Remember a few months ago when everyone was wringing their hands and agreeing there was too much testing? Remember Arne Duncan said testing was sucking the oxygen out of the classroom?
That was then. This is now. Duncan is upset that Chicago is backing away from Commmon Core PARCC testing.
Mike Klonsky reports that Duncan threatened to cut off $1.2 billion in state aid if Chicago doesn’t give the PARCC.
This is crazy. The Secretary of Education is not supposed to tell states and districts what tests to use. He has overstepped his bounds, as he has done so often in the past. He has no understanding of federalism or of the limits of the federal role in education. The law says that no federal official may try to direct, control, or influence curriculum or instruction. Tests influence curriculum and instruction. By funding two tests and then compelling states to use them, he is flouting the law.
If he cuts any funding, Illinois should sue him.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
PARCC is awful. As an Ohio teacher moving from the Ohio Model Curriculum (our old curriculum) to this confusing, poorly done mess is beyond depressing. To be paid tons of money from Ohio, PARCC just released its Math practice test for February tasks and End of Year last week. Isn’t that crazy? It is beyond incompetent. I wonder what rating I would give them on our teacher evaluation system.
I am beyond horrified to see the confusing practice problems. I am convinced that PARCC and the new common core is intended to weaken the public schools in Reading and Math achievement. I am beyond convinced. No one could change my mind. Go to the PARCC website and look through the confusing problems on the practice tests for Math especially. I cannot get my youngest child out of school fast enough. How convenient that Obama’s and Kasich’s kids do not have to ruin their Reading and Math learning with this incompetent mess.
Be sure to watch “Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace” tomorrow. Chris has two people debating the Common Core. I set my DVR.
Again, the question that will never be answered, and exposes the whole thing as a scam to privatize:
if PARCC & Common Core are so great, why do all of their proponents spend tens of thousands of dollars in private school tuition to make sure that their own children are kept as far away as possible from PARCC & Common Core?
For example, check out this blast from the recent past… and old post from “KrazyTA” regarding one Candace McQueen who simultaneously pulls down big bucks at two different gigs:
Private School Honcho—headmistress of Tennessee’s private school, Lipscomb Academy
&
Tennessee State Department of Education’s head cheerleader for implementing Common Core at traditional public schools
————————–
KrazyTA:
” ‘This is an unintentionally hilarious story about Common Core in Tennessee. Dr. Candace McQueen has been dean of Lipscomb College’s school of education and also the state’s’s chief cheerleader for Common Core. However, she was named headmistress of private Lipscomb Academy, and guess what? She will not have the school adopt the Common Core! Go figure.’ ”
[end quote]
The above is an entire blog posting, this blog, entitled “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School!” accessed at:
https://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/23/common-core-for-commoners-not-my-school/
The “hilarious story” can be accessed via the above blog posting. I include an extensive excerpt:
[start quote]
————————————————
“One of Tennessee’s biggest cheerleaders for Common Core has not pushed to adopt the education standards in the private school she now leads.
“On an almost weekly basis, Candice McQueen is called on by the state Department of Education to beat back criticism (of Common Core, as well as her & Tennesse’s Ed. Dept’s forcing it down it down the throats of parents/students attending Tennessee’s public schools, and for which McQueen is being well-paid… JACK).
“Last week, it was an Associated Press panel. The week before that, she advocated for Common Core as SCORE released its annual report card. McQueen testified before the Senate Education Committee during a two day hearing on the standards.
“She praises the rigor and the benefits to having Tennessee kids on the same page as students in 44 states. So when McQueen assumed a new role over Lipscomb’s private K-12 academy, parents were concerned Common Core would follow her to campus, according to an open letter sent to families. …
“McQueen wrote that she [sic] Common Core has not been adopted and that she has ‘not been in any formal discussions’ about changing standards at the school, though she has asked faculty to familiarize themselves with the math and English standards.
“And McQueen doesn’t plan to stop advocating for Common Core (to be forced on traditional public schools, while keeping it out of the private school that McQueen runs, JACK), according to the letter. …
“Asked by WPLN why Common Core wouldn’t be used at her school, McQueen referred back to her letter.
“ ‘We make decisions about what’s going to be best within the context of our community,’ she said. ‘I would say that (keeping Common Core as far away from Lipscomb Academy as possible, JACK) is absolutely what we’re going to do now and for the future.’
