Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Senator Patti Murray (D-Wa.) announced agreement on reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (currently called No Child Left Behind).
The new legislation is called “The Every Child Achieves Act of 2015.” This nomenclature continues the custom of naming the federal aid law with its aspirational goal.
The act maintains annual testing but leaves to states the authority to decide how to use the scores. AYP is gone. The act prohibits the federal government from dictating to states and districts how to “reform” or “turnaround” or “fix” low-performing schools. It allows, but does not require, states to create teacher evaluation systems. “The federal government may not mandate or incentivize states to adopt or maintain any particular set of standards, including Common Core. States will be free to decide what academic standards they will maintain in their states.”
Secretary Duncan will not be pleased. The act specifically prohibits him from meddling in the states’ choice of standards and tests. He also can’t rewrite the law with his own waivers, because the states are given wide latitude, not subject to his control. Basically, the bipartisan bill repudiates almost all of his initiatives; notably, it does not authorize Race to the Top.
If states choose to enact punitive accountability programs, they can, but the federal government won’t force them to.
What do I think? I would have been thrilled to see annual testing banished, but President Obama made clear he would veto any bill that did not include annual testing. The cascading sanctions of NCLB and Race to the Top are gone. There is no mention of portability of funds to nonpublic schools.
One may quibble with details, but the bottom line is that this bill defangs the U.S. Department of Education; it no longer will exert control over every school with mandates. This bill strips the status quo of federal power to ruin schools and the lives of children and educators.
Now the battle shifts to state legislatures, where parents can make their voices heard. This is a far better bill than I had hoped or feared.
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Alexander, Murray Announce Bipartisan Agreement on Fixing “No Child Left Behind”
Schedule Committee Action for 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 14
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 7 – Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-Wash.) today announced a bipartisan agreement on fixing “No Child Left Behind.” They scheduled committee action on their agreement and any amendments to begin at 10 a.m. Tuesday, April 14.
Alexander said: “Senator Murray and I have worked together to produce bipartisan legislation to fix ‘No Child Left Behind.’ Basically, our agreement continues important measurements of the academic progress of students but restores to states, local school districts, teachers, and parents the responsibility for deciding what to do about improving student achievement. This should produce fewer and more appropriate tests. It is the most effective way to advance higher standards and better teaching in our 100,000 public schools. We have found remarkable consensus about the urgent need to fix this broken law, and also on how to fix it. We look forward to a thorough discussion and debate in the Senate education committee next week.”
Murray said:“This bipartisan compromise is an important step toward fixing the broken No Child Left Behind law. While there is still work to be done, this agreement is a strong step in the right direction that helps students, educators, and schools, gives states and districts more flexibility while maintaining strong federal guardrails, and helps make sure all students get the opportunity to learn, no matter where they live, how they learn, or how much money their parents make. I was proud to be a voice for Washington state students and priorities as we negotiated this agreement, and I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues to build on this bipartisan compromise and move legislation through the Senate, the House, and get it signed into law.”
The senators’ legislative agreement would reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the chief law governing the federal role in K-12 education. The most recent reauthorization of ESEA was the “No Child Left Behind Act,” which was enacted in 2001 and expired in 2007. Since then, nearly all states have been forced to ask the U.S. Department of Education for waivers from some of the law’s most unworkable requirements.
The senators’ bill would fix the problems with “No Child Left Behind,” while keeping successful provisions, such as the reporting requirement of disaggregated data on student achievement. The bill would end states’ need for waivers from the law.
What the Every Child Achieves Act does:
· Strengthens state and local control: The bill recognizes that states, working with school districts, teachers, and others, have the responsibility for creating accountability systems to ensure all students are learning and prepared for success. These accountability systems will be state-designed but must meet minimum federal parameters, including ensuring all students and subgroups of students are included in the accountability system, disaggregating student achievement data, and establishing challenging academic standards for all students. The federal government is prohibited from determining or approving state standards.
· Maintains important information for parents, teachers, and communities: The bill maintains the federally required two tests in reading and math per child per year in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, as well as science tests given three times between grades 3 and 12. These important measures of student achievement ensure that parents know how their children are performing and help teachers support students who are struggling to meet state standards. A pilot program will allow states additional flexibility to experiment with innovative assessment systems within states. The bill also maintains annual reporting of disaggregated data of groups of children, which provides valuable information about whether all students are achieving, including low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, and English learners.
