Historians and teacher John Thompson wonders whether Arne Duncan and other reformers will ever be held for the failed reforms of the past 14 years?
“To try to protect every patient, doctors order screening tests. Accountability systems exist to ensure the quality of those systems and their proper usage. It would make no sense to punish doctors and technicians for the results that their tests produce (although some healthcare reformers sound like they want to do so). Accountability systems also monitor the professionalism and practice of the healthcare providers who use them. Doctors, however, would not submit to the type of output-driven accountability regimes that are being imposed on teachers.”
When will reformers admit that test-and-punish policies have failed?
When will they be accountable?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Anything freezing over yet?
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Abolish the US Department of Corporate Education… Arne’s department funnels billions in grants to the favored corporations and the billionaire hobbyists with no accountability.
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I just turned 80. Not in my lifetime. Those responsible will do quite well and deny they were wrong. Bill Clinton was on the team with all of the CEOs in the late 1990s who not only wanted higher standards, but standardized public education. The phoney Texas miracle man, Rod Paige was head of USDE long before Arne Duncan. Paige landed on his feet after doing his USDE stint and brought some colleagues along to incorporate a consultancy on education in DC. Add Sandy Kress, Margaret Spellings, and a long line of others who have responsibility for failed policies but who are thriving in the after-life. Only a few who have been insiders also move on to become whistle-blowers. One is the owner of this blog.
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Congratulations on entering your ninth decade! 🎂
I hope I am as informed, coherent, lucid and insightful when I hit that milestone.
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As soon as we get the guillotine oiled up.
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Well, if your intention is to provide a broad, humanistic education for life and citizenship, the so-called reformers are miserable failures.
However, that has never been their intention, which instead has been to use gamed, manipulated high stakes exams to scapegoat and destabilize the public schools, and open the door for privatization. From that perspective, they’ve been all to successful.
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I like Dienne’s comment.
My view: ONLY when people demand it in enough numbers. Statistical data showing failure will not be enough. People rationalize to fit their desires and money is the bottom line now.
Our fight, education is only one area. Last night on “FRONTLINE” the program was about salmonella and the numbers of people who were desperately sickened by chicken coming mainly from one source and the government’s failure to close down the company source of the salmonella even though it was obvious where the salmonella was coming from. Laws were, are set up by corporate interests in many areas and FRONTLINE expose some of them.
We know too from our history that only when unions demanded rights, fought and literally died for them, the same was true for African Americans, only when forced to, will the moneyed interests, the power structure yield to public demand. Sad but history vindicates that truism.
SO
in my view, only when we organize, gather enough people to fight for what is right will anything happen.
Karen Lewis in Chicago showed the way. If the teachers unions would unite, emulate the kinds of things which Karen Lewis led the way in and strike as happened in Chicago does it seem that anything positive in a big way will happen.
As history shows, this demands courage and people will be hurt but if enough force is delivered by enough people, things then should improve. Not easy, but essential.
As mentioned several times before. “A Nation at Risk” started the ball rolling and it gets progressively worse. The public has been fed propaganda by the “news” media for a long time, they are owned by big corporations, 80% of the news. We have suffered inappropriate, counterproductive wars ad nauseum so it is difficult but not impossible to get the true facts out to the public.
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Parents whose children have been harmed by the testing should band together and file a class action lawsuit. When the low scores are released, there may also be some basis for civil rights lawsuits. Duncan and company need to be put on notice that is not OK to exploit America’s children.
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They are only getting started. They need a few good years of the testing, and they they can begin to track kids where they belong.
What failed in the past did so because they did not harness the technology and data enough. Now, they have that covered. The politicians are in on it and the business leaders as well. It is going to get uglier, IMO.
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Funky standards, used to create an invalid test, used to decide the track of children.
Click to access Career-Readiness-Framework-Sample-Layout.docx.pdf
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I’m wondering when a legislator will stand up and write a law that will prevent wealthy donors from influencing education reform. How is this allowed? Is it a worthy case for the Supreme Court? Pearson has a monopoly on the testing. Who will break this up? Which Congressman, Congresswoman or Senator will be the champion for our children?
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