would aid the K-12 schools to accomplish the mandatory NCLB proficiency goal, such as the free Internet Khan Academy are available.
This retire instructor and current researcher has compiled a list with specifics tools and programs on how the proficiency model could be implemented. He is NOT selling anything, but a change in thinking, that must be implemented before a change in programs and practices can occur. The e-mail address is ekangas@juno.com
ekangas- who said there is no age requirement for NCLB? In NYS the child is required to take the test corresponding to their age, not ability. Thus a Down’s syndrome child at the age of eight must take the 3rd grade assessment. And a refugee from the Sudan, who has witnessed horrific violence and perhaps has never been in a formal classroom prior to moving to the US, must take the 8th grade assessment at the age of 13, even if he has only been in this country for a year and has not yet mastered the English language.
But the rules are the rules.
And how are they going to privatize public education if exceptions are made?
This Chicago principal is interesting:
“I reached this conclusion after analyzing this year’s MAP scores and I shared my results with several local reporters. Soon afterward, the Chicago Sun-Times conducted their own analysis for a story that was published on Sunday, Aug. 31. Their results differ from mine because they used a slightly different methodology, but the overall conclusions are the same: student growth in reading in neighborhood schools far outpaces growth in charters.”
Is anyone going to pay attention to what he’s saying in Chicago, or is he just wasting his time with all this work?
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/29378381-452/drop-cps-reform-strategy-cps-neighborhood-school-growth-outpaces-charters.html#.VAZqTWRdVH3
This…is utter stupidity. Even if he wanted to test them (which they shouldn’t in this formal a way) – tying stakes to it is simply dumb. Would he tell his children to master a language at the high school level within a year?
In NY, we don’t even expect people to take the Spanish regents unless they’ve had 3 years of Spanish instruction. Why should ELA be any different (and NY has or at least had a similar law – I don’t know the current status of it).
The Spanish regents must be a very basic exam if it is given after three years. Asking an ESL student to perform well on standardized test at grade level after three years is particularly ludicrous for older students. Academic language proficiency (5-7years) is entirely different than being able to carry on an every day social conversation. Of course programming for ESL students has been hammered in recent years, so even the instruction they are allowed before they are forced into regular classes is far too short. Add in being illiterate in a first language and demands for grade level proficiency are insane.
Three years in a Spanish classroom is the equivalent of being in a Spanish speaking country for 30 days, or 1 month. How much can one expect to learn in a second language in 1 month?
Spanish AP, Spanish Regents, all part of the same pile of bovine excrement that is standardized testing.
This is what Florida gets for being GAGA toadies. Once you submit to the King’s decrees you must always be subservient and never ever question again. Waivers were only blackmail to avoid outright defiance. Cowardice is seldom rewarded.
Florida should stand its ground and sue over NCLB putting them in a no-win situation. NCLB demands that ALL categories of students — including the ELL category — become “proficient”. If the students were “proficient”, they would not need to be in ELL. I can’t imagine that insanity standing up in court, and if a court were to strike NCLB down, Duncan would lose a LOT of his power over states.
No kidding. Nothing would sucker-punch that bastard harder.
The Republicans are suing Obama for federal overreach and one of the issues they cited were his education policies. I hate it when I agree with Republicans, but Race to the Top and the NCLB waivers were federal overreach.
I’m sure Rs are not opposed to testing and using VAM to score teachers. They are just opposed to Obama and anything he does, and not because he’s a Dem. (For the record, I disagree strongly with Obama’s education policies, and Duncan represents everything that is wrong with the spoils system.)
Incredible! According to the article, one of the federal mandates that is both “Idealistic” “unworkable” requires all students to be working at grade level or above. If not the school is “failing.”
All tests have norms. By definition, those working in the middle…..the largest number….are at grade level….others are either above or below. The term “grade level” simply refers to the statistical reality of a large middle group. In an average school, by definition one will always have students at grade level….and some above and SOME below. Requiring ALL to be at grade level indicates that someone (at the federal level) does not understand the process of standardized testing.
“. . . that someone (at the federal level) does not understand the process of standardized testing.”
Not only at the federal level but almost everyone does not understand the COMPLETELY INVALID process of standardized testing.
