Peter Greene read the Alexander-Murray bill with care and finds reasons for hope. It slices away most of the ugly features of NCLB. It puts an end to Duncan’s reign as the national superintendent of schools. It transfers back to the states the responsibility for their public schools and tells Washington to butt out.
He was disappointed to find a giant Xmas tree for the charter industry, with three grant programs to help them expand.
“The third grant program is also awesome if you are a charter profiteer– the feds would like a grant program to help pay for the buildings that charters squat in. No word on whether Senators Alexander and Murray considered a bill to cut up charter operators food for them or hire federal agents to wipe the charter CEO’s chin when he’s drooling with glee…..”
“So, What Do We Think?
“All in all, this is a more pointed rebuke of the Obama administration’s ed farfegnugen than I might have expected, but while [it] still keeps those stupid, worthless Big Standardized Tests enshrined, it frees states to make their own peace with them (and that testing requirement might reduce the possibility that the test manufacturers would loose their lobbying dogs to oppose the bill– they can rest happy now because their payday is intact). Now, that will mean different things in different states– I’m pretty sure Andrew Cuomo will be a giant ass to education whether the feds are pushing him to or not.
“And while Common Core is all but dead, this certainly frees everyone up to slap it around some more. This bill wouldn’t end the ongoing education debate, but it would break it up into fifty little arguments and if that doesn’t do anything more than divide up the reformsters money and forces, that’s a good thing.
“Of course, we still have the onslaught of amendments and the bill from the House and the President’s desk to get past. And the enshrinement of the rapacious charter school industry is not good news. So this is by no means perfect.
“But most of all, a new ESEA completely chops the back-door lawmaking of USED waivers off at the knees. If Congress can actually pull this off, it will be a gamechanger. There’s much to hate about the new game, but there are some pieces of hope as well. Let’s just see what happens next.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Any suggestion for political action we should be taking at this point?
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Marilyn Johnson: opt out
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Those of is who spoke out against the status quo of reform and against federally mandated educational malpractice were treated for years like skunks at a picnic.
Now, by removing the mandates, the senate seems to be saying that the skunks were right.
Now what? What about those who were silent or worse, endorsed harmful practices like TIF, VAM, NCLB, RTTT, legislation by waiver,,CCSS, SBAC, PARCC,or rigged/ punitive Danielson/Marzano evaluation schemes?
If states and local districts are about to freed from all of this kind of mandated nonsense, what can we do to make sure that the people who promoted the above at the expense of schools and students are excluded from the table during the next round of policy making?
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Yertle,
Exactly…right on comments.
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Any chance Cuomo will set NY teachers free from this horrific, test-and-punish era?
Any chance that Andy will help STOP the MADNESS?
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When would this go into effect?
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IF Congress passes the Alexander NCLB re-write and Obama signs it. Should happen before summer recess. Sounds like their is lots of momentum.
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Tricia, the bill has not been passed yet.
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It will be interesting to see what comes out of the conference committee. The House may smell blood in the water and take out the only remaining federal mandate: Annual testing.
Today’s action by the senate committee is not a few senators going rogue. Millions of people speak louder than millions of reformer dollars. Arne Duncan is turning into this administrations Donald Rumsfeld.
Congress may wind up removing the annual testing mandate against the presidents wishes, daring him to veto the bill. They may have the votes to sustain, because after all, they are the ones facing re-election.
The only down side I can see is that this may help Jeb Bush. Common Core is an albatross around his neck. If Congress kills it before the election, he may escape having to defend it by the time campaigning starts.
This may be like an NFL game where a team scores a go ahead touchdown too soon, giving then opponent time to retake the lead.
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Probably not. He likes punishing teachers and promoting charters. We can only hope that the spineless democrats actually read then repeal the teacher evaluation plan that they approved in the budget.
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Cuomo will no longer have the force of federal law supporting his agenda. He will absolutely be the proud (and sole) owner of the worst education reform agenda in the country. And he wants to be president. He will also have to own the Common Core standards and tests which will no longer be mandated. That is a lot of political pressure to carry.
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Cuomo will no longer have the force of federal law supporting his agenda. He will absolutely be the proud (and sole) owner of the worst education reform agenda in the country. And he wants to be president. He will also have to own the Common Core standards and tests which will no longer be mandated. That is a lot of political pressure to carry all by his lonesome.
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I wonder what will happen to VAM? Probably the states will be left to their own idiotic devices.
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No federal mandates for VAM. Fight it in your legislature.
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Diane- The first round of HR5 waived state representation and parental rights. It made title 1 funds “follow the child”, turning all schools into charters with CC?
It was absolutely to be opposed.
I don’t understand if that’s still the case with the latest HR5. Could you please ask Greene comment on those elements?
It’s very helpful when this stuff is put into layman’s terms.
Ps, this article helped me understand the first one…. https://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/2015/02/21/student-success-act-to-crush-religious-freedom-private-school-autonomy-parental-rights-no-on-hr5/
Thank you!
>
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Same question I had…If Title I is the carrot, and Common Core the stick (and, well, testing…can’t have too many sticks), what’s going to change exactly?
