Now begins the great wrangle over federal education policy.
Senator Lamar Alexander, the senior Republican in the Senate on the HELP (health, education, labor, and pensions) Committee is at work revising No Child Left Behind. On January 20, he will hold hearings on testing. He is deciding whether to eliminate NCLB’s annual testing mandate and allow states to make their own decisions, to switch to grade-span testing, or to leave the current system in place. The Obama administration is lobbying hard to keep the current system, designed by the second President Bush’s administration, intact. In other words, Secretary Duncan wants to preserve the status quo, over the opposition of parents and educators, and despite the fact that no high-performing nation tests every child every year.
Earlier this week, nearly 20 civil rights groups endorsed the status quo. Valerie Strauss wondered what these civil rights groups were thinking.
She wrote:
“There are important problems with this thinking.
“It presumes that high-stakes standardized testing has led to more equity for students. There is no evidence that it has. It presumes that high-stakes standardized tests are valid and reliable measure of what students know and how much teachers have contributed to student progress, but assessment experts say they aren’t. It presumes that requiring testing is the only way to ensure that minority and disabled students get attention. That’s shallow thinking.”
After 13 years of NCLB, have we learned nothing?
A few days ago, I questioned whether the civil rights groups understood that standardized tests never close achievement gaps: they measure them. The children who have the greatest disadvantages are not served by stsndardized testing; the tests accurately reflect family income. They confer privilege on the privileged.
Most curious to me is that some of the leading civil rights groups issued a statement opposing high-stakes testing in October 2014!
What changed their views between October and January?
At that time, civil rights groups wrote:
““he current educational accountability system has become overly focused on narrow measures of success and, in some cases, has discouraged schools from providing a rich curriculum for all students focused on the 21st century skills they need to acquire. This particularly impacts under-resourced schools that disproportionately serve low-income students and students of color. In our highly inequitable system of education, accountability is not currently designed to ensure students will experience diverse and integrated classrooms with the necessary resources for learning and support for excellent teaching in all schools. It is time to end the advancement of policies and ideas that largely omit the critical supports and services necessary for children and families to access equal educational opportunity in diverse settings and to promote positive educational outcomes.”
They called for “Appropriate and equitable resources that ensure opportunities to learn, respond to students’ needs, prioritize racial diversity and integration of schools, strengthen school system capacity, and meaningfully support improvement.”
Among the needed resources, they said them, are:
“Qualified, certified, competent, racially and culturally diverse and committed teachers, principals, counselors, nurses, librarians, and other school support staff, with appropriate professional development opportunities, including cultural competency training, and support and incentives to work with students of greatest need; and
Social, emotional, nutritional, and health services”
But now they support the Bush-Obama emphasis on test-based accountability, with testing that exempts only 1% of children with the most severe cognitive disabilities and that exempts English learners for only one year.
Very puzzling.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“What changed their views between October and January?”
I haven’t the $lighte$t idea.
I cannot discount the likelihood of foundation money flowing to some of these groups.
But I also think it is a mistake to discount the basis for their concerns: the historic evidence that states do not always do a good job applying equal protection of the law or ensuring equal opportunity. The entire reason many of these organizations exist is because federal action was and remains necessary to keep many (if not most) states from practicing neglect of populations.
The oversight mechanism that they are backing will make things worse, especially as applied by this administration. But the concern is sincere and legitimate.
Yes and I mentioned that on Diane’s previous post on this subject yesterday. But I find the difference between their October 2014 stance and yesterday’s announcement to be rather fishy and awfully convenient for the test proponents. I know that several of the organizations have received Gates money – I would be very interested to know when they received their latest “donation” and what the value there of was.
Decisions seem to be made on following the money rather than what is in the best interests of students. Ever since NCLB, the federal government has been too involved in testing that is designed by some lawyer or politician. These people are not experts in education so the testing requirements are out of control and the result of special interest groups They need to start from the point of view of the student to understand what impact these regulations and mandates are doing to them before they start coming up with new tests. Education should be in the hands of educators, not lawyers, politicians or billionaires.
Politicians don’t like the idea though of having to raise taxes for constituents and then say “I let the experts do what they need to” – they have too much experience having been students themselves and the money is too great for them to be willing to wash their hands of it – so they need to have their hand in the financial side of it, and see the “bang for the buck” that they have to talk to voters about.
There simply must be a better formula for providing funding for schools though that strikes a balance between teacher salaries, cost of living in different areas, economic opportunity in different areas (rural new york is far different than urban), and getting politicians out of the business side of education that has mission creep into the delivery of education.