· Ends federal test-based accountability: The bill ends the federal test-based accountability system of No Child Left Behind, restoring to states the responsibility for determining how to use federally required tests for accountability purposes. States must include these tests in their accountability systems, but will be able to determine the weight of those tests in their systems. States will also be required to include graduation rates, a measure of postsecondary and workforce readiness, English proficiency for English learners. States will also be permitted to include other measures of student and school performance in their accountability systems in order to provide teachers, parents, and other stakeholders with a more accurate determination of school performance.
· Maintains important protections for federal taxpayer dollars: The bill maintains important fiscal protections of federal dollars, including maintenance of effort requirements, which help ensure that federal dollars supplement state and local education dollars, with additional flexibility for school districts in meeting those requirements.
· Helps states fix the lowest-performing schools: The bill includes federal grants to states and school districts to help improve low performing schools that are identified by the state accountability systems. School districts will be responsible for designing evidence-based interventions for low performing schools, with technical assistance from the states, and the federal government is prohibited from mandating, prescribing, or defining the specific steps school districts and states must take to improve those schools.
· Helps states support teachers: The bill provides resources to states and school districts to implement activities to support teachers, principals, and other educators, including allowable uses of funds for high quality induction programs for new teachers, ongoing rigorous professional development opportunities for teachers, and programs to recruit new educators to the profession. The bill allows, but does not require, states to develop and implement teacher evaluation systems.
· Reaffirms the states’ role in determining education standards: The bill affirms that states decide what academic standards they will adopt, without interference from Washington, D.C. The federal government may not mandate or incentivize states to adopt or maintain any particular set of standards, including Common Core. States will be free to decide what academic standards they will maintain in their states.
For more details on the bill:
Click here for the legislation.
Click here for a summary of the bill.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
The pendulum is beginning to swing, This time it’s due to a huge push by parents who are beginning to recognize institutional abuse.
So strange that the previous posts today, Mark Naison, Leon Botstein, and parts of others, take me down my personal memory lane, though Botstein makes the case against the personal “I” in his long and insightful exposition.
When I was a young educational researcher in the 1970s, I was often hired to investigate ESEA, then the new federal public education program, and how it was actually working in areas all over the nation. I did this kind of on site investigation in randomly selected school districts, with stratified randomly selected schools, using longitudinal techniques which are still the basis of most studies.
One of these sites was Atlanta, Georgia. I had just come to Atlanta from two weeks in Athens, Georgia where I felt that I had gone back in time to the mid 1800s. particularly when interviewing students from the ultra religious Bob Jones University. The more sophisticated city of Atlanta however, posed many different challenges in getting accurate information for my carefully designed interviews and questionaires, but that seemed to be the case in all the 18 southern states I researched in those years.
Today, with the current charges against 11 of the Georgia teachers who could be imprisoned for decades for changing answers on some CC testing at the direction of their Superintendent who avoided these racketeering charges by dying, their amazingly superfluous RICO sentences seem to be so far from making the punishment fit the crime. I probably interviewed some of the parents of these teachers, and I heard so many stories of how, particularly, the black communities were still being maligned in the post Civil War South…and how their children were not educated equally with the white population. But then, I also saw the same inequality in the South Side of Chicago in 1980 and in Indiana.
And now we have charter schools segregating black students from white students at a rapid pace. This is only my stream of conciousness, but in a society where all the wealth has been redistributed to the top few percent, and most all of the poverty has fallen on the communities of color, I cannot fathom how this can turn out well. In my city of Los Angeles, with Little Saigon, Little Armenia, Little Korea, Little Iran (better known as Beverly Hills and Malibu), etc. etc. there is not much meeting of the minds…all these separate ethnic communities huddle together retaining their native languages and native cultures with little intergration, and we are becoming like Kazakastan, Ubekistan, and all the other Stans in a competitive, rather than a cooperative, greater community of Americans. Without a constant education, as with teaching all students how the American system of government is/was designed to integrate all comers, it seems to me that democracy as I was taught in public schools, is finished.
Where are these parents who are recommended as the saviors if only they would band together to improve public education and society at large? I am not meeting them…and I am out in the field every day.
Come to Long island,,thousand will be opting their children out
Too bad Cuomo still runs New York.
