Carol Burris, who recently retired as principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center, Néw York, here explains why she supports the Every Child Achieves Act.
She writes:
“It forbids the Federal Government from:
–requiring or promoting teacher evaluation systems.
–setting, mandating or encouraging standards such as the Common Core.
–imposing school improvement strategies.
–taking federal money from states that allow parents to opt their kids out from testing.
“In short, ECAA would require Mr. Duncan to stop imposing his reform strategies on the states and our schools. And that allows all of us to have more influence at the state and local level to help set a better course. No State Education Department can hide behind federal mandates to justify the Common Core or evaluating teachers by test scores.”
The act has too much federal funding for unaccountable charter schools and for school choice.
But Burris believes it is a step forward nonetheless.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One idea the common core got right was that a mile wide isn’t working. 800 pages is a mile wide. No points for streamlining and simplification. If the devil is in the details, that is 800 pages for the devil to hide in.
None the less, hey hey, ho ho, NCLB has got to go.
I love and admire Carol Burris, thank you for more than can be summarized here. Pls forgive if I differ on ECCA reauth. Duncan is being thrown under the bus now b/c he is no longer needed to undermine public education via a Broad Agenda. When Obama made the disgraceful choice of Duncan as Sec’y of Educ, billionaire boys club leader Eli Broad declared, “The stars are beginning to align!” Duncan did Broad’s dirty work all these years, using fed money and bully pulpit to organize state DOE’s to buy into CCSS and then do vast costly tech buys and test buys to enable PARCC/SBAC. Push-back against this extreme unvalidated regime cause disarray and breakdown in the solid 45-state wall of CCSS buy-in. Having Duncan as the evil figurehead of this ugly war on public schools and having a national, coast-to-coast singular regime of rubrics and tests actually helps our opposition from below b/c we are all in the same boat no matter where we live, same boat on a stinking ocean of privatization, looting, abusive hours of unvalidated tests, etc. Once Duncan is put out to stud somewhere with a golden parachute financed by billionaires, and once the feds no longer push a centralized impossible, unbearable, unworkable program, our own road to unified opposition will disperse into 50 separate scenarios of how to push this state here and that state there. Much better politically to have a damaged, disgraced, despised Duncan and CCSS/PARCC bashing us all than to have 50 Duncan-wannabes at each state capitol and state DOE.
We’ve been fighting against the same enemy with our calls for Opt-Out and civil disobedience. As each state tweaks and re-names its own new round of standardized annual testing called for in this 800-page ECAA, we will be fighting 50 separate battles and more at the local level. The despicable Duncan forced on us by the feckless Obama white house with the ugly PARCC/SBAC making tech and test companies rich pushed us into the same fight.
I urge ignoring ECAA. It does to little potential good and too much definite harm(more privatization, more annual testing). Let’s keep the disastrous NCLB hanging like a fetid albatross around the necks of Duncan, Obama, and all the bipartisan Dems and GOP who still think such boondoggles like VAM, merit pay, standardized testing, etc., are what public schools need. They are losing ground in disarray, exaggerated now b/c we are entering the presidential election season, and both parties with their teacher union leader friends are eagerly seeking cover and escape from the rage boiling up from the bottom. Our focus should not be ECAA but rather how to grow Opt-Out, teacher wildcats, and student walkouts, which are the tools for stopping this private war on public education.
Well said Ira!
Thank you, Ira! It’s so refreshing to read the words from someone who’s not quite so ready to give the ECAA a free pass.
IRA, I am WITH you on this one. I am not cheering right now. I am going to wait and see. There has been way too much pandering of BAD education theory and pedagogy for far too long, and seems to be getting worse.
Did anyone read of hear about the software crash re: Wall Street? Well ….