“Lipscomb would be unusual if it went to Common Core. Most of Nashville’s private schools blend state and national standards and don’t use the same standardized tests as public schools.”
—————————————————-
[end quote]
(bracket & ellipses mine]
So it’s “one school for thine and another school for mine”—I think I can hear Bill Gates cheering for his alma mater and the school of his own children, Lakeside School, as it ignores CCSS and continues to provide a genuine teaching and learning environment.
Mandating one thing for others while ensuring something completely different for the “right sort of people”? Not walking your own talk? Is this new?
Nope. The CCSS hypocrites were nailed to the wall long long ago by one of those Greek guys:
“Hateful to me as are the gates of hell, Is he who, hiding one thing in his heart, Utters another.” [Homer]
$tudent $ucce$$—it’s all about the kids!
😡
Thank you for your comments.
and thank you for yours…Spot on!
Is Arne running in an unpopularity contest?
He’s an insult to all Americans.
He does not have to run, he has the unchallenged lead at this point. He wins, he is unpopular. He rates right up there with poison ivy and dysentery. I’ll take the dysentery over him.
Obama ensured that Arne Duncan had the largest discretionary budget in history. The exercise of power by Duncan and his aides is nothing less than dictatorial, my way or the highway.
Of course, the language of federalism was needed to foist the whole package of Race to the Top initiatives including the wink-wink that the CCSS are “state standards” and that PARCC and SBAC tests are totally free of any federal interference in matters of curriculum and instruction.
The legal needles were threaded to make this national agenda aimed at standardized education appear to be the result of grass roots initiatives.
If any whistleblowers want evidence of federal funding of curriculum…illegal…all they need to do is look at the federal funding for curriculum development so PARCC and SBAC tests could be developed. About $15 million to each group as they ramped up for test development.
The whole drive to put the CCSS in place was based on the total fiction that there is no necessary connection between standards, curriculum, instructional options, and assessments.
The tragedy is that the Council of Chief State School Officers–a group one might assume to know better– was leading the charge for this fiasco.
I earnestly hope that Duncan’ s threat to pull federal support unless Chicago requires the PARCC tests will be widely publicized and show to be illegal.
What ‘s truly illegal here is Arne and his department are threatening much needed funds for children!! What kind of monster would threaten educational opportunity for children-threaten their human right of education? Cut of 84% of federal funding for a state with one of the lowest state-level funding formulas?
What of course makes all this even more complicated in that Obama just endorsed Rahm (GAG, sorry can’t even write that man’s name without a gag reflex) and now Obama’s man Arne Duncan is going after CPS (headed by Rahm) (gag). The only reason CPS made the move to cut back on PARCC testing is because it’s a municipal election year. So we’ve got a little internal Obama administration battle going on here.
Here’s more on the situation: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20150130/BLOGS02/150139992/standoff-escalates-over-cps-snub-of-federal-testing-rules
Duncan, Obama, Cuomo etc have an agenda: that agenda is simply to meet the demands of their corporate supporters. They are not concerned at all with the outcome of the test because the rhetoric of improving schools is not the real agenda. The agenda is to upend public education and put it into private hands. It’s an enormous profit machine for their friends, and nothing but resistance will stop or slow down that train. Stop thinking that these people have hearts or minds to change. Stop waiting for it. The will of power will be done, no matter how spurious, misguided or repudiated. There is only one way left and that is to fight: fight in the courts, fight in the streets. fight at the ballot box, fight with public opinion, fight with civil disobedience. Never surrender. (Thank you WC)
It is time for our local law enforcement, together with legislators that still value honor and dignity, and those who truely believe in democracy and the United States, to knock on Cuomo’s door, as Sheldon Silver recently experienced, and arrest Cuomo and take him out in handcuffs for the crimes he is guilty of committing against the children, OUR CHILDREN…then it’s on to the others…
Alright Chicago Public Schools… BRING IT ON… I do hope Chicago sticks to their “will not administer PARCC” agenda and does bring a suit against Duncan to the courts. If there is any hope of democracy in this country and any vestiges of “checks and balances” in govt, Chicago should win this case “slam dunk”!
Well said curiousidle a person after my own heart!
Do any charter schools give PAarC?