To understand that the whole process of educational standards and standardized testing is so rife with epistemological and ontological errors that any results are COMPLETELY INVALID and the usage of said results COMPLETELY UNETHICAL and IMMORAL read and understand Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Unfortunately, Duane,we can’t use Wilson for this fight. Perhaps as a supporting argument, but not the main idea.
If our leadership can’t grasp the simple concept that not all children should be expected to take the assessment – whether due to illness, learning disabilities, emotional distress, language barriers, or cultural adjustment issues – how do you expect them to understand Wilson’s points?
We are taking pre primer here, not college level text.
Gotta disagree, Ellen.
The reason that the “leadership can’t grasp the simple concept that not all children should be expected to take the assessment – whether due to illness, learning disabilities, emotional distress, language barriers, or cultural adjustment issues ” is that they don’t understand the underlying, foundational problems.
And notice I did not just include “leadership” but “almost everyone” as so many have been so habitually enculturated that these malpractices are “just how it is” that we need to explode that “just how it is” to show that NO, That’s not how it is”. It’s a long row to hoe, a quixotic quest, but in the end that is, perhaps, the only thing that will convince people to change their thinking.
Duane, I wish you luck in your cause.
Now let’s teach Arne his ABCs. H is for Hunter (Madeline). P is for Piaget. W is for Wilson.
Thanks, Ellen.
I was being a bit facetious in stating about the state dept’s just declaring 100% compliance. Why not? Hell, I’ve thought why not just have the state dept “reorganize itself as a charter and declare all public schools as community public charter schools” and not have to deal with its own rules?
G is for “Gardner” . . .
Come on, I know we can come up with an appropriate ABC mix for Mr Duncan. (No pro charter words allowed)
A is for the assumption that the Dunksters has credentials to be anywhere near public education
Require Arne to deliver his edicts in every language spoken by the children who attend public schools in Florida, orally and in writing, and with PROFICIENCY. Allow teacher in Florida to choose which language.
Like so much else about the current DOE, this is a research-free policy. Ideology says testing will solve everything, so let’s test our sweet children with developmental disabilities, even if they are suffering from terminal illnesses. Let’s take refugee children struggling to gain a foothold in a new language and a new country and test ’em. Let’s take the results of those tests and decide which teachers are bad, publish their “scores” and maybe they’ll commit suicide. Let’s use test scores to decide which school are “failures” and replace them with charters, which don’t take in our sweet children with disabilities or whose first language isn’t English.
Linguistic research shows that a child can acquire social competency in a second language in about 2-3 years, using skills from the native language as a bridge. For children who have been unschooled before coming to the U.S. (think kids from Syria or the Karen from Myanmar or the children fleeing systemic violence in Honduras) there are the additional difficulties of trauma and poverty. Academic proficiency takes much longer, perhaps 5-7 years. None of this is new; my MA in Bilingual Ed is from 1978.
Duncan has no interest in research. They just make up stupid rules in order to impose sanctions on schools and teachers. I am an ESL teacher and a lot of my students have experienced interrupted schooling. I had a girl from Bangladesh who never went to school until she came to the United States at age twelve.
I know this mentality so well. Jeb Bush has convinced all of his disciples that even one slight deviation from the all testing all the time routine may open the door to some people qurpestioning the relevance of the whole structure.
Thus we have the FL state commissioner of education and several criny legislative aides viciously attacking the mother of a recently deceased child who calls for an end to tesring severely ill children.
They know that testing is the lynchpin of their whole reformist movement and it must be maintained and protected at all costs.
That, my friends, as Diane has so astutely pointed out, is theuir Achilles heel.
Can we get someone to throw some straight jackets on the lunatics who have taken over the asylum?
I am thoroughly embarrassed by Mr Duncan’s actions! Didn’t he take an oath to do “what’s best for children?”
Just out of curiousity, anyone here ever play Portal or Portal 2? G.L.A.D.O.S. should be the face of the modern testing movement.
For those not in the know, G.L.A.D.O.S. is a sadistic, insane AI that continually devises increasingly dangerous “tests” for the heroine to get through over the course of the game’s story. “She” was created to design facility tests, went insane, and killed everyone in the facility prior to the heroine’s arrival.
Just a side bar – Karen is a spoken, not a written language. Just add that idea in to the mix.
(And try purchasing library books in all these diverse languages so the kids at least have something which sounds familiar. Spanish has lots, but even books written in French are hard to find – Chinese is easier to locate.)