I have one question. Does this mean that states now have the right to use alternate curriculum and assessments for students with disabilities? Is the 1% rule enforced by Duncan now null and void? As a parent and educator, I believe this population suffered the most under Common Core.
From the summary:
The bill ends the federal test-based accountability system of No Child Left Behind, restoring to states the responsibility for determining how to use federally required tests for accountability purposes. States must include these tests in their accountability systems, but will be able to determine the weight of those tests in their systems.
The bill maintains the federally required two tests in reading and math per child per year in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, as well as science tests given three times between grades 3 and 12. These important measures of student achievement ensure that parents know how their children are performing and help teachers support students who are struggling to meet standards.
COMMON CORE TESTING IS PRESERVED. HOWEVER THE ELIMINATION OF PUNISHMENTS WILL TURN THE CC STANDARDS INTO MERE SUGGESTIONS.
BUT THERE’S MORE:
Updates and strengthens charter school programs– This bill updates and strengthens charter school programs by combining two existing programs into one Charter Schools Program, consisting of three grant competitions:
– High-Quality Charter Schools: Grants to State entities to start new charter schools and to replicate or expand high-quality charter schools, including by developing facilities, hiring and preparing teachers, and providing transportation.
– Facilities Financing Assistance: Grants to public or private nonprofit entities to demonstrate innovative methods of enhancing credit to finance the acquisition, construction, or renovation of facilities for charter schools.
– Replication and Expansion: As part of national activities, grants to charter management organizations to replicate or expand high-quality charter schools.
The bill also provides incentives for states to adopt stronger charter school authorizing practices, increases charter school transparency and improves community engagement in the implementation and operation of each charter school receiving funds to ensure charter school success.
Even better news, the bill frees states to develop their own standards!
The effective end of Common Core. Its like NCLB minus the threats and punishments.
My apologies for misreading, please ignore this comment:
COMMON CORE TESTING IS PRESERVED. HOWEVER THE ELIMINATION OF PUNISHMENTS WILL TURN THE CC STANDARDS INTO MERE SUGGESTIONS.
Still wondering if test scores are tied to federal funding??????
While the bill sounds promising, it will have to be scrutinized carefully to look for hidden Trojan horses.
MonicaNY,
You asked if states will be able to use alternate curriculum and assessments for students with disabilities, and whether the 1% rule enforced by Duncan would be “null and void.” I checked with my inside source and learned that the DISABILITY LOBBY demanded the retention of the 1% rule. The Senators were open to removing the mandates, but the disability groups insisted on keeping the status quo. If you think they are wrong, start your own letter-writing campaign. When I went to see Senator Tom Harkin a few years ago to talk about the flaws of NCLB, he told me that the “disability community” loves NCLB and wants students with disabilities to take the same tests as everyone else.
Disability activists lobbied for retention of the 1-% cap on the number of students permitted to take alternate assessments because far too many districts have chronically abused this provision and given meaningless alternate assessments to students with LD, ADHD and under the vile Emotional Impairment. So while I think the current array of state and national assessments do a grave disservice to many students, I also do not want to see the very minimal accountability measures like the 1-% cap stripped. If this cap had been removed as Republicans have fought for there would be no accountability at all for 6 million students.
Yes, yes, you are right. I have been teaching this population for years and have witnessed first hand the detrimental effects the 1% rule has had on my students!!!
This is very good news, but way too soon to celebrate. Very doubtful that if it made it to his desk that it would survive an Obama veto?
This petition is two years old. If you sign, emails or letters are sent to the President and your US senators and House member.
http://www.petition2congress.com/15080/stop-common-core-testing/
Diane, Do you think Obama would veto it?
I think the Obama administration has given its okay to this version. It still has to get full committee approval, then go to conference with the House of Representatives bill
This is going to be an interesting debate. Time to read through the pesky details.
It says twice a year testing in grades 3-8 and 11, right? That is worse than before.
It reads “maintains” the federal requirement. Current NCLB act only requires one test in math and one in ELA at each grade level (3 to 8). Definitely confusing. They better tighten up that wording. PARCC tests do require TWO batteries of math and ELA; SNAC does not. Lots of questions still; like this one:
Will federal funding be tied to test scores?
Is that not just a badly-phrased “one reading test” and “one math test” ?
Looks like some good work from Alexander and Murray.