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Every state will decide what importance to attach to tests. We can have more of a voice with local legislatures than with Congress. Send a message by opting out.
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Speak strong,
In this bill, federal funds do not “follow the child”
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Big winners are private charters b/c they are authorized to loot even more public school funds. Leaving annual testing in place makes Pearson second big winner b/c they can buy politicians and state/local DOE’s to keep testing in place. Third big winner is Hillary–this ridiculous renewed bill so muddies the waters that Hillary can slither past having to explain where she stands on the last 5yrs of destructive ed reform. Rest of us need to push opt-out relentlessly along with campaign against private looting of public funds. The private war on public education has accomplished massive disruption of education, so a fed attack led by Duncan no longer needed, went far to finance, legalize, and privilege the Eva school world, all that’s needed from Eva’s pt of v now is constant stream of tax revenues, constant financing of charter sites, and constant exemption from public oversight, all of which are in place. For us, time to plan next big moves to rescue and renovate public education.
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Amen, Ira!
I support students who OPT OUT! They know their getting shafted by the dysfunctional system of fear and punishment, blame and shame, sorting and labeling, carrot and stick. This entire REIGN OF ERROR AND TERROR, MANDATES AND RULES is ridiculous.
Egads…work-force and college ready. What propaganda. We are not fortunetellers.
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So the benefit to public schools is the federal government will stop punishing them?
Wow. I guess it’s better than the federal government punishing public schools, but I would hope we have higher expectations for our lawmakers than that.
I would expect the federal government to support public schools. Crazy I know, but there it is. That’s my expectation.
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I needed some good news today.
Even if it is only half-way good news.
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Though I would like to see the testing companies out of the picture, having something to measure ourselves against is so ingrained in the competitive American psyche that I don’t think standardized testing will go away any time soon. I have homeschoolers who are still very concerned about which test they should be using to measure their child’s progress, not asking whether or not the test tells them anything useful in general. The only difference is that they can choose not to panic if their child is not scoring high in reading in 2nd grade because he will probably get it by next year or the year after and it won’t matter when he did by the time he gets to high school. I think if we can diminish the impact of the test scores for the general public in this way, then the tests will become less of a driver and will become more like the hundreds of “Rate Your Knowledge of X” quizzes in our magazines today. A boost for the ego or a curiosity, but not something that turns our worlds upsidedown. Companies could still use the scores to sell more curriculum in the boutique world of education we seem to be heading toward with charters.
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Anything that restores power back to the states is a good bill. Our 50 states insure our democracy. Diversity and variety keep us free! One agenda is oppressive to all and especially to those who have to teach the agenda.
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State control might be great…unless you live in New Mexico, or Wisconsin, or…
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HWecks,
Which is better: the frying pan or the fire? Message: fight to oust the bums.
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Doesn’t it depend on how governors interpret the law. Why didn’t NY wait for this legislation before they voted on the new evaluation plan? The new law doesn’t outlaw using tests to evaluate teachers.
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I once read a book titled, “the death of common sense.” Maybe, this will help us see that common sense will prevail after all. Thank you Diane for giving us a spoonful of medicine for our aching professional bones!
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I’m not really that thrilled because while it addresses the excessive authority of the DOE, I can not find anything that recognizes the role poverty plays in the achievement gap and once again we have a bill that thinks improving schools is primarily the job of standards, curriculum, teachers and tests. Tests, Tests, Tests. Is it an improvement to get the federal government out of the school improvement business? Yes.
However, why do we have any faith that state governments will actually attack the achievement gap without the status quo “test and punish” approach. Remember test and punish is an ideology that is still rooted in a hatred and disdain for public schools.
This hatred and disdain is clearly present here in WI with “accountability” legislation being introduced at the state level that gives the finger to the feds but then simply puts in place a state level “test and punish” accountability system that will never help children, teachers and schools.
It continues the system—test and punish—approach that blames public schools for the achievement gap. And there is nothing that allows the people to hold the state legislature accountable for purposely ignoring poverty and in a lot of cases creating the political culture that creates poverty.
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The Washington Post ran a bad op-ed today that claims NCLB worked: “Although it’s popular in many corners to deride this law, the data are clear — since NCLB, children of color and youngsters from low-income families have made the fastest improvements in achievement in decades.” Here’s the link they use to back up the claim:
Click to access Trends-in-Achievement-and-Attainment-Since-Weve-Had-Annual-Testing-Transperancy-and-Serious-Accountability-for-All-Groups-of-Children-Feb-2015.pdf
An outfit called The Education Trust published the above pdf. It concludes, “But assessment, accountability, and reporting have proven a much-needed source of transparency, pressure, and support. We can’t take our foot off the accelerator now.”
(Another inapt metaphor courtesy of the “reformers.” If you’re driving through a school zone, you just might want to let up on the accelerator, unless you don’t mind running over some children.)
I didn’t study the document in detail, but it looks like there might be some cherry-picking going on. I wonder if anyone has information on this group and their “evidence.” For some reason or other, groups like the Chamber of Commerce are afforded a lot more credibility than they deserve when it comes to education policy. There must be some way of correcting this.
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