Combined with the ability to wash their hands of failure because of the failures of charter authorizers, and the ability of those charters to make campaign donations using the money they received, makes the chances of funding education without non-educators making most of the important decisions almost nill.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
It is so VERY tiring. Over and over again these people who have never taught, do not understand what they are doing but are so self righteous, THEY have ALL t he answers.
So reminiscent of WWI, the war of the trenches when the generals when facing the “new” war, machine guns, poison gas etc and the only thing they knew was to send the men “over the top” where they were slaughtered by the thousands and when finally the men rebelled, they were shot for cowardice. The generals in charge were never charged for incompetence.
So VERY comparable to what is happening now.
In Indiana teacher training colleges report a from 40 to 50% drop in enrollment, as noted here in these blogs, an e mail that went viral – hit a really sore spot: “I quit, the profession I joined no longer exists”, children, students rebel, give up, kindergartners in tears -they do not understand the tests, think they are stupid etc, ad nauseum.
In so many ways now our politicians are failing us, Congress approval rate near single digits, corporate media losing credibility etc etc etc.
I fear what the end result will be in a few years.
The public schools were the true “melting pot” for the U. S. Yes, the rich could always send their children to boarding schools etc but for most Americans at least the semi rich and poor, ethnic and religious groups could learn together. Problems? Of course and was it perfect, of course not
but
what is the alternative now?
For me it is scary beyond belief – in so many ways, not just in public schools.
This is funny, from Arne Duncan:
“We’ll urge Congress to have states set limits on the amount of time spent on state- and district-wide standardized testing, and notify parents if they exceed those limits. ”
To read that, you’d never know that thousands of parents and teachers were the people that blew the whistle on the insane amount of testing, in their spare time, in addition to their regular jobs. Ed reformers in government did absolutely nothing until it became politically untenable to continue to ignore parents and teachers.
Now he’s going to “tell” parents if public schools are testing too much? He was the last to know, and parents and public school teachers told him.
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/americas-educational-crossroads-making-right-choice-our-children%E2%80%99s-future
“Testing Alarm”
A testing clock is what we need
To sound alarm when tests exceed
Allotted time to terrorize
Our students in a legal guise
They’ll go nuts with the testing reviews just like they went nuts with the testing. It has the potential to be a whole new sector!
Assessment of the assessments. And they’ll dump the whole mess on public schools.
“Forever Nutty”
Once you’re nuts, it doesn’t matter
If you’re nutty as a Hatter.
Point of no return has passed
And nutty’s guaranteed to last
I don’t get it. It seems the President, Governors, Legislators (State or Federal), Civil Rights Groups, Big and Small Corporations, Chambers of Commerce (Local & National), and Jerks off the Street all know what is needed to improve our schools and teach our children yet nobody seems to want to ask our Professional Educators — our Teachers, School Administrators, Deans for the Colleges of Education, etc. I just don’t get it.
NCLB never worked and will never work in any form or fashion. Race to the Top did not work and proved to be a joke on everyone. All the non-Educators keep coming up with solutions to our educational problems without even understanding what the problems are. Amazing!! Frustrating!!! Stupid!!!!
In the end. In the very end. It is the Students that pay the heavy price and they do not have any say in what happens to them. In the end, Students are the Guinea Pigs for all the never proven ever changing “solutions” to our educational problems. When are our Students going to be treated like human beings with intelligence, feelings, initiative, desires, and dreams instead of mindless animals to be lead down a dark path not of their choosing? When are our Teachers going to be treated with respect and dignity instead of the keepers of the animals who are to be trained as Pavlov’s Dogs?
The direction of American education is insanely being led down a path of destruction by a punch of fools do not understand education and really do not care about the end results.
I think the answer to to your question is that the voice for teachers on this issue is the unions, and the unions just ask for more money, and will barely even acknowledge that there is anything to improve.
I wish we had accountability systems designed by teachers and others directly impacted, but where are they? What’s the (workable) alternative that has been proposed and rejected?
I think unions had a chance to define these things and punted, assuming that the accountability push would go away. Instead, it resulted in these top-down accountability regimes being implemented either without buy-in or perhaps with buy-in from union leaders, but not rank and file teachers.
I think this is why the public loves their individual teachers, but is dissatisfied with teachers and public education writ large.
“. . . that standardized tests never close achievement gaps: they measure them.”
NO, NO, NO!!! said in a teacher’s exasperated tone.
