Politico reports that Republicans may scale back the federal mandate for annual testing from grades 3-8. This mandate is the cornerstone of No Child Left Behind’s accountability regime.
Parents and educators are up in arms about the misuse and overuse of testing. NCLB has not achieved any of its lofty and unrealistic goals. Its biggest beneficiaries have been testing companies, who are able to devote more money from their profits to lobby for more testing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And just when my New Year’s resolution was to hold myself accountable for 110% student profiency. Looks like I’ll just go back to losing a few pounds, instead.
for progressive educators, very strange (though understandable) bed fellows.
I don’t trust any of them, but it’s great that someone in DC is finally questioning Arne Duncan. About time.
“Bipartisan” is over-rated. A lot of the time it just means they’ve all reached consensus on terrible ideas. Deregulating the financial sector was bipartisan, and so was invading Iraq. “Bipartisan” shouldn’t be confused with “right” or “smart” or “a good idea”. “Bipartisan” ideas should get MORE scrutiny, not less. It seems to me it often means there’s no real debate. That’s should be a red flag. not a green light.
Then we get bipartisan regret, which isn’t any more desirable than partisan regret, really 🙂
“Bipartisan” just means that they all agree that screwing the rest of us is great, especially if it puts more money in their pockets.
You’re right, Chiara, don’t trust any of them. What’s the real agenda behind this “good news”? Are people paying attention to what is actually proposed here, or just reacting reflexively to being told it’s a victory?
This fake “anti-over-testing” movement is aimed at the REAUTHORIZATION of NCLB, just with fewer mandated high stakes sessions, while the “new accountability” drive embeds constant high stakes online testing into every subject, at a state and district level. Don’t fall for it. Don’t throw away all the momentum we’ve built (at such cost!).
Don’t mend NCLB, it’s bad to the bone. End it.
Oh, the tangled web they weave…
As poorly as the testing regime has been implemented, I’ve found it both shocking and disheartening that neither political party has taken advantage of the opportunity to dominate the issue. Rebranding the Common Core — as the form of rebellion in numerous states — does not win the issue. Furthering assaults on teachers — as we see our Governor of New York (and would be president) pushing — does not win the issue. It’s all about the testing and ranking and punishing. Would love to see the parties actually compete along this line.
But isn’t it risky for them? Even though there is a higher ground here, who is going to claim it at the risk of losing constituents with money? Both parties are compromised in so many ways. Both parties have blame for this situation. Neither party wants to fix it because of the god of money. It is terribly exasperating. There is a lot of propaganda out there and sorting it out is not easily accomplished. I am not sure that I have seen anyone here or elsewhere that is able to winnow things down to the bare truth.
Hyperbole is the name of the game. Money talks. Voters vote on false presumptions. They vote to protect a “vision” of what they think America was or should be. With that, we get legislators who are beholden to those who give them the most dollars and perks.
We have the “right” who wants Christian only education and who thinks anything else is evil and/or Socialist, even to the point of rejecting critical thinking and science. We have the “left” committed to social change and caring but who don’t know how to unload the mantle of “entitlement” ideology.
It seems like it might be a good time to wipe all this left-right, Dem-Rep garbage off the grid and to honestly tackle real needs, problems and solutions instead of assuming that God is directing some people in favor over others and instead of acting as if there is ONE answer or solution to a myriad of problems.
We’d better all suck it up and grow up or we’ll be set back terribly in 2015. We have some fanatics trying to shove through harmful agendas, unless you think you are part of the 1% or deserve to.
I never thought I would agree with Daily Caller and Breitbart that “big government” was the biggest problem in the US – until they came for our schools and teachers.
Senate Education Committee Chair Lamar Alexander is an unlikely ally because he only cares about the massive corporate swindle of school dollars when it helps Democrats enrich their corporate cronies. But I guess it helps Republicans see clearly when Obama and the Democrats hand over billions to Pearson and Scholastic, robbing school budgets to overtake local control of learning.
Just hours ago, in a New Year’s eve news dump, the NY Regents requested that Common Core test-based stakes be raised from 20% to 40% in order to expand punishment for teachers in schools with low scores. They want the power to fire teachers after two years of inefficient ratings, knowing that better teachers who work in the most disadvantaged neighborhood will abandon those schools.