Additionally curiousidle, fight by telling parents, students, teachers and everybody you know to Opt Out their/all students from this billionaire, testing and technology corporate created, high stakes testing madness.:
http://unitedoptout.com
PARCC testing and the common core are developmentally inappropriate and akin to child-abuse! The common core was designed as if it were a pizza cut into 12 same sized pieces, 13 if you count kindergarten. Children do not develop it exact increments (or slices)!
The appropriate response to Arne’s latest insane directive is “Please do.”
http://publicdefenders.us/?q=node%2F682
As I said…to no avail…..OK republicans…stand up and cheer. Or…as is usually the case, just keep your glee to yourselves. You can automatically disparage virtually anything Obama favors….but his education policies are just too valuable to criticize. For good reason, for those who favor re-segregation and privatization.
This brilliant analysis by Tom Hoffman of the Pearson ELA tests administered in NY, is a PARCC preview that is a must read for all concerned parents, teachers, and administrators:
View at Medium.com
Great link pointing out global and specific confusions associated with the Common Core as well as demonstrating a total lack of understanding of child development in the Common Core.
CPS should agree to administer the PARCC tests to all students
ONLY IF
Arne is willing to be evaluated and possibly dismissed using the scores
Arne also forces the Arlington public schools (which his children attend) to administer them as well
While there are many who feel it is bad education policy, what Duncan’s office is communicating is federal law. States are required under ESEA to administer uniform annual assessments in reading and mathematics in grades 3-8 and once in high school. CPS is accepting Title I funds and proposing to not follow the stipulations that come with the funding. Illinois adopted PARCC as their state assessment and CPS does not have the latitude to opt out as a district while accepting Title I funding.
The actual letter is at http://www.scribd.com/doc/254015942/USDOE-Response-Letter.
The testing is controversial and the letter is stern, but I am not seeing how the federal department is overstepping its legal authority.
STILES, federal law (NCLB) says that districts receiving Title 1 funding (almost all districts) must administer annual tests, it doesn’t specify PARCC. That is Duncan’s baby. He spent $360 million of our dollars to create PARCC and SBAC, and he wants everyone to use them. But the law does not compel it.
Diane, I agree with you on that. But if Illinois has adopted PARCC (or any other assessment) for the districts in that state, I don’t think a district can independently opt out of administering that assessment if they receive Title I funding. Do you (from an ESEA standpoint) agree?
I don’t feel that opting out of the assessment should result in withholding much or all of Chicago’s Title I funding, but some enforcement is probably well within the department’s legal authority.
PARCC is not our federal, high-stakes test this year in Chicago anyway. We are using the NWEA for the federal mandate and the high-stakes decisions attached to it. It’s actually really unclear to me why Duncan and Co. are so desperate to force all kids in Chicago to sit through this god-awful, long, expensive test that will completely disrupt learning for weeks ON TOP of our other, terrible, long standardized tests.
And the state board (ISBE) is sticking to that story because they’ve given SO much of our ed. funding away to that big hole-in-the-arm-heroin-money-sucking-Pear$on. Those of you who live in the Chicago metropolitan area out to visit their midwest headquarters on Lake Avenue, in Glenview–HUGE campus, & finally have taken down any vestige of Scott-Foresman–great, BIG Pear$on lettering all over the building, & huge address marker right in the front. The street is still named “Scott-Foresman Way,” but–rest assured–will be renamed very $oon.
Contract$ & $$$ $peak louder than the words “it’s all about the children.”
Yeah–the children’s parents’ money.
Watch for Arne to get an executive po$ition at Pear$on when he finally leaves D.o.Ed. (or–as I’m starting to call it- Dead).
Katie, that’s interesting. My understanding is that other states in the past asked about using NWEA’ s MAP assessment and it was denied due to the design of the test. ESEA requires that the state assessment assess whatever the state standards are by grade. MAP is fully adaptive and it is possible that a student might not see many items at their grade level if they were an advanced or struggling learner. To me, this is a good example of how ESEA puts some counterproductive restrictions on state assessments.
Duncan’s edict has nothing to do with the law, the U.S. Constitution. It has to do with Milton Friedman’s economic neo-liberal thinking taking over America and replacing the Bill of Rights with a corporate Congress, a corporate controlled Electoral College and a corporate appointed president in the White House.
It’s obvious this is the goal of the few oligarchs funding corporate education reform. There is the libertarian Koch led group and then the Bill Gates rank and yank led group of oligarchs. The third wheel is the Walton family that wants to revise and rewrite history to fit what they think and then control the schools through their own corporate Charters so they control what children are taught to think.