“The bill maintains the federally required two tests in reading and math per child per year in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, as well as science tests given three times between grades 3 and 12. ”
http://www.murray.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/mobile/newsreleases?ContentRecord_id=0e97b71b-e905-41d9-af41-da623a847844
I sounds as if the summary statement is just poorly written. They probably meant to say, “The bill maintains the federally required two tests (ELA and math) per child per year in grades 3 through 8 and two required tests (ELA and math) in high school, as well as science tests given three times between grades 3 and 12. ”
ahh, makes sense.
Free editorial assistance for the staffers who must be exhausted. I agree that the statement”s use of “maintains the federally required”…means one test in math, one in ELA…..
Click to access The_Every_Child_Achieves_Act_of_2015-summary.pdf
Does Sidewell Friends school require annual testing?
No, Sidwell Friends school does not require annual testing.
I can’t seem to find it in a quick search, but I had thought that someone posted a link here showing that Sidwell does do annual standardized testing. If I recall correctly, it didn’t start until 5th grade and there were no stakes attached for either students or teachers, but students do take standardized tests. If someone has better information, please post.
Sidwell students do indeed take annual standardized tests in grades 5, 6, 7, and 8. It is a multiple choice test given in a total of 6 sections spread out over three days, and it is administered on computers and/or tablets.
http://www.sidwell.edu/news/article/index.aspx?LinkID=33549
Sidwell’s teachers are non-unionized, non-tenured at-will employees who may be removed at any time — every day is high stakes for them. The school community seems to feel the testing is worthwhile: “It is important to remember that standardized test scores are only one measure of a student’s academic profile, a snapshot if you will. A more complete and accurate picture emerges when the scores are combined with classwork, daily performance, regular assignments, projects, and tests. Still, the ERB/CTP’s can help parents and teachers understand more clearly and completely a child’s balance of strengths and needs. Teachers may review the scores in detail, looking for patterns that emerge from one year to the next, and then use that information to be more effective in the classroom.”
Sidwell Friends does not use the Common Core, nor PARCC or SBAC.
It does not evaluate teachers by student test scores.
It does not test every student every year.
in NC private schools have to give one standardized test each year to all students (at least that’s how it was when I taught private middle school).
So should we still push our Senators for grade span testing, there’s a day of action scheduled for tomorrow. http://fairtest.org/national-day-action-april-8
In MA, there’s a Thunderclap tomorrow to Senator Elizabeth Warren on high stakes testing. Sign up at: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/24576-stop-over-testing-our-children
4th grade teacher here. The problem is not necessarily ‘over’ testing. It’s that the test carries so much weight that it basically dictates what goes on in the classroom every single day of the school year: prepping for that one math and one ELA test. Science, social studies, foreign languages, art, school plays and musicals, chorus, field trips, and of course recess, have all been reduced or eliminated to make more time for test prep. I used to teach chess and computer programming as enrichment in math, but since they aren’t tested skills, I had to stop.
“Prioritizes grants to evidence-based magnet school programs – This bill prioritizes grants to evidence-based magnet school programs, including inter-district and regional magnet programs, and provides opportunities to expand magnet school programs with a demonstrated record of success. It also requires magnet school programs to assess, monitor, and evaluate the impact of the activities to improve socioeconomic and racial integration and student achievement.”
Depending on how much money is available and what strings are attached, this could be an amazing opportunity to develop some innovative ways to allow poor students to attend middle class schools. I taught in a diverse public school district with about a 30% poverty level. My poor ELLs benefited tremendously from attending a clean, safe, well resourced public school. I can see potential for some creative attempts to bring diverse students together such as two way bilingual classes as well as other models.
I think it works here, economic diversity. I think it benefits both groups of kids. The better-off parents (who are less dependent on school-provided activities and such- I;m in that group) support school funding along with the lower income parents who are really dependent on adequately-funded schools.
The lack of choice is what makes it work, oddly enough. We need the better off kids. because we need the support of those parents. They’re acting in their own self-interest when they support the public school but it benefits the whole group. We once had a local magistrate who wanted to start a school for her kids and “kids like hers”. I told her she would really harm the public school. She just didn’t consider what would happen if she pulls out the top 10% in income. The community support for the public school would fracture. She didn’t stay here long and I was glad to see her go.