Standardized tests don’t measure anything. They are not measuring devices, they are counting devices, counting how many right and wrong answers a student got on a test on a specific time, day and subject. Again they “measure” nothing, especially “achievement gaps”, another of those educational malapropisms loved by edudeformers.
“They are not measuring devices, they are counting devices, counting how many right and wrong answers a student got on a test on a specific time, day and subject. ”
Okay, Duane, they are counting devices, which are very crude measurement devices. No matter when students take them, no matter what the subject matter, a predictable group of students answer more questions correctly. Why? They certainly do not tell us about the inherent ability of any group. I think many would agree that the distribution tells us something about the socioeconomic makeup of different groups. Beyond that…fairy dust. Yes, no,…maybe?
I know this may be cynical, but don’t large scale standardized tests provide data that can be used to justify (funding for) civil rights groups?
We know resources have not been equitably distributed, but it’s the “hard” data of gaps in scores that gets attention, especially courts.
Sad.
Peter Smyth, Trying to tie future funding of civil rights groups (from where exactly, are you claiming they are publicly funded????) to test scores is bizarre at best.
The main concern is equitable funding so we need some creative minds to put together a workable plan that can ensure this happens without high stakes testing. Ideas?
E.D. Hirsch makes a strong case that the achievement gap is largely a knowledge gap. Until we make k-12 curricula more knowledge-intensive, poor and minority kids will continue to be poorly served.
To be fair, it isn’t as if every civil rights group endorsed both statements. The Civil Rights community isn’t necessarily monolithic in its views either.
Only six ended up doing so: League of United Latin American Citizens, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, NAACP, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Urban League, and Southeast Asia Resource Action Center
These groups should probably clarify their position(s) since they are sending mixed signals.
Nevertheless, it is quite concerning that 19 groups signed onto this recent statement supporting the status quo, while only 11 signed the statement opposing high-stakes testing back in October. It’s even more alarming when you consider that over half (6) of the October statement’s supporters have seemingly backtracked or weakened their stance.
I don’t find the statements contradictory. I believe they agree some changes are needed in testing, but are concerned that removing testing will remove visibility of the issue. Disaggregated scoring required by NCLB and NAEP is what raised awareness of the achievement gap.
I think they also see that the testing uproar seems quite tightly tied to concern over teacher/school evaluation. They don’t want the accountability baby to be thrown out with the testing bathwater.
Technically they may not be contradictory, but this most recent statement — as Congress revisits NCLB — reads like a Department of Education press release, while the October statement hits on every point that makes the DOE squirm.
Many of us on here have analyzed statements like this microscopically for years, and this one is loaded with Gates Foundation fingerprints and talking points. I appreciate your point of uproar being tied to teacher/school evaluation, but I don’t get any sense of that distinction in this statement, and Secretary Duncan has made it very clear that teacher/school evaluation being tied to tests is his one non-negotiable item. By the way, “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” is a recent Reformist catch-phrase (see Sandy Kress NCLB Architect post from yesterday) to maintain the current testing regime, but I noticed and very much appreciate that you seem to consider tying tests to teacher/school evaluation to be bathwater rather than (as DOE considers it) baby.
I thought Kress’ analogy was more about weighing and feeding pigs
Yeah. That was a good one, too. Just like Secretary Duncan is suddenly upset about states doing too much testing.
Fair enough.
Re the baby and bathwater, you misunderstood me. I believe that teacher and school accountability are important and that testing is part of that. It certainly needs adjustment, and quite possibly should be replaced with other methods, but IMO it beats none (I acknowledge many here would argue with that premise).
I believe the civil rights groups are concerned that anti-testing sentiment may lead to a lessening of accountability, especially because anti-testing groups don’t seem to have replacement methods of accountability at the ready.
At least here in NY, teachers weren’t voicing opposition to testing until tests were tied to performance reviews.
You are assuming that there was no teacher or school accountability before high-stakes testing. It’s a favorite canard of the rephormers.
Dienne,
Please enlighten me. What is the accountability for teachers and schools w/o testing? In NY, we barely have any with testing. District schools with single digit percent passing rates are still open, and no teacher has ever been dismissed for reasons related to academics. I’m not saying this is wrong, just wondering what you’re referring to.
Okay, John, here’s an example in South Carolina in the 1980s and 1990s we has a Basic Skill Assessment Program, BSAP, and exit exam. It was a well-defined set of standards, schools were held accountable by visits from SDOE teams to see that kids needs were being addressed. Funding was provided for remediation.,it was basic skills, but did get districts to serve all kids. Sores weighed somewhat on school report cards, but not use for evaluating teachers.