I understand that the prospect of relief from federal pressure regarding common core testing and its myriad missuses appears to be a positive sign. However, the promoters of the twin goals opening public education to market forces and undermining unions are well organized at the local level. I am not sanguine that the struggle for equitable democratic education has better chances of success at the state level. While struggles for equity and justice need a local base, all of the major advances for the economic well-being and rights of working people and for social justice ultimately were achieved either through federal legislation or Supreme Court rulings. Bipartisan support for charter school legislation may be the Trojan horse… a very bitter pill to swallow. The Republicans may “compromise” and eventually back off demands for Title I funds portability, only to achieve their privatization goals through charter schools.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
This week will stand in my memory as the time when the Resistance became resistance. For better or worse, nascent national resistance will no longer exist. A massive strategic and tactical victory for the reformers, regardless of where you come down on Every Child Achieved. They’re shellacking us in the chess game, but we’ve got them in blogging. Sad.
A national Resistance that got us the . . . Every Child Achieves Act!
Significant political battles are best fought and won on the local level.
The national Resistance still required local political pressure. I don’t think its the negative game changer you make it out to be. Instead of fighting for ESEA re-write we now put the political pressure on state governors and legislatures. Gubernatorial elections and state legislative elections will become, to a large degree, referendums on education issues.
I agree with Lance, and Ira earlier, and Arthur. We need a national level Bill of Rights protecting children and parental rights. This Bill does not give us that, it funds more TFA and Charter schools. Look at Philly and Chicago, and New Orleans. Local battles are even easier to keep off the national radar…
Did the Chicago story ever make it to National News? No…
More important is the Collins amendment that allows innovative assessment away from the test. What say you Carol?
Once again I see that thr resistance is most concerned about NY and completely oblivious to the southern, midwestern, and western states.
The things Ms. Burris lists as positive outcomes of passing ECAA were here in state law before RTtT. They will still be here after ECAA is passed.
The southern voter is generally suspicious of the federal government and removing that imprimatur will not result in a massive repeal of reformist ALEC laws around the country. It will not result in sudden shifts in governance or lawmaking. We are already fighting those battles locally on the state level and have been for 15 years with minimal success.
Florida and other states just renamed CCSS when the conservative tea partiers objected loudly. Nothing changed. The same will happen if ECAA passes.
I am reminded of the reception I got 4 years ago when I shared my horror over our VAM law. Northern teachers were all telling memI just needed to get my union to fight better. when similar laws hit CT, MA, NJ, and NY it was suddenly a national tragedy and an emergency of the highest order demanding a national response.
We need to work together and learn about things in other parts of the country and not be driven by what is best for the northeast only. I am saddened by the lack of awareness of how the ECAA may play out elsewhere but not surprised.
Chris,
I think people in the north have a bit of myopia regarding teachers in other places. New York has always been the home of a strong labor voice, and many New Yorkers are having a hard time adjusting to the type of abuse you in Florida have endured for years.
The entire neoliberal agenda is based upon privatising all public services including education.That is where they were able to connect with rightwing conservatives and the effect has been devastating and quite successful.
From Ukraine to Greece to New Orleans they are chalking up victory after victory. ECAA will not change that one whit.
Until we get past thinking that the reformist war on public education is just a few bad actors (Cuomo, Duncan, JEB!, Obama, etc.) or an aberrant misunderstanding of what is good for kids, schools, teachers, and realize that it is an international movement with tons of money, influence, and control,fighting to privatize everything once public, we are fighting in the dark.
Gaius Publius has a great article outlining the conservative and neoliberal partnership and how it is affecting global politics, not just public schooling in the US:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2015/07/greece-ukraine-and-us-advancing-neo.html#neoliberalproject
You’re right neo-liberalism is an international cabal of bad ideas and vulture capitalism. It’s funny because my husband said this morning, “Maybe Greece should try to make a deal with Russia.”
I think Carol Burris is a wonderful advocate for public schools but I remain unconvinced that state lawmakers were somehow coerced into following behind Arne Duncan like so many lemmings. Not buying that 🙂
I feel as if we all want to think our state lawmakers are somehow “allies” who were hoodwinked, but honestly, even if they were, what does that say about them? If Duncan told them to jump off a bridge would they do it? Why do we have such malleable and easily-swayed people representing us?
