Stephanie Simon of Politico has an interesting analysis of President Obama’s education legacy. While some credit him for his contribution to increasing early childhood education, the likelihood is that his legacy will be a great fizzle because of his unquestioning allegiance to standardized testing. Many Republicans are thinking of restoring greater control to the states and gutting annual testing, but Arne Duncan considers annual testing to be non-negotiable.
Here is Peter Greene’s take on Duncan’s “vision” for NCLB: more of the same. The status quo. Not a whiff of innovative thinking. Greene asks why Duncan is recommending a rewrite of NCLB:
“Why is he doing it now, when he’s had his way for the past several years? The answer is obvious– if the GOP really rewrites ESEA, all of Duncan and Obama’s reformy work will be trashed. Duncan’s announcement is not a clarion call to change a single comma of the administration’s policy– it’s an announcement that he intends to preserve it against the GOP onslaught that’s about to begin. For all intents and purposes, Duncan has had the ESEA rewrite he’s wanted for five years, and the GOP is threatening to take it away from him. Duncan is jumping on the bus before he is thrown under it, but there will now be a hell of a battle over who’s going to drive and where the bus is going to go.”
Curiously, the Obama administration is more devoted to the principles of NCLB than Republicans.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, this is exactly what I thought when I first heard about the rewrite being finally underway. If Obama/Duncan wait until AFTER he’s out of office, there’s a chance that some “misguided” new president won’t be in the pockets of the corporate reformers — and who KNOWS what kind of wacky changes they’ll authorize?
If NCLB is re-authorized JUST before Obama leaves office, though, we’ll be saddled with whatever same-old, same-old O/D can finagle, for YEARS.
Obama backed the WRONG horse…testing and standards.
He WAS the wrong horse and should have never gotten the Democratic Party nomination. He is a charter school shill from way, way back.
One really nice side effect of the volunteer-led effective advocacy of the anti-testing movement is it forces ed reformers to discuss how they have “improved” public schools. Specifically.
They’d much rather talk about evil teachers unions or opening more charter schools or ed-tech.
They’re finally forced to make mention of the unfashionable “public school sector” You know, the schools 90% of kids in all income brackets attend that they told us they would “improve”. Remember that?
They’re really vulnerable there. On public schools 🙂
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware and commented:
I would love to see Arne Duncan get taken down. He’s an education leech!
Chiara: Banesh Hoffman said some of the same in THE TYRANNY OF TESTING over 50 years ago.
Your specific questions and concerns are toxic for the leaders and enablers and enforcers of the self-proclaimed “new civil rights movement of our time.” Their “thought leaders” have no answers for you or me or us.
The generalities sound grand and uplifting but they follow that same old tired Marxist blueprint:
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
And the self-styled “education reformers” (of all political stripes, hues, colors, shapes and sizes) aka the education establishment stick with their Groucho through thick and thin.
Although some of them are finding that they can’t secure $tudent $ucce$$ for themselves and their backers unless they rebrand the old wine of low-level skills training (instead of genuine learning and teaching) & merit pay & stacked ranking & the new version of segregation academies & other proven failures in shiny new bottles.
But, some shill or troll will say in an astonished and hurt voice, pleading for “fair and balanced”—what about “multiple measures” and “innovative disruption” and the like? It’s not all so black and white…
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Uh, sure. And the foxes are the best choices, without question, to guard the henhouse.
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I remind readers of what happened when California did the utterly thinkable. It decided to modify, just a little bit, the high-stakes standardized test regimen that Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says is heartbreaking [see his April 30, 2013 speech to the AERA annual meeting]. And what happened? Did he welcome the change from a maniacal focus on testing testing testing?
[start quote]
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan toned down his recent criticism of California in an interview with The Times, calling his previous threat to withhold federal funding from the state over a new plan to test students a “last resort.”
“We want to be flexible, we want to be thoughtful,” Duncan said. “We don’t want to be stuck. There are lots of different things happening across the country. I don’t want to be too hard and fast on any one of these things because I have not gone through every detail, every permutation.”
He also praised the efforts of California and specifically Gov. Jerry Brown to adopt high academic standards and move quickly to new and improved standardized tests.
“I give the governor tremendous credit,” Duncan said. “He’s worked really, really hard” in moving to new and rigorous learning goals. “He’s put real resources behind that.”
[end quote]
Link: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/15/local/la-me-education-critic-20130916
As might be expected, Arne was simply playing politics and backed down when he got a little pushback.