At least the money will stay in the system rather than having it siphoned off for some half-baked charter. I would assume the receiving district would get some funding to incentivize this.
retired teacher
See the summary for the major charter provision, including grants.
I saw that the charters get access to the money too; I’m not happy about it It will be interesting to see what they come up with for “accountability” for them. At least they seem to being telling the Feds to back off and limit some of their overreach.
The “Texas miracle” was no miracle at all. It was smoke and mirrors and Congress fell for it. I hope Congress make changes that will allow for tests, but only if the tests are developmentally appropriate and fair. On the state level I think charter schools should have to be held to the same accountability measures and testing as public schools. They cannot continue to skim the best students off the top and then boast because they have great achievement rates. Public schools do not have that luxury. Did anyone else see a tremendous decline in the education system when textbook company’s started to take everything over? That needs to end too.
KNIFE PULLED OUT HALFWAY: the bill needed to eliminate mandatory annual tests and the last 12 years shows why. The claim that we needed these tests to figure out which kids are behind is preposterous. Same for demographic data – struggling classrooms need smaller class sizes, wraparound services and restoration of arts, not measuring and reporting to the Feds.
It’s far enough in the rear view mirror to admit: NCLB was a total failure that made a generation hate school, narrowed curriculum and targeted teacher unions. It set the stage perfectly for rich vendor paydays, privatization and charter schools. Mission accomplished.
I am going to take heat for this comment but I honestly don’t care. I will forever believe that America’s children cannot be the educational property of their school districts, communities and states. They are America’s children and belong to all of us. They deserve to be taught by rigorously and equally prepared teachers. Giving local control is going in the wrong direction. I want more than anything for our Federal government to invest in public education. I want charters gone. I don’t ever again want to hear the word voucher. I want substitute teacher requirements to require that a real teacher staffs a classroom, both short and long term.. I want a national battery of assessments designed by our nation and world’s leading educational researchers. Tests that are used for the purpose of allowing students to demonstrate knowledge and for diagnostic purposes. I want the earliest intervention to identify struggling learners due to poor economic conditions and real learning disabilities. I want children entering Kindergarten to have full cognitive batteries, literacy and numeracy assessments, speech-language assessments, and sensory processing assessments, and for the purpose of understanding how our children think, feel, communicate and process. I want students applying for teacher preparation programs to be evaluated to see if they even like children, and how they feel about diversity and disability, and are they better suited to various age groups. I want teachers trained like they are in Finland and then paid the salaries they deserve. I want the end of maintenance of effort because I am tired of watching school districts balance their budgets on the backs of students with disabilities through increases to the IDEA appropriation. I want verbiage to limit philanthropy and charitable contributions to limit contributions to money, and not to input on how curriculum is designed or delivered. I want Pearson charged for the monopoly that they are. I want all advocacy groups who claim they are fighting for “public education” to include ALL students and not exclude those with disabilities. I want advocacy groups to rethink the idea that ALL tests are bad. I don’t think testing is bad. I think the current tests used by states, districts and the NAEP are poorly designed, misused and abused. I want children fed, clothed and housed, and ready to learn. Frankly, I want truly public education in America and no one will convince me that this takes place at the local level across thousands of school districts in the United States. It is long overdue that this nation has a real dialogue about the state of public education, or give up and put our school-age children on boats to Finland, September through June.
Marcie – I agree! I thought it was interesting that you think children should be assessed for SPD in kindergarten. I agree that children should be screened for sensory issue but I think most are identified earlier than kindergarten.
Diane- My own son was evaluated and diagnosed with a SPD at 3 1/2. In my perfect world we would evaluate for SPD, Speech-Language, PT, low vision, hearing and auditory processing no later than 3 for “all” children and of course earlier for children born with genetic disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, muscular disorders, physical impairments, and anything I have failed to mention. I have never felt more hopeless about “public education.”
Ignoring dyslexia is one of the dirtiest little secrets in all of education. Too expensive is the unsaid excuse. Shameful.
The 2004 reauthorization of the IDEA and final rules promulgated in 2006 destroyed any fidelity in the criteria to determine a Specific Learning Disability and created “50 States of SLD”. Children with Dyslexia and all learning disabilities are being abused in America’s public schools.
I see you are in favor of eliminating diversity by standardizing every classroom in every state according to prescriptions handed down by the White House or Congress, but where did they get this authority?