However. Anyway. Since DC wants an ed bill this is probably the only relief public schools are going to get.
Just put it in and go from there. I’m not sure we need an elaborate process-oriented justification. We’re getting an ed bill. It’s either this one or one that is worse. That’s the “choice”. I pick “less horrible”.
And the ed reform revolving door just keeps swinging:
“Less than a year after leaving the U.S. Department of Education, Ann Whalen, formerly one of U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan’s key staffers, is returning as a senior adviser.
In her new role, Whalen will take on the responsibilities of the assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education.”
It isn’t a mystery why we never get anything new. It is LITERALLY the same group of people. They just move from ed reform groups to the Obama Administration and back again. There is no difference between these entities.
Another non-educator with zero teaching expertise in charge of elementary and secondary educarion. Disgusting and sickening.
From Education Post:
Ann Whalen
Director of Policy
Education Post
awhalen@educationpost.org
M (312) 485-4206
Ann Whalen joins Education Post as the Director of Policy after serving more than five years in the Obama Administration with the U.S. Department of Education. At the department, Ann was director of the Implementation and Support Unit, providing technical assistance to states and school districts as they rolled out new reform programs to improve student results. In that role, she managed a 35-member team and a portfolio of over $50 billion in grant programs. She also served as a special assistant to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, helping shape administration policy across a range of issues. She also worked with Duncan at Chicago Public Schools for six years and served in the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development under the administration of former Mayor Richard M. Daley.
She has B.A. in political science from Stanford University and lives once again in her native Chicago.
Chris, I see what I have been missing. My blog lacks a director of policy.
LOL. I’m sure some TFA neophyte would be thrilled to tell us all what to think, say, and do! Director with only a BA and a few years experience as a gofer. LOL
Chris,
Do you have any information on the funders of Education Post? I’m looking at their site and can’t seem to find anything, but they certainly are promoting the usual edudeformer policies-standards and testing, charter schools, choice, etc. . . .
TIA,
Duane
Duane, funders of Ed Post are the usual suspects: Broad, Bloomberg, Walton, and a few others.
Thanks, Diane.
I couldn’t find that on their site. I wonder if that isn’t going to be the “new” thing-not publishing their funders-by the edudeformer sites.
Yes, Duane. It is another neoliberal billionaire-funded astroturf group thought up be Eli Broad himself and designed to be a rapid response propaganda arm.
Here’s from the Washington Post reporting the launch of the group from Sept. 2014:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/education-post-aims-to-take-the-sting-out-of-national-conversations-about-school-reform/2014/09/01/65f11832-2fb2-11e4-bb9b-997ae96fad33_story.html
“By Lyndsey Layton September 1, 2014
Spend any time on Twitter or in the blogosphere and the national debate about public education quickly resembles a schoolyard brawl, complete with taunts, name-calling and piling on.
Issues such as teacher tenure, parent triggers, charter schools and the Common Core State Standards bring out vitriol even among policymakers and prominent figures.
A Colorado congressman tweeted last year that Diane Ravitch, an education historian and de facto leader of public school activists, was an “evil woman.” Ravitch, in turn, blogged that an advocate for parent trigger laws was “loathsome.” Racially tinged expletives have been hurled at Michelle Rhee, the former D.C. schools chancellor, while an entire Web site has been created to lampoon Campbell Brown, the former CNN anchor who is challenging teacher tenure laws around the country.
Into the fray steps Education Post, a nonprofit group that plans to launch Tuesday with the aim of encouraging a more “respectful” and fact-based national discussion about the challenges of public education, and possible solutions.
Peter Cunningham, the former communications guru for U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, is leading the organization, which is backed with initial grants totaling $12 million from the Broad Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Walton Family Foundation and an anonymous donor.
It will focus on three areas: K-12 academic standards, high-quality charter schools, and how best to hold teachers and schools accountable for educating students.