But what was clear then—and is clear now despite the histrionic pearl clutching and couch fainting of the Secretary of Education—is that there is a status quo to be defended.
It’s mantra is “you fatten pigs by weighing them” aka the most excellent formulation by Anthony Cody in chapter 22 of his THE EDUCATOR AND THE OLIGARCH—
“Bill Gates and the Cult of Measurement: Efficiency Without Excellence.” The last two sentences of that chapter: ‘Measurement in education will not serve the poor. It will merely make the schools attended by the poor more efficient in preserving their poverty.”
And have a heart: how can you measure your way to $tudent $ucce$$ without all those high-stakes standardized tests all the time?
Except, of course, in the schools where the rheephormistas send THEIR OWN CHILDREN, like Lakeside School [Bill Gates] and Delbarton School [Chris Christie] and Sidwell Friends [Barack Obama] and Harpeth Hall [Michelle Rhee-Johnson] and U of Chicago Lab Schools [Rahm Emanuel] and the like.
Or as Dr. Candace McQueen, CCSS to the marrow of her bones and now one of the heads of the private Lipscomb Academy reminds us, “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School!” [a blog entry here, 3-23-2014].
Again, Chiara, thank you for your comments. Keep writing; I’ll keep reading.
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There is no difference between the two parties regarding public ed. The GOP, too, wants to abolish it. Fake Democrats like Obama are just sneakier about it. Hardly any elected officials in Washington support public ed, or, for that matter, democracy, because they are on the take from the elites and do their bidding.
Why is anyone listening to Duncan at all. He has no education credentials and he’s a pawn for the privacy movement to take over public education. Obama’s legacy will not be a good one. He has presided and supported major dismantling of the public education system. In this dismantling, segregation and inequality has reared its ugly head and thrived. On this issue, his legacy stinks.
I’ve been so disappointed in Obama’s education policies that his legacy to me is “Thanks for nothing.”
The black president who advanced the new segregation.
Sad but true …
If history isn’t written by the money behind the billionaire oligarchs—for instance Bill Gates who is spending billions to control almost every corporate education reform string—Obama education legacy is going to be horrible with a double emphasis on horrible.
But there will be historians outside of the Untied States that U.S. billionaires can’t control. Maybe a future author in China will publish the book that reveals how horrible Obama’s education policies were. China is the only country I can think of that American oligarchs can’t control because the Chinese Communist Party—an authoritarian govenrment that keeps a tight reign on everything in China—is going to get in their way. The CCP will not let anyone else tell them how to be authoritarian. How ironic would that be?
Over time, his legacy will be summed up as the president who threw low-income American children, teachers, and public education under the bus.
I agree with this:
“Supporters say he’s already made a huge mark by using federal grants as a lever to prod states to expand the charter school sector and create more rigorous teacher evaluation systems.”
Opening charter schools and testing kids to rank teachers. Turns out, I agree with his education agenda supporters. That was the focus.
I agree, too. I think he will be remembered for federal overreach.
I think within the education community he will be remembered for punitive high stakes testing and privatization. If he manages to get this “free two years of college” through the opposition, he may be remembered as a champion of the under dog by the public at large, but we know better!
Chiara & retired teacher: yes, I think we can all agree on the Obama legacy being “[o]pening charter schools and testing kids to rank teachers. Turns out, I agree with his education agenda supporters. That was the focus.”“
And they say miracles never happen anymore?!?!? Universal agreement!
Except that, er, according to the self-styled “education reform” establishment it was, is, and supposedly will forever more be “all about the kids.” The kids. Nothing more.
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Since when is putting adult interests in securing the greatest blended earnings by measuring to mediocrity—anything but guaranteeing a few adults and their families and cronies vast amounts of $tudent $ucce$$ at the expense of the vast majority of students and parents and communities?
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I am drowning in a morass of word salad and cognitive dissonance, e.g., “the soft bigotry of low expectations” and “choice” and “if you teach to the test, make it a test worth teaching to” and “100% charter graduation rates.” Add in the miracles wrought by edupreneurs and their enablers in York City, PA and Muskegon Heights, MI and Adelanto, CA. And let’s not leave out all those clamoring voices that assert that Eva Moskowitz at almost $600,000 last year was underpaid.
Could someone please throw me a life preserver of critical thinking, decency and compassion?
Just for once, as Chiara has pointed out, could some highly placed elected official give us the choice of well-resourced and well-supported public schools? Bush and Obama and the like won’t, but it sure would be a change for the better…
Thank you both for your comments.