The downfall came as test scores became more importan and actual teaching kids less important.
If you’re a teacher, you might understand this.
Okay, John. Yes, I did misunderstand you, and I appreciate respectful disagreement (which on educational policy issues is often difficult to find).
I suspect the reason you didn’t hear criticisms until scores were tied to teacher and school evaluations was because so many of the problems associated with testing stem from this. Standardized tests have been around forever. So have scores. So has accountability (I saw many teachers come and go before teachers and tests were tied together). The “high-stakes” aspect of the testing is terrible for teachers — all teachers, from bad to great — and there’s no question that maintaining the current policies is going to drive many strong people out of the classroom. Some will be unjustly forced out. Some will simply switch professions. Many just won’t consider becoming a teacher in the first place (personally, I wouldn’t have become a teacher if these policies were in place; for what it’s worth, I consider myself a good — in some ways great — teacher). Those who get in and stay do so under far more burdensome conditions. And, yes, the kids suffer when teachers are under greater stress and more curricular restraints.
I don’t know how the accountability systems work in other states and I really don’t know schools well outside my own district (a highly ranked one according to THE TESTS & US News, etc.), but I would contend that where I work, we would be a more effective school without any of the accountability legislation that has passed since 2001. I couldn’t say if that is true everywhere, but my instincts are that the Reformist concern over teaching quality is greatly overstated, as is the Reformist belief that judging teachers through student tests will lead to improvement of education.
Certainly there are different perspectives from within and outside the system. Anyways, thanks again for your respectful reply.
Now you’re assuming that “performance” can only be “measured” [apologies, Duane] by testing.
How is performance measured on your job? Do you take a standardized test? How is accountability managed? Is your test score published in the newspaper? Is someone else held “accountable” for your score?
John, with regards to accountability, rest assured that teachers feel it on a daily basis…and have since well before the testing movement. I know Governor Cuomo is alarmed that such a low number of teachers were evaluated as “ineffective,” but there is a large amount of turnover among teachers…especially among inexperienced teachers…and especially among weak teachers. Sure, there are weak teachers who remain, but the kids and the parents know when a teacher is truly ineffective, and — at least where I teach…and I suspect in many if not most places — they don’t suffer through bad teaching passively. Nor should they. Good teachers have always faced pressure to do a good job and always have. Bad teachers face enormous pressure just to survive in the job.
Ohio Algebra II Teacher,
I agree 100%.
For some reason people don’t consider getting pushed out accountability even though it’s not as “harsh” as firing someone for cause even though the end effect is the same, and perhaps the educator doesn’t leave with a label that prevents them from fitting better into a different school community.
Teachers may not have been getting fired in a legalistic forced sense, but they were being forced to leave – it’s very easy to legally make a teacher’s working conditions unbearable unlivable and also impossible to succeed and not violate their tenure rights. Drop in on their lessons frequently. Ask them tons of questions about how they met the needs of particular students in each lesson. Assign them tons of students that are known to have behavior issues.
There was plenty of accountability before all of this happened – people just didn’t see it as such because it didn’t manifest in a number of teachers being called incompetent rather than poor fits for a school. People also don’t realize that schools are different and where a teacher doesn’t fit in one school they may fit very well in another – but we tend to simplify that teachers need to feel that branding threat.
I don’t know of a colleague that taught better because they were threatened. I do know plenty that have sought mental help to deal with the stress of threats.
I think puzzling is not the word – maybe duh is.
Think who talks to the leadership of these groups and who they listen to.
Think how Broad has pushed many African-Ameican “leaders” into districts.
Think of the money.
Think of the Obama policies, which it’s not easy for Democrats and/or civil rights groups to see through.
This is more a lesson in how uninformed folks really are – and accepting of what they are told.
An investigative reporter needs to get on this and get the facts on what caused this change. My theory is that “someone” or some ones got to them. There are a lot of pro-charter people of color. But even they have ties to corporate America via funding sources.
I have been doing a bit of research on the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the umbrella for other groups that issued a press release filled with “principles” for the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind.
All of these groups seem to value annual test scores as the national marker for inequity. These same groups have also endorsed the college and career” vision of education, totally free of any emphasis on civic competence a democratic society comprised a majority population of so-called minority groups. How odd.