Do you feel we should continue to ignore the 10th Amendment that prevents the federal government from imposing education regulations on states? What happens if a future President or Congressional majority decides every child should be taught creationism?
It sounds like you are linking your goals of great teachers and great schools to usurpation of local control which I don’t undersatnd, especially in my experience as a classroom teacher where I see familiarity with the student and community makes local educators more qualified to address need than distant bureaucrats.
Doesn’t the House also have to come up with a comparable bill? Are they working on this?
The House will have its own bill and there will be a conference committe to iron out differences
I hope the iron cord short circuits.
To Marcie Lipsitt:
To your surprise, I completely agree with you if all 8 aspects from Regent Cashin are fulfilled, as follows:
1) It is axiomatic in the field of testing that tests should be used only for the purpose for which they were designed.
2) They were designed to measure student performance, not teacher effectiveness.
3) The American Statistical Association, the National Academy of Education, and the American Educational Research Association have cautioned that student tests should not be used to evaluate individual teachers.
4) Nor should these tests be used for student growth measures until there is clear evidence that they are valid and reliable.
5) The Board of Regents should commission an independent evaluation of these tests to verify their reliability and validity before they are used for high-stakes purposes for students, teachers, principals, and schools.
6) How can we criticize people for opting out when the tests have not been verified?
7) We need to cease and desist in the use of these tests until such time as we can be confident of their reliability and validity.
8) If tests do meet those criteria, the tests must be released to teachers and to the public after they are given, in the spirit of TRANSPARENCY and ACCOUNTABILITY.”
I am not lawyer, I am an electrician. I never make any assumption or interpret procedure, but thoroughly understand step by step because any wrong connection will electrocute me.
I hope that Dr. Ravitch and all educational Gurus will help me to clarify the implication OF ALL UPPER CASE WORDS in Title I (4 paragraphs) and II (2 paragraphs), as follows:( I find that the meaning and its implication of these words are contradicted between “prohibit”, “disapprove”, “eliminate the definition of HIGHLY QUALIFIED TEACHER” (= veteran teacher?), and “HIGH QUALITY INDUCTION PROGRAM” to recruit new educators to the profession (forTFA?)
Please accept my heartfelt thanks for your precious time and wisdom in educating and cultivating me who love to learn more about MORAL COMPASS in education.
Respectfully yours,
May King
TITLE I –
1) Maintains important information for parents, teachers, and communities – The bill maintains the federally required:
*two tests in reading and math per child per year in grades 3 through 8 and
*once in high school,
*as well as science tests given three times between grades 3 and 12.
These important measures of student achievement ensure that parents know how their children are performing and help teachers support students who are struggling to meet standards. States will be given additional flexibility to PILOT INNOVATIVE ASSESSEMENT systems in school districts across the state.
2) Strengthens state and local control – The bill recognizes that states, working with school districts, teachers, and others, have the responsibility for CREATING ACCOUNTABILITY systems to ensure all students are learning and prepared for success.
These accountability systems will be entirely state-designed but MUST MEET FEDERAL PARAMETERS, including ensuring all students and subgroups of students are included in the accountability system, disaggregating student achievement data, and establishing challenging academic standards for all students. The federal government IS PROHIBIT
FROM DETERMINING OR APPROVING state standards.
3) Affirms state control over standards – The bill affirms that states decide what academic standards they will adopt, without interference from Washington. The federal government MAY NOT mandate or incentivize states to adopt or maintain any particular set of standards, including Common Core. States will be free to decide what academic standards they will maintain in their states.
4) Improves peer review process – The bill REQUIRES the Secretary TO APPROVE a State plan within 90 days of its submission unless the U.S. Department of Education can present substantial evidence that clearly demonstrates that such State plan does not meet the bill’s requirements. The U.S. Department of Education must conduct a peer review comprised of a variety of experts and practitioners with school-level and classroom experience. If a State plan receives DISAPPROVAL, the bill maintains the State’s right to an opportunity for a hearing and to RESUBMIT A PLAN FOR REVIEW.
TITLE II –
1) Helps states support teachers– The bill provides resources to states and school districts to implement various activities to support teachers, principals, and other educators, including allowable uses of funds for HIGH QUALITY induction programs for new teachers, ongoing professional development opportunities for teachers, and programs to recruit new educators to the profession.