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If you even have to ask this question then you really haven’t been paying attention. The man has been an abysmal failure as it pertains to education even worse than GW and that is a miracle within itself.
“While some credit him for his contribution to increasing early childhood education”
At the present time, Obama’s DOE has only proposed the program. I’ve copies three paragraphs from the DOE, and the proposal will be put in front of Congress this year. What do you think the odds are that the GOP dominated Tea Party Congress will approve this program if that $75 billion doesn’t go to corporations to profit from?
Preschool for All: This proposed program is a voluntary, federal-state partnership that would be administered by the Department of Education and would build upon and strengthen existing state systems to provide all low- and moderate-income 4-year-olds with high-quality, publicly-funded preschool. Funded jointly by states and the federal government, the program would promote access to full-day kindergarten and encourage the expansion of high-quality programs to include children from middle-class families and children under four. The federal funding over 10 years is $75 billion. It would be fully paid for by raising federal tobacco taxes, which also would help to discourage youth smoking and save lives.To be eligible, states would have to demonstrate high-quality program standards, the ability to link preschool data with K-12 data, and early learning and development standards that aim to ensure children leave preschool ready for success in kindergarten. See the early learning fact sheets for more.
Funds would be allocated to states and then distributed to local entities—which may include school districts, Head Start programs, or licensed child-care providers to deliver high-quality preschool services. States would be required to provide matching funds and must meet certain criteria, such as high-quality preschool standards. The federal government would assume a higher share of the overall program costs in the initial years, with states gradually assuming more responsibility over time.
Preschool Development Grants: These competitive grants lay the groundwork for states to be prepared for Preschool for All formula funding. These grants will help states build the fundamental components of a high-quality preschool system or expand proven early learning programs in partnership with local governments, local education agencies, and other providers. States awarded grants in 2014 have ambitious and achievable plans to expand high-quality preschool programs for additional children from low- to moderate-income families in high-need communities.
http://www.ed.gov/early-learning
CAUTION: The propaganda buzz for this White House proposal is starting to ramp up. Be careful. There’s going to be a lot of hollow promises—more Trojan horses with corporate reform hidden inside ready to come out and slaughter the public schools, teachers and any parents that get in their way. When the smoke clears, if the reformers are successful, the children will be the surviving corporate slaves.
My gut feeling- the newly created foundations, identified with cities’ names, are a key component of the Trojan horse. While hiding their donors’ identities, they fund (promote) K-12 school privatization and align themselves with universities under the guise of support for pre-school education. The social impact bonds backed by Wall St. are part of the package they sell.
“The Obama Legacy”
Test and VAM, VAM and test
That will be Barack’s bequest
The public’s opinion of political policy relating to education, during the past 6 years, can be viewed in the 1000+ comments posted at the regulations.gov site (at the search prompt, type, ED-2014-OPE-0057).
Obama is no improvement over Bush. It started with a bait-n-switch as Obama exploited Linda Darling-Hammond as a campaign advisor to get the trust of voters like me, only to abandon her directly after winning.
Besides his belief that charter schools will fix more problems than they cause, Obama has been herding US students into debt through high interest loans, and herding students into college that would in years past have gone into business or vocational training.
It’s also been obvious that Obama has not been hands-on in education issues. The many problems he inherited have monopolized his attention, but instead of delegating it to career DOE officials, he’s opened the door to big business and awful special interests, deliberately clenching his eyes shut to strong evidence of the inefficacy of standardized tests.
The ugliest part of his legacy is the obstinate insistence that test scores be tied to teacher evaluations, enforced by a federal hand. This untested, unproven measure was brewed in the kitchens of ALEC and foist upon schools to ensure we attract and retain fewer quality teachers.
Obama is no improvement over Bush. It started with a bait-n-switch as Obama exploited Linda Darling-Hammond as a campaign advisor to get the trust of voters like me, only to abandon her directly after winning.
Besides his belief that charter schools will fix more problems than they cause, Obama has been herding US students into debt through high interest loans, and herding students into college that would in years past have gone into business or vocational training.
It’s also been obvious that Obama has not been hands-on in education issues. The many problems he inherited have monopolized his attention, but instead of delegating it to career DOE officials, he’s opened the door to big business and awful special interests, deliberately clenching his eyes shut to strong evidence of the inefficacy of standardized tests.
The ugliest part of his legacy is the obstinate insistence that test scores be tied to teacher evaluations, enforced by a federal hand. This untested, unproven measure was brewed in the kitchens of ALEC and foist upon schools to great harm.