Mercedes Schneider reviews the D.C. Merry-go-round, where legislators who are not educators are deciding what to do to the nation’s schools.
The Senate’s bipartisan Every Child Achieves Act has the singular distinction of telling the Secretary of Education that he is prohibited from meddling in state standards and tests and teacher evaluations. Until now, Arne Duncan claimed to be very satisfied with the bill. Maybe he actually got a briefing, as the Obama administration now says it is not happy with the bill.
Civil rights groups continue to clamor for federally mandated annual testing, even though Black and Hispanic students have seen their schools turned into test-prep centers, with loss of non-tested subjects.
Higher education groups are lobbying for the Common Core, which has sinking support. Apparently they look forward to shrinking enrollments, since most students fail the “rigorous” CC tests. They will see an especially large decline of Black and Hispanic students, whose failure rates in PARCC and SBAC are scandalous. Do they care?
Expect more federal funding for charters and more charter scandals.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They simply don’t understand that the test is, at most 2nd class achievement. It is not an indicator of real achievement but a simple way to, as Thomas Jefferson stated “Rake a few geniuses from the rubbish”
In the name of civil rights, they continue to strip innovation from education. Innovation meaning the strength of public school teachers to find creative ways to assure all children learn.
In the process, those schools whose students do not do well on artificial tests, are forced away from the way they learn best, into a drill to the test, the way they learn less information and the way they have more difficulty learning.
This isn’t only unethical, it is immoral.
Having said that, public school teachers need to take the high ground. We know how bad the testing fiasco is and must continue to display it’s failures. We must also tell the world that we are the best innovators in the world. We must tell the world how we can serve all children and see all children progress in real, whole child achievement.
I believe civil rights groups will get behind a true, local assessment that uses whole child achievement to drive the whole child curriculum. The first step in this process is to fully support and embrace the Collins amendment that allows innovation. (www.wholechildreform.com to read it.) This isn’t the be all end all however it is a very important beginning. We still have to individualize assessment showing gains that children are making taken from where they are.
It is time to take back your profession. It is time to start a revolution in your classroom. It is our moral obligation to teach to the whole child in your class, be it in the room or in the community. It is time to say to hell with the test and teach to the whole child. Ignore the test and stand for justice. Many have gone to jail for justice and this is on that level.
Teach to the whole child, and if your students have to take the test, tell them the joy of learning is waiting for them when they get back. This is our moral obligation and if one teacher gets fired for doing this, everyone walks out. This is about justice for kids.
TAKE BACK YOUR PROFESSION, NOW!
LikeLike
“This isn’t only unethical, it is immoral.”
You’ve got that right Cap!! Glad you aren’t afraid to tell the truth. Unfortunately so many in education refuse to call a spade a spade.
LikeLike
YES, AGREE: TAKE BACK YOUR PROFESSION, NOW!
How about telling this to ALL of our professional orgs.?
LikeLike
Am available to do that at http://www.theapef.org Will be on their speaker list shortly
LikeLiked by 1 person
This unfolding drama in Congress wherein higher education administrators are supporting the Common Core should be recognized as part of a carefully staged and well-financed “messaging campaign.”
The messaging campaign to enlist many more colleges and universities to accept the Common Core and associated tests is largely managed and funded via the National Governor’s Association. Among the recent spokespersons, are Nancy Zimpher, Chancellor, State University of New York; Harold G. Levine is the dean of the school of education at the University of California, Davis; and Michael W. Kirst, president of the California state board of education and emeritus professor of education at Stanford University.
The campaign is not brand new. In July, 2014, the Association of American Colleges and Universities announced that it has joined “Higher Ed for Higher Standards” a project of a much larger coalition of groups organized to keep up the drumbeat for the Common Core and associated tests of college-and career-readiness. Also on board as an approver of the Common Core is the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities,
The larger coalition that sponsors Higher Ed for Higher Standards is the Collaborative for Student Success with about 30 groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The Collaborative publishes surveys and news intended to shore up the Common Core and associated tests. In other words, the Collaborative for Student Success and Higher Ed For Higher standards are among many publicity machines for the Common Core.
The new “portrait” being painted of the Common Core and tests is built around exaggerated praise for the “on-line skill sets” that students must learn for testing, the virtue of close readings of text, and the wondrous “breakthrough” on standards that emphasize critical thinking and solving of real world problems. The myth that these standards are a state-led, a grassroots effort is sustained, but laced with swipes at failing schools as if that caricature applies to all public schools, also some references to the opt-out, “refuse the test” movement as misguided.
I find not one ounce of concern among higher education “messengers,” most of these the senior administrator of a campus or system for higher education, about the loss of academic freedom engulfing their institutions. Their easy acceptance of this agenda is a case of jumping on a bandwagon without due diligence. Also troubling is a certain “matter-of-factness” about the right of administrators of to pre-empt faculty study, discussion, debate, and decisions about the merit of the CCSS and tests.
I may be wrong, but I doubt that the college and university administrators who have signed on as marketers of the CCSS and tests have any deep knowledge of their origin, history, who paid for them, why, and the consequences of foisting them on thousands of students in public schools. Their ignorance of detail and substance is an occupational hazard and that is why faculty voice is vital, and noteworthy when it is absent. My comments on this matter began with some research on the commentary by Harold G. Levine and Michael W. Kirst– a commentary laced with phrases that have been used to market the Common Core and draw attention away from many legitimate criticisms.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/04/15/why-colleges-should-care-about-the-common.html
LikeLike
” . . . the wondrous “breakthrough” on standards that emphasize critical thinking and solving of real world problems.”
