Daniel Katz pulls together the events of the recent past and concludes that this has been a wasted era of school policy.
Both No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top are based on economic ideologies about incentives and sanctions that don’t apply to education. Both have interacted to distort the goals of schooling and both ignore individual differences and needs. We now know–and should always have known– that children are not molten pieces of lead waiting to be shaped or widgets waiting for commands.
Only one sector has thrived: the charter school industry.
Will we continue on this failed path or change direction?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think “what have you done to improve public schools?” becomes more and more of a problem for ed reformers who got elected on “improving public education”
I don’t even think they’re aware of it. This is a political person on what Jeb Bush’s education agenda was, and what he should tout:
“Bush should ignore Common Core and instead focus on what he did as governor in the area of education, like promoting charter schools, English immersion, tax credits for low-income families who send their kids to private schools and school vouchers.”
Other than English immersion existing public schools are completely missing from that agenda. It’s as if our schools don’t exist.
I think it’s remarkable and an indication of how completely the ed reform “movement” has captured lawmakers. They don’t even think public schools should be included in this pitch they’re planning to make to voters, although 90% of kids attend public schools. There is literally nothing they’ve done with PUBLIC schools that they’re willing to run on.
Democrats are basically relying on the same approach. They’re running on pre-k and community college. Noticeably absent from that? The existing K-12 public schools 90% of children attend.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/insiders-bushs-common-core-support-damaging-but-not-fatal-117309.html#ixzz3aOvHK7Mq
LikeLike
Politicians should be forced to examine “evidence based” recommendations rather than subjecting our students to the whims of corporate America. The biggest change of the last decade is that our students, teachers and families have been forced to live a lie promulgated by billionaires and their agenda. This twisted world order confirms that the monetization of public education is counter productive and a dismal failure, no matter how many spinmeisters spread the false message in the media. Charter schools are not serving us well, and they are wasting and splintering our resources. Punitive testing is harmful to our students, and solving none of our problems. Our leaders need to do their homework, and get a reality check.
LikeLike
I just think it’s funny they’re running on “public education” while carefully avoiding running on public schools, when ed reform has been the dominant force in public schools for almost 20 years now.
It’s fun to watch the rhetoric shift. Bush is for charters and private schools and The Agnostics on the Democratic side are for pre-k and community colleges.
What about the schools 90% of kids btwn 5 and 18 attend? That’s an odd thing to leave out.
LikeLike
Yes. the “deformers” are skilled at trickery. This is why those of us that know the chicanery of corporate supporters must cross post on other sites, or encourage others to fact find here. The corporate owned media is complicit is calling charter schools “public schools.” We need to get the truthful message out to unsuspecting parents and communities.
LikeLike
Politicians should be forced to examine “evidence based” recommendations”
You can lead a politician to evidence, but you can’t make him accept it.
You’d have better luck getting the average horse to accept evidence than getting the average (or even above average) politician to do so.
LikeLike
After 12 years of test-and-punish federal reform under NCLB, the academic needle didn’t budge. The ONLY solutions proposed by the so called reformers was to make the tests much harder and the punishments much harsher. And oh yea, charters!
Doubling down on failed, test-and-punish policies ensured that our schools would fail by the only metric that matters to the edu-faker community. Its safe to say that self-reflection is not one of their strong suits.
Chiara continues to make the important point that reformers have offered NOTHING to improve public education other than bad tests and unfair punishments.
LikeLike
An utterly decadent decade-and-a-half or even two, indeed.
The national conversation in academic circles at the turn of the millennium was full of excitement about all the bright possibilities in the air that new era would bring. We could speak about the promise of information technology with no hint of irony, with only the slightest caution about the wall cloud that has now overshadowed that slim silver lining.
But Planet Earth fell into retrograde or something, converting all that raw material into diamonds for the 1‰ and rust for everyone else.
Because we did not realize that running silent and running deep beneath the shiny surface of What Might Be there ran the under-counter-current of What MIght Makes Right For Itself — what the biz-brains and financial finaglers were planing for their own Kingdom.com.
LikeLike
Drip, drip, drip… reform based test and punish education has already proven to be an ineffective means for improving education. Teachers and parents have known this for years. They are taking matters into their own hands and joining the resistance movement. Teachers are beginning to engage in their own diversionary tactics by setting aside scripted curriculum and going back to teaching children instead of teaching to the test. It is the wealthy investors, education tech companies and charter school operators who will lobby for a continuation of failed policy in order to try and protect their cash cow. They don’t care to look at the evidence showing that their privatization schemes, while good for business, are bad for children.
LikeLike
I think we should take PARCC to Finland. Let’s do a comparison!
LikeLike
What has Finland done to deserve that???