“At some level, it feels as if it’s people . . . just screaming at each other from across the aisle,” Cunningham said. “We can have differences of opinion about these policies, but they should be based on facts, not fear. An honest, open conversation is possible among people of good will. We want to elevate those voices that are not being heard and counter the voices that are misleading, either willfully or not.”
Bruce Reed, president of the Broad Foundation, said the idea for Education Post originated with his organization but that other philanthropic groups had recognized the need years ago.
“We had a shared disappointment in the tenor of the debate,” said Reed, a former chief of staff to Vice President Biden and former chief executive of the Democratic Leadership Council.
One of the goals of Education Post is to publicize what works in public education, Reed said.
“Administrators, school leaders and teachers have papers to grade, schools to run, and they don’t have time to get out and talk about this,” he said. “This is an effort to help spread information about what works both inside the field and outside.”
Education Post also will have a “rapid response” capacity to “knock down false narratives” and will focus on “hot spots” around the country where conflicts with national implications are playing out, Cunningham said.
While there are myriad nonprofit organizations devoted to K-12 education, none are focused solely on communication, said Howard Wolfson, an adviser to Bloomberg Philanthropies.
“There hasn’t really been an organization dedicated to sharing the successes of education reform around the country,” Wolfson said. “You have local success, but it isn’t amplified elsewhere. And there is a lot of success. There is also an awful lot of misperception around what ed reform is, and there hasn’t been an organization . . . focused on correcting those misimpressions.”
Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa — a one-time organizer for the teachers union who as mayor embraced charter schools, parent-trigger laws and other policies at odds with the unions — is leading the group’s advisory board.
“The left-right paradigm is not working,” Villaraigosa said. “We get a blame game that really doesn’t produce or help generate the results we need. We need to bring stakeholders from across the spectrum together for a new conversation.”
One stakeholder missing from the new organization is organized labor.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, agrees that the polarized debate is not productive. “The polarization . . . won’t solve the problems of social immobility, income inequality or help public education become the ladder of opportunity for more kids.”
She said her union welcomes “people who want to solve problems, and improve, rather than throw stones at public education,” but hasn’t agreed to otherwise support Education Post.”
Chuck Schumer is going to fight the loss of Title 1 funds that so many districts depend on under the “Every Child Achieves” act. http://www.schumer.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/schumer-new-senate-amendment-to-be-introduced-this-week-would-slash-funding-for-new-york-elementary-and-secondary-schools-at-over-680-districts-at-a-time-when-they-can-least-afford-it-schumer-vows-to-fight-for-nys-education-funding_urges-colleagues-to-maintain-funds-necessary-for-school-programs
An even better idea than Burris’s would be for the federal government to stop funding education altogether. After all, as long as the government pays for education, there are going to be politicians and policymakers who have the nerve to get involved with the thing they’re paying for.
The gall of it. Who ever heard of politicians putting any sort of conditions or accountability on public spending? All public spending should just be handed over to schools [as well as hospitals, police, fire, contractors, etc., etc.] as a blank check, with no strings attached and no questions asked.
What a horse’s patooty!
I will not use the language I would use elsewhere with you out of respect for Diane.
No one ever has argued that there not be conditions and accountability attached to funding (not that facts or truth affect WT in any way).
People here do adcvocate for sensible, proven methodology and rules based in actual experience and researxh. Not made up from whole cloth ideology to support conservative neoliberalism like WT advocates.
And more than a few of our current legislators are frighteningly ignorant ideologues who argue against the sky being blue if it suits their party needs, You want them determining things like accountability for education? LOLOLOLOL
I see you and raise you one. Let’s stop government spending recklessly on corporate welfare, bankster gambling insurance, charter scammers, edupreneur grifeters, and other flotsam and jetsam dredged up by Citizens United to buy our government.
Very silly, WT. The government funds public hospitals without telling doctors how to perform surgery; it funds public libraries without telling librarians which books to stock and which to exclude; it funds firefighters without telling them how to put out fires. People should know what they know and what they don’t know. People who are not educators should not tell educators how to teach.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.