The CC standards actually undermine critical thinking and problem solving because they push vague and abstract skills in lieu of course content. Knowledge doesn’t take a backseat, its thrown out the window.
LikeLike
It’s all one big lie, Laura. You know and thanks for pointing out the lying liars spewing their lies.
LikeLike
PLEASE DON”T SIGN OR PROPAGATE THE NUMEROUS WEBLINKS to tell your representative you support GRADE SPAN TESTING. Many of them mention NPE, NEA, Fairtest, and other prominent organizations and individuals as supporting that position.
“A reduction in standardized testing” is not good enough, of course. What a bunch of sniveling cowards you all have been. The people are demanding an END to the corporate accountability scam.
I just went to Orlando and we amended the NEA’s LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM FOR THE 114TH CONGRESS.
NEA now opposes the use of any standardized test for any federal mandate whatsoever. How about NO times per grade span? Please see legislative amendments 10 and 11.
http://ra.nea.org/new-business/legislative-amendments/
LikeLike
chemtchr,
I suspect that the rank and file may not support any federally mandated testing but I’m sure the top management of the NEA will figure out a way to twist that to support their support of testing, VAM, etc. . . .
LikeLike
Not entirely off topic—
Today I finished COMMON CORE DILEMMA by Mercedes Schneider.
Bravo!
“Truth is powerful and it prevails.” [Sojourner Truth]
I confidently challenge each and every viewer of this blog, from those for a “better education for all” to the open and disguised apologists for $tudent $ucce$$—to put the book to the test of the above quote from a genuine American hero.
For those that can think for themselves, following the best American tradition, it will make them unfit for corporate education reform and all its measure-to-punish and measure-to-extort schemes.
¿😳?
“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”
Frederick Douglass. Right then. Right now. Right on!
😎
LikeLike
KTA,
Be careful, eh! You wrote “corporate education reform”.
So many things wrong with that description the first being “corporate” as that is too broad a term and includes many who would be our anti-edudeform allies as those many work either for their own “corporation” or for one of the many (vast majority of) corporations that do not support the destruction of public education. And it’s certainly not “education reform” as that implies that public education as a whole is “failing” which of course it is not considering a large majority of folks give an A or B (silly as that description is, unfortunately people instantly recognize what they supposedly mean) to their local public schools.
So it’s not “corporate education reform” but is “privatizing public education” to make a profit off the backs of the students by shorting them of needed courses, supplies, facilities and qualified experienced teachers.
LikeLike
There is nothing good, nothing to celebrate in the Act. It’s nothing more than a change in strategy brought about by political expediency. The reformsters have declared defeat in an attempt to get us to pat ourselves on the back and go home. So what if the sock puppet that is the DOE is prevented from imposing a few of it’s absurd, toxic policies at the federal level, who cares? The exact same garbage can and will be imposed state by state. This is worse, it’s harder to fight since it disempowers our national anti-reformster movement by balkanizing us into discrete enclaves, not all of which have the same capacity to resist based on existing differences in state laws. The deformers have more than enough money, influence and infrastructure in place to work at imposing their agenda in 50 places at once without missing a beat. It’s divide and conquer designed to produce a slow version of the domino theory. They will play the long game and wait us out, state by state, and they already have some states and many legislators in their pockets. A ban on the toxic policies themselves would have been a victory, this is not, it’s a feint, a ruse.
LikeLike
I wonder whether the civil rights groups, when they support testing, are hoping that at least some data remain in the public eye to force society to pay attention to our schools with poorer kids. It’s true that NCLB and RTTT have decimated these same schools– but really, although you all here do care, it feels like middle America and the big wigs don’t. Want to bet that when the testing tide turns, middle America gets what it wants and the poor schools are still screwed?
LikeLike
But since these are public schools, shouldn’t there have been some compromise or attempt to mitigate the bad effects of testing from those same “bigwigs”?
When the testing opposition started, rather than dismissing it, couldn’t ed reformers have responded, listened to the parents’ objections and changed course (if even slightly) instead of launching a political campaign promoting testing?
It’s as if they have only one tool in their toolbox and it’s testing. It’s both the diagnosis and the cure.
An obvious compromise to me would be to re-evaluate VAM, since the teacher ranking drove increased testing but they don’t seem willing to do even that. My sense is they are just unwilling to admit that VAM (or teacher ranking based on test scores) might have been a mistake because they have poured money into it and a lot of influential people backed it. There’s no cost/benefit, no compromise, just pushing an agenda and it seems to me that approach is bound to fail in a public system because the nature of “public” is everyone weighs in.
LikeLike
This is such crazy framing:
“Rocketship is perhaps the nation’s most celebrated pioneer of online learning, having received millions of dollars from outside funders, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Obama administration, as well as financing from former tennis star Andre Agassi’s real estate fund.”
The Obama Administration is now an “outside funder” just like Andre Agassi’s real estate fund? There’s no distinction drawn between public and private.
Is “Andre Agassi’s real estate fund” drawing revenue or gains from the schools to build new schools?
http://hechingerreport.org/rocketship-education-californias-tech-heavy-charter-network-is-growing-some-say-too-fast/
LikeLike
Annual testing is a waste of funding. The test manufacturers are the only ones who profit. Students need to learn how to develop their strengths, social skills and creativity to become successful entrepreneurs. Our country needs to refocus the goal of education away from producing a glut of students who have the same basic skills in the 3R’s to one that helps develop the diverse talents of our population in order for us to become a more productive nation in the future.
LikeLike