Having read and reviewed every line of the Alexander/Murray proposal to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka No Child Left Behind), Mercedes Schneider here renders her judgment about the bill as a whole and compares it to the one that the House of Representatives has been working on.
There are aspects to this bill to dislike: its love for charters, which make no sense unless you think the nation needs two publicly funded school system, one free to choose its students, the other not; its retention of annual testing, which has not achieved its goals for the past 13 years, making the United States the most over-tested nation in the world. And there are aspects to like a lot: like stripping the Secretary of Education of any power to control state and local decisions about standards and tests.
Though the bill is not perfect, it has one great advantage: it abandons the absurd goals, mandates, and sanctions that were central to NCLB.
Read Mercedes to see what she concludes.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Dearest Dr. Schneider:
American Public Education and students in the 21st century must be thankful to have your absolute dedication, knowledge, and care for their well-beings.
Being as conscientious citizen in Canada, I profoundly admire you and your conscience because you have set an extraordinary example to be a very noble teacher in a very noble teaching profession.
Please take your good rest and stand up to unite all other teachers who strongly believe in LOCAL CONTROL before States and Federal interference. Community, parents, principal, teachers and students know their best because of their own responsibility for dignity, welfare, and survival from their own taxes.
Parents and especially educators, we are our own bosses in preserving our freedom and democracy after we fulfill our working requirement and paying tax dues. We are capitalist with HUMAN CONSCIENCE. We respect for our own humanity. We do not fall for communism nor fascism because those ideologies are inhuman.
Whenever we keep being submissive due to our silence and fear, we accept to surrender our freedom and democracy to the bully, weak, moron with money inheritance from accumulation of robbery / bribery corporate generations. Back2basic
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I didn’t see much about the Collins amendment that may allow 5 states to develop an alternative to the test. This could be a game changer. A clear step in the right direction, the bill will still fall short of humanizing students. It still lumps all kids into a pass fail mode that forces them into a tiny box of word games and math riddles someone calls normal.
The Collins amendment is so important because the current testing fiasco is inherently damaging to every child as well as schools and teachers who might otherwise be seeing their students grow in ways that are real.
The testing fiasco in unconscionable! Having said that, having no viable alternative is inexcusable as well as racist by nature. Still so many young people of color are pushed into the streets by a system that was designed in the 18th century, during slavery and before women could vote.
Accountability on an even playing field is essential to assure parents that their children are progressing on their pathway to success.Just say no to testing is an outrage. We must push for a viable alternative beginning with the Collins amendment and then watching the dominoes fall as the slavery based education system crumbles and a new one is built in it’s place. More solutions at http://www.wholechildreform.com
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The rationale for Mercedes’ capitulation is presented in these unexamined assertions:
“The reality is that ESEA will not be laid to rest. ”
“I have no use for Title V, but like the annual testing, federal love for charters will not be going anywhere anytime soon– not so long as charter backers have the hefty cash to buy lobbyists.”
No, their power isn’t unshakable unless we enshrine it with statements like those. Backers of privatization will always have the cash to buy lobbyists, and if we won’t raise the peoples’ voices against this hated law, we’ve surrendered our democracy itself. We CAN bring it down.
The people can kill NCLB, but it is now the supposed defenders of public education who are propping it up. Maybe some hope for a trip to DC with Hillary. Others have built up their legislative connections and influence under this corrupt system, and want to preserve their insider skill-set of knowing where we dare not trespass the will of the oligarchy.
My goal is to kill this law. No, I’m not being divisive. How dare anybody demand our unity behind preemptive surrender?
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Chemtchr,
No one will kill ESEA. That’s the federal education act that disburses federal aid to needy students. The challenge is to kill off annual testing, which was tacked on by George W.
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NCLB is not ESEA. It is disbursing injustice to needy students, not aid. We must draft fresh version of ESEA, based on the original.
NCLB can’t be the basis of a real solution. It is a ruse to disinherit American children from the promise of a free and equal education, and divert public resources to private hands. It has to be swept off the table, and every delay in doing that prolongs the injustice.
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And the only way to kill the testing and still be ethical, is to have a viable alternative that is on an even playing field and accurately views student real achievement. Like this http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2013/12/accountability-with-honor-and-yes-we.html
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