LikeLike
Mykyrokka.
LikeLike
Tried a translator, it recognized it as Finnish but had no translation. Does it mean “nothing”?
LikeLike
It’s basically blood dumpling soup. Sometimes with various bits of offal tossed in.
LikeLike
I’d be interested in trying it.
LikeLike
I’d rather eat natto again.
LikeLike
This decade has been WASTED not only in education, but in so many ways … and for what? Profits and to destroy the middle class? OY.
LikeLike
The granddaddy of all Ponzi schemes…known as the “South Sea Bubble, an orgy of speculation and bribery, ended in the worst stock market crash in British history (1720)…”was curiously co-incident with John Law’s “…idea that a gigantic corporation might be formed…shares sold…and the proceeds used to wipe out the public debt. In due time the stock was discovered to be worthless, [the Mississippi] bubble burst, panic ensued (1720). [apparently, knowing history hasn’t prevented us repeating it…]
The speculators and investors have every reason to ignore that their reforms are failing. When they finally crash (and they will) it’s gonna be spectacular.
LikeLike
The decade has been marked by a sustained effort to transform ” government run” services into market based sectors of the economy, including public education.
Billionaires have backed the agenda for public education policies based on “outcomes” only” accountability, “results not excuses” for public schools and they have ALSO and simultaneously poured millions into charters, on- line and “personalized” learning, and for-profit non-profits, the latter a feat allowed by the IRS. The billionaires bought off and co-opted and created organizations that functioned as lobbies, political action groups, networks of like-minded opinion leaders who were also well-positioned to shape federal and state policies. As we have seen, those policies have doubled down on accountability in public schools, reified test scores, and used those scores as weapons in a sustained campaign to make market-based education the new national normal for American education…except for the part that the new regime will be subsidized by an inflow of public dollars to that market place and with little or no accountability.
The new normal includes impressive subsidies to a national press willing to praise this agenda, and payments to civil rights groups that are willing to support the idea that disaggregated test scores are the best guarantors of more options for high quality education.
LikeLike
Sadly, not just ONE decade. A Nation at Risk came out decades ago and things have gone downhill since then. I lived through those early decades and remember well what happened when school boards ate up that propaganda and a GREAT school system degraded.
How debilitating for educators who truly care and have worked so hard for quality education. It is showing up now more and more in the numbers of potential teachers NOT entering into a “profession that no longer exists.”
LikeLike
“The Conservation of Waste”
As public waste increases
The charter waist does too
It’s funny how the pieces
Of waste stick there like glue
LikeLike
The fundamental question is “will we continue the failed path or change direction?” To change direction, we must define the direction that we wish to follow. Current advocates for public education have done a great job pointing out the many problems of NCLB and RTTT. And they are numerous, treating kids like wivits in a factory. However, how many have defined a new direction in education, a direction that”respects the intelligence and abilities of ordinary people” (James Anderson).
The door has opened a crack for that change to happen. The Collins amendment to ESEA allows 5 states to move away from the test driven fiasco that currently exists. Once this door is open, it will never be closed again unless we sit on our hands and do nothing.
The time has come to challenge the way we think about education, moving toward system change that allows all children to learn in the way they learn best, to demonstrate what they know with 1st class, whole child achievement as a top priority. A small pre and post test for 2nd class achievement might be used at the local level if the information goes directly to teachers but the priority must be whole child achievement.
In the words of Dr. Angela Dye, ” traditional school outcomes as level “B” achievement (the test) can occur in the absence of learning how to work and learn independently; { “A” level learning includes} learning how to synthesize, transfer and apply knowledge to the world beyond the classroom; learning how to value self as subjects and not as objects; and learning how to engage in and share power in democratic spaces.”
Let the preparation begin rather than focusing on the past but the future of whole child achievement taking front and center, focusing on truly leaving no child behind as we take every child from where they are on their pathway to success demonstrating what they have learned in the way that is real and the way they do it best.
LikeLike
Look into Universal Design for Learning (UDL). It is a great model for how things should be. Google CAST.
If educators would embrace UDL, students would be so much better off and more true learning would occur. UDL gives all a chance to truly learn. We need to put our actions where our mouths are. If we truly care about all children, we can’t be afraid to provide each with what they need.
P.S. It is NOT about special education and don’t let anyone tell you it is.
LikeLike
btw, seems I am the only one so far to focus on the last two words “change direction”. Why?
LikeLike
No Child Left behind was actually part of the last decade.
This decade really belongs to Arne (whether he wants it or not)
“The Era of Arne Err”
This decade, let’s be clear,
Is “Era of Arne Err”
No education here
Just testing, VAMs and fear
LikeLike