These groups basically want more of the same old NCLB requirements with some added pressure on every school that enrolls children who do not “perform at grade level” on annual tests. The press release is here http://www.edtrust.org/dc/press-room/news/nearly-20-civil-rights-groups-and-education-advocates-release-principles-for-esea
Here is what I learned about the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “The organization was founded in 1950 by A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; Roy Wilkins of the NAACP; and Arnold Aronson, a leader of the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council.” …”The Leadership Conference lobbied for and won the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act of 1968, and also helped to organize one of the defining events of the 20th century — the 1963 March on Washington.” http://www.civilrights.org/about/history.html
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has 200 members. Of these, only 19 signed this press release with a wish list for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Wow.
Because I have often used the Gates Foundation database, I was aware that some of these groups enjoyed that support . Here is what I found “about total funding to date” for ten signers.
1. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has received over $4.9 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to convene and support the advocacy efforts of “communities of color” insofar as their efforts are aligned with Gates “United States” agenda for education.
2. The Children’s Defense Fund has received $435,000 from Gates, some of this for general operating expenses.
3. Easter Seals received only $10, 676.
4. The Education Trust received $22.3 million, much of this for general operating expenses.
5. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has received about $2.5 million.
6. The National Council of La Raza has received about $34.4 million. Of this, over $24 million was earmarked for starting and expanding charter schools.
7. The National Urban League has received about anout $5.3 million for advocacy in support of the Gates agenda for US education.
8. The Southeast Asia Resource Action Center has received about $1.8 million.
9. United Negro College Fund has received over $1.5 billion. The largest portion was for scholarships, but over $61 million was for general operating expenses and advocacy “partnerships.”
The sum of Gates grants to these organizations is: $1,655,451,248.
The following organizations were not included in the Gates grants data-base, but signed the press release. American Association of University Women, ACLU, League of United Latin American Citizens, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Women’s Law Center, Partners for Each and Every Child, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Center for Learning Disabilities, Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.
Among the 180 organizations that did NOT sign the press release from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, four are conspicuous for withholding their endorsement while also benefiting from grants from Gates. American Federation of Teachers (the AFT foundation has received about 11.2 million), National Education Association (the NEA foundation has received about $3.9 million), Teach for America ($23 million), and National Parent Teacher Association (about $2.9 million). This total is $ 33,948,639.
I have an email inquiry to the American Association of University Women requesting information about their endorsement of high-stakes tests. Their website has no obvious agenda for k-12 education other than pushing for girls and women to enter STEM. No reply yet.
The ACLU aligned itself with a slightly different group of organizations in 2011 complaining that a (failed) senate bill for NCLB reauthorization was “too flexible.” The letter said in part, “Federal funding must be attached to firm, ambitious and unequivocal demands for higher achievement, high school graduation rates and gap closing. We know that states, school districts, and schools needed a more modern and focused law. However, we respectfully believe that the bill goes too far in providing flexibility by marginalizing the focus on the achievement of disadvantaged students.“
That 2011 letter was also signed by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and 20 other groups, but not all of them also signed the latest press release. Who were the dropouts? Business Coalition for Student Achievement, Chiefs for Change, Democrats for Education Reform, National Down Syndrome Society, Partners for Each and Every Child, Poverty & Race Research Action Council, The New Teachers Project, and U.S. Chamber of Commerce. See https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/civil_rights_coalition_letter_on_esea_accountability_for_senate_help_markup.pdf
In any case, lobbyists are having a field day and spending big bucks to shape the reauthorization right now. There is big money directly and indirectly invested in testing the nation’s students.
It is tragic to see the civil rights “cover story” used for an unrelenting campaign to numb minds, rid teaching and learning of any sign of joy, and pontificate about achievement gaps as if test scores are impeccable measures of achievement and raising those scores is a panacea.
Four letters: ALEC. This has been a LOOOONG time in the making, a master plan.
“Standardized” tests do NOT exist in this country–they are neither valid nor reliable, especially those faulty, unchecked, poorly scored Pear$$$on te$t$. States spending taxpayers’ money–earmarked for “education”–are misappropriating it, starving the public schools, thus leading to privatization &–cha-ching!–charter schools (where children generally do no better). Teaching te$t$, of course, leads to a breakdown in REAL curriculum, thus preparing students to be “career ready”…for careers as Walmart associates. There’s NO reason for the 99%’s children to learn anything.
Aside from going to Haiti as carpetbaggers, Arne & Paul (now that he’s not been elected as Lt. Gov. of ILL-Annoy, where, oh where will he end up next? Readers–beware!!!) probably went to get their own education about how to turn this country into…Haiti. Because that’s what the 1% wants.