…and now he has John King to ” assist” him in his decision making.
Fasten your seat belts!
Just say NO!!!! He is not a king and this power grab that the federal government has to come to a head and be discussed openly by teachers and administrators. Get rid of Duncan, time to dump Duncan!!! and Cuomo.
“The Arney of it all”
The Arney of it all
Is that he plays B-ball
Where fouling loses game
And brings the fouler shame
Cross posted at
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Duncan-Threatens-to-Punish-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Control_Diane-Ravitch_Duncan-Arne_Education-150131-953.html
with this comment (below) and a link to the blog from whence it came.
Wanna see how the oligarchs are forcing a failed mandate in other states. See why Massachusetts is switching from its 20-year-old MCAS testing program to PARCC, the federally-funded Common Core test.
Diane Ravitch points out on her blog, https://dianeravitch.net/2015/01/30/why-is-massachusetts-switching-to-parcc/
that:
“Massachusetts is the highest performing state in the nation on NAEP, the federal tests. Why is it making the change?”
“Some think it is because Massachusetts’ State Commissioner Mitchell Chester is the chair of the PARCC governing board.
“Mitchell Chester, the commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary education, said the PARCC exam would help the state reduce the stubborn achievement gaps between rich and poor, white and minority, by giving teachers better information about which kids need extra support.”
“So let’s get this right: a harder test will improve the test scores of kids who are poor? A harder test will raise the scores of minority students but not white kids so the gaps will be reduced? Or the scores of poor and minority kids will increase at a faster pace than the scores of rich and white kids?
“And one other question: why do teachers need a new test to tell which kids need extra help? Didn’t they learn that with the MCAS? Don’t they know it by seeing the kids in class daily and reviewing their class participation and homework?
“None of this makes sense,she says”
They should sue but won’t. Politics trumps reason.
Do they do anything all day in the US Department of Education besides threaten public schools?
My God, if they had regulated for-profit colleges with the missionary zeal with which they hammer public schools we would have seen some perp walks in that “sector” by now. Instead, they just finished bailing a for- profit college out. Their regulatory focus seems to be very selective.
The only time we hear anything at all out of these people on public schools is if it’s negative. It’s ALL threaten, test and punish. They sold the Common Core using fear and now they’re enforcing it using fear.
Do they have anything else other than fear, or is that the only tool in the box?
Here is a universal truth about teachers: we are desperate for meaningful activities that really work with real children. We would not, in a million years reject the common core or high stakes testing if it really worked, if it was at all beneficial for kids. Instead NCLB and RTTT – the whole test-and-punish reform – now has a 14 year record of abject failure and rejection. Not for want, but for lack of substance.
The claim is made that teachers and states are free to choose their curriculum:
Will CCSSO and the NGA Center be creating common instructional materials and curricula?
No. The standards are not curricula and do not mandate the use of any particular curriculum. Teachers are able to develop their own lesson plans and choose materials, as they have always done. States that have adopted the standards may choose to work together to develop instructional materials and curricula. As states work individually to implement their new standards, publishers of instructional materials and experienced educators will develop new resources around these shared standards.
http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/frequently-asked-questions/
However, a statement by the National Governor’s Association, made in 2008 during the formative meetings that resulted in Common Core, seems to disagree with that:
“These standards must be supported by an aligned and clearly articulated system of curriculum, assessments, teacher preparation and professional development, textbook selection and appropriate supports for students.” (emphasis mine)
http://www.nga.org/cms/home/news-room/news-releases/page_2008/col2-content/main-content-list/title_governors-explore-strategies-to-make-the-united-states-a-global-leader-in-education.html
Logic would then dictate, that just as the States all agreed to adopt a common set of standards, for the sake of efficiency and savings, and that just as the States have each now adopted one of two Assessment Systems (PARCC or SBAC), they will doubtless adopt one of two or three nationalized curriculum.
“NY Teacher
January 31, 2015 at 1:31 pm
Here is a universal truth about teachers: we are desperate for meaningful activities that really work with real children.”
Oh, I believe you. I’m wary of sales pitches based on fear, and they sold the Common Core with fear. I though Condaleeza Rice was going to start talking about mushroom clouds there for a while. Ridiculous.