2) Ends federal mandates on evaluations, allows states to innovate – The bill allows, but does not require, states to develop and implement teacher evaluation systems.
This bill ELIMINATE THE DEFINITION OF a HIGHLY QUALIFIED TEACHER—which has proven onerous to states and school districts—
and provides states with the opportunity to define this term.
I would like a mandate for each state to administer the NAEP or a similar common nationally-normed exam. The scores needn’t be directly used, only be made publicly available. Instead of policy being made by experienced professionals, education has become a playing field for politicians and business interests looking for a score. As such, state exams have been subject to corruption in a myriad number of ways which we do not need to recount here. The NAEP serves – and has served in a number of studies during NCLB – as a reasonable benchmark against which corruption can be measured and inhibited. The federal government may be hamfisted and incompetent, but we have also seen too many state legislatures leave the realm of common sense. Now that we have lost our innocence in public education, unchecked ideology and greed at the state and local levels may bring us things that make us long for the days of Arne Duncan. Yes – that bad.
I hope some checks and balances are built into this bill.
I note that social studies is not included in the testing thus sending the message that it is not important and need not be taught. Perhaps our politicians are too obvious in not wanting an educated electorate? The lack of such an electorate truly implements the downfall of democracy.
Problem is that 36? States controlled by Republican whack-o’s!
Thanks for all you do!
Sent from my iPhone
>
What if your state is Ohio?
Or worse, what if it is Indiana where charter schools get their grades changed to make them look better (Tony Bennett) or get to take a different test than public schools because they are doing a worse job with the students. Still don’t understand how tax dollars are going to pay for private, religious education (separation of church and state?). Sure wish tax dollars would pay for my kids viola lessons or my golf lessons.
While this does offer hope for the preservation of history as a core subject, I must note that, once again, as important as knowledge and analysis of world events are, world history is completely and totally ignored due to the fact that it’s not “patriotic” enough as a subject field of study. While the subject of history itself will not be a backwater as it has been under Common Core & NCLB, world history is, to politicians, the ugly step-child of history education. Even in my school where the MA state curriculum frameworks mandates the teaching of world history, attention is focused on US history while world is a secondary concern even though it is taught as the junior-year required history class.
Thankfully, I have a strong background in Western & non-Western history, but I would like to see professional development funds appropriated so that we who teach world history may also enjoy the benefits of additional supported learning and improved content knowledge. That, I suppose, is too much to ask in the current political climate…
Reblogged this on lifeofgraceandpeace and commented:
It’s nice to see some Representatives fighting to put control back in the states. Check it out!
Diane, I have a question. You wrote ” I would have been thrilled to see annual testing banished, but President Obama made clear he would veto any bill that did not include annual testing.” When did he say this? I thought he promised to veto the House version over Title I portability. I never read that he threatened to veto the Senate version at all. I never read that he threatened to veto it specifically over annual testing. Would you please provide a link or direct us where we can find that? I think it’s a really important point we could use to challenge the administration. If Obama actually says he’ll veto ESEA if it doesn’t have testing, then we can honestly give him direct ownership for the standardized tests he says he hates so much. We can honestly say, “Standardized testing! Thanks, Obama!”
Steven Singer,
I have spoken to people directly involved in the negotiations who told me that President Obama made known that he would veto any bill that does not include annual testing. Remember that 19 civil rights groups issued a statement supporting annual testing. Duncan repeatedly has said that annual testing was a line in the sand for the Obama administration. Someone, either the Gates Foundation or Education Trust or the Obama administration, has persuaded civil rights groups that students of color and students with disabilities must demand annual testing or they will be neglected.
Thanks so much, Diane! I appreciate the clarification.
I really appreciate how you keep me thinking, Diane. I was inspired by your comment and blog to write about the ESEA reauthorization, myself. I hope you don’t mind, but I reproduced your comment there. The article is called “No TEST Left Behind – Why Senate ESEA Reauthorization is Unacceptable.” You can read it here if you’d like: https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2015/04/11/no-test-left-behind-why-the-senate-esea-reauthorization-is-unacceptable/
Thanks Diane, it’s great to hear “The Every Child Achieves Act of 2015” . Senaters made powerfull act for our futures.
Was this decided on Tuesday 4/14 and if so, what was the outcome?
On Senate bill, nothing is final