In terms of crazy, destructive policy, Andrew Cuomo is as bad as any deep south Republican, willing to destroy public education to please his sugar daddy donors. And billionaires like Paul Tudor Jones, Paul Singer, Carl Icahn, Dan Loeb, Eli Broad, the Kochs, the Waltons all agree that charters are in vogue, pooling millions just in recent months to ensure a redder NY state legislature, quick removal of the cap on charters, and that high stakes testing be used to fire lots of teachers (a policy forged deep within the bowels of ALEC).
Cuomo therefore hurts state and national Democrats because teacher unions and other labor supporters were the last bulwark in many races to the onslaught of unlimited campaign expenditures. And here in NY, we saw just that, as the above fat cats poured money into “Families for Excellence in Education” (FEE?) and “New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany” outspending BOTH campaigns in multiple key races to ensure a Republican majority.
Cuomo has escalated his war on teachers, no longer needing their funding or cachet, and has found an ally in Merryl Tisch and whoever is currently running the NYS Education Commissioner’s Office to hasten the skirmish. So the Politico story is strange to hear now, but tomorrow, John King will be in Arne Duncan’s ear, and perhaps will introduce him to a few Wall Street hedge fund managers.
“Big government” per se is not the problem. If anything, government needs to be a whole lot bigger. For instance, we need to fully staff the regulatory agencies such as the SEC, the EPA, Consumer Products Safety, etc. The problem is when government gets co-opted by big money interests. The solution (for which there is great public pressure but oddly little political will) is to get private money out of campaigns.
Agreed, the problem is “big money” government, but I find few reasons for the Dept of Education, which puts me in agreement with Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul and Rick Perry!
Arne doesn’t need an introduction to hedge fund managers. He and Obama have, on the recommendation of these profit-seekers, allocated $200 million for so-called “pay for success” programs, also known as Social Impact Bonds. These are basically contracts that guarantee profits to investors who put up some money to “scale up” social service programs if, and only if, these investments are low risk and offer high-dollar returns.
To learn more…. and for your last outrage of this year go to: http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2014/12/rahms-pay-for-success-pre-k-program-who.html
And thanks for Diane’s exemplary work all year long in keeping this blog going–while managing surgeries and meds and pushing forward a larger movement to stop the destruction of public schools.
I don’t trust any of them. If Alexander reduces testing mandates what will be the public pound of flesh trade off? Cut Title I $ to poor districts? More public $ and legal protection from transparency & accountability for voucher schools & charter chains?
Diane – in case I don’t check back in tonight, Happy New Year! And, as always, thanks for everything you do. And stay safe. Apparently your police are now only arresting people if they “have to”. Wow.
This reads like an Onion piece, it really does. Parents in York, PA signed a petition demanding a “traditional public school option” because they’re privatizing their whole district without public consent.
Here’s what the charter school promoter is considering:
“Cyber school: At a court hearing earlier this month, an attorney asked Meckley what option would be available to students whose parents don’t want to send their children to the charter school.
Meckley testified the plan calls for sending those children to cyber charter school, in which the child works on a laptop computer from home.
On Monday, Meckley said that’s one element of the charter plan “being revised.”
“There will be a public option element,” Meckley said. He declined to elaborate.”
This is the same Pennsylvania that has the giant for-profit “cybercharter” that was investigated by the FBI, right?
That’s the “public option” now, in ed reform? They send you down the road with a laptop? Is this a parody piece?
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/breaking/ci_27232320/york-city-parents-sign-petition-against-charters
The problem is, at least in states like mine, the testing will continue unabated, even without the federal mandates. We can’t let this end our fight.
I just heard on NPR about US military schools. The gist of the message was the military schools are more successful than public schools, that they have few discipline problems, and they are paid better than most public schools. This isn’t shocking, but next year, they are adopting the COMMON CORE! What a way to wipe out all your success in one year!
Testing may be in deep trouble. .my take from mh blog in Toronto Canada.
http://www.thelittleeducationreport.ca/
Why ditch the tests when we have a model program to emulate. Quotes like this should make Pearson executives drool with envy:
‘If you connected all of the practice tests I’ve taken over the past three years, they would wrap all the way around the world.”
This from a NYT magazine article titled, Inside a Chinese Test-Prep Factory.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/magazine/inside-a-chinese-test-prep-factory.
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