I wonder why they don’t have enough confidence in either this program and these tests or in teachers and the public to sell it positively. The whole thing is pervaded with a lack of trust- it’s GROUNDED in a lack of trust. The assumption was parents and teachers would avoid “hard work, rigor and accountability” if they weren’t bludgeoned into it.
I resent that assumption. I think it’s manipulative, patronizing and fundamentally elitist.
The only way anyone is buying what they’re selling, is at gunpoint. The fact that CC advocates cannot sell it on merit speaks volumes. And when it comes to meaningful and substantial and rigorous content, CC comes up empty. ELA standards are nothing more than a set of abstract and subjective skills that are un-teachable and untestable.
Please take some time to read this article; you will realize why threats and fear were the only way to push this white hot mess:
View at Medium.com
These bully tactics will blow up in Duncan’s face. Some Americans might be easy to scare but there are many who will stand up and fight back and others will join them when they discover what is happening.
Consider that the U.S. has been at war for decades and because of that there are about 20 million veterans. Most of these vets will not put up with this type of bully tactics from anyone in government, and some of them have to be teachers or married to teachers.
This is only a little off-topic but I apologize in advance nonetheless. The other day, I went over to the PARCC website and started to take the HS level ELA test, just to see for myself.
More than anything, it seemed to be a test of my working-memory: because it is on-line, it is impossible to underline, or otherwise annotate, the text. Frankly, I kept losing my place. I understood the piece (I should hope so, I have two Masters!) but answering the very picayune questions, which often required identifying direct quotes, meant a lot of going back and forth between the text and the questions. And that required a lot of scrolling up and down.
Some of the questions required click-and-dragging; that wasn’t an issue for me but I can imagine a young child, who does not yet have mouse skills having difficulty, as well as children with fine motor and perceptual processing issues.
Are there are psychologists doing research on this sort of thing? Seems to me this is an important argument against these kinds of tests.
Duncan is beloved by Obama. Why? Not for his intellect, which is at best, miniscule, nor his educational expertise, which is laughable, but because he is a total toady to the corporate designs to replace public education with corporate, for profit charter “schools”. The PARCC test and CC are the final stages in this battle that began with “W”s attacks veiled as remedies in his NCLB. Obama has thrown that war on education into overdrive with is RTT, and support of the destruction of teachers and legitimate educational practice into the sea of corporate dragons, feasting on public funds for education and vapid, charters whose test scores, even when rigged, are deplorable. To threaten any school district with financial destruction, should they exert their rights, is a sign of not only corporate ownership of education, but the loss of the public’s right to decide how their schools should be run and what caustic, destructive plans such as these are no longer going to be pushed down their children’s throats. What is at risk is nothing short of an educated public that is not the product of Jay Rockefeller’s goal of producing “non critical thinkers, but compliant workers”. Republics can not exist in a nation of such cogs in a corporate owned state.
BTW ILL-Annoy parents–OPT OUT NOW–YES, you CAN! Go to the More Than a Score or United Opt Out websites to get the information.
Yes, WE can…& we WILL!!!
Arnie “the dunce” Duncan. He is even more ignorant than he looks, and that’s going some! I actually heard him give this anti-educational, anti-intellectual statement on a panel discussion on booknotes. The discussion was centered on the high drop out rate in high schools. He said that the sophomore year had the highest % of drop outs: the cure, and I quote, “We should just change graduation from high school from the senior to sophomore year. That would cure the problem, because we all know (?) that the junior/senior years are nothing but a bunch of study halls any way”. How’s that for insanity? Worst of all, no one, not one person in the audieince or panel said a word in shock, let alone opposition. Arnie was so proud of himself…
Well, the ultimate goal of “reformers” is to make those in kindergarten “college ready”, so then they can eliminate everything beyond that.
Those who are not college ready after kindergarten can just get jobs in Apple Computer’s factories in China (starting immediately after kindergarten)
China wouldn’t give them work visas and the cost of labor has been going up in China causing a reverse in manufacturing returning to the United States.
The goal is to destroy unions, get rid of any minimum wage jobs and then pay all workers in the manufacturing sector poverty wages just like Wall-mart does—with no job protection or benefits, none.
If the reformers achieve this goal, the U.S. will eventually have a poverty rate closer to 50% and half the country will be wage slaves in debt to banks and corporations.
Here’s a piece from Forbes about the jobs coming back:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2014/02/27/trickle-of-jobs-returning-to-u-s-shores-could-soon-become-a-torrent/