FairTest has been the staunchest, most persistent critic of standardized testing for decades. Monty Neill explains here why FairTest supports ESSA, with full recognition of its faults.
He writes:
“From an assessment reform perspective, FairTest is convinced that the “Every Student Succeeds Act” (ESSA) now before the House and Senate, though far from perfect, improves on current testing policy. The bill significantly reduces federal accountability mandates and opens the door for states to overhaul their own assessment systems.
“Failure to pass this bill in 2015 means NCLB and waivers will continue to wreak havoc for at least another several years.
“The primary improvement would be in “accountability.” The unrealistic “Adequate Yearly Progress” annual test score gain requirement would be gone, as would be all the federally mandated punitive sanctions imposed on schools and teachers. States will be free to end much of the damage to educational quality and equity they built into their systems to comply with NCLB and waivers. Waivers to NCLB would end as of Aug. 1, 2016. (Other provisions of the bill would take effect over the coming summer and fall.)
“Another modest win would be federal recognition of the right for parents to opt their children out of tests in states that allow it. While a 95 percent test-participation provision remains, states will decide what happens to schools that do not meet the threshold. (The feds had already backed down from enforcing this dictate.)….
“A dangerous requirement to rank schools continues. Worse, rankings must be based predominantly on student scores. High school rankings must include graduation rates, and all schools must incorporate English learners’ progress towards English proficiency. This data must be broken out by “subgroup” status. However, states must incorporate at least one additional indicator of school quality (such as school climate or student engagement) and can include multiple such indicators….
“Meanwhile, up to seven states will be able to fundamentally overhaul their assessments right away, with additional states allowed to join this pilot program after three years. States could design systems that rely primarily on local, teacher-developed performance assessments (as does the New York Performance Standards Consortium). New Hampshire already has a waiver from NCLB to do that, starting with allowing pilot districts to administer the state test in only three grades. For all grades, the pilots employ a mix of state and local teacher designed performance tasks, an approach with great potential.
“The new law also bars the U.S. Secretary of Education from intervening in most aspects of state standards, assessment, accountability and improvement. Given Secretary Arne Duncan’s history (and the track record in New York state of his soon-to-be acting successor, John King), that seems a good thing.”
The law is not ideal. But it is far better than NCLB or the failed Race to Nowhere. And we can keep fighting for a better law and resisting at the local level by opting out.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“While a 95 percent test-participation provision remains, states will decide what happens to schools that do not meet the threshold. (The feds had already backed down from enforcing this dictate.)….”
ESSA language encourages states to coerce schools to have students participate in testing while attempting to excuse the federal government from such coercion.
ESSA also expects states to incorporate the test results of at least 95 percent of all students into the state’s accountability system (page 88 of ESSA).
So, ESSA is a setup for an opt out showdown.
“Every Test Succeeds Act”
Every Test Succeeds
In smashing education
Like wacker on the weeds
And hurricane on Haitian
That was not funny or humorous
And yes I am a Haitian educator
“Another modest win would be federal recognition of the right for parents to opt out their children out of tests in states that allow it.” Haven’t we already established that states do not have the authority to
abridge parents fundamental right opt out?
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
I read here there will be more testing… There were fewer science tests before ESSA
TESTS are mandated:
page 54: in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (every year) for math and language arts
in grades 9, 10, 11, 12 (at least once)
in grades 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 for science (at least three times in those years)
“Every Wolf Succeeds Act”
When e’r we choose the lesser
The evil just increases
We really must confess here
The wolves are wearing fleeces
You are misreading the provision.
Science tests are to be administered at three grade levels between the third and twelfth grades.
For example, a once a year science test would be administered in 4th, 8th, and 11th grades. That’s THREE science tests over TEN years. Same as the NCLB science requirement.
1061 pages and that is all FAIRTEST can come up with to support ESSA? They must be kidding or napping or something, because FAIRTEST is a smart and this ESSA is a crumb and not a cake. ESSA continues abusive standardized annual testing which eats up so much of school budgets and classroom time for bogus assessment; ESSA merely kicks the can down the road by pretending to “ok” Opt-Out by saying each of the 50 states have to decide that–more battles ahead; ESSA keeps the 95% minimum participation on student test-taking, and sustains the destructive charterizing of public school districts which is looting tax levies needed to run effective public education. Many of us are still waiting to know what makes this 1000-page document “acceptable”, surely is favored by Randi and Lily of AFT/NEA, who have a lot to gain in the way it eases Hillary into the White House and takes the heat off a terrible Democratic President Obama whose education policies are historically destructive. Protecting the rep of the sitting Dem Pres. is a Dem Party objective helped along by ESSA. It will also protect Hillary from a glaring weak spot in her record–her longtime close association with the billionaires dismantling public education, like Broad and Walton and Goldman-Sachs. With ESSA throwing the task to the 50 states, Hillary can continue to evade articulating a plan and policy to stop the private war on public schools. ESSA continues the blank check to Hillary written by the two teacher union leaders, Randi and Lily, nothing in return.
Ira…i agree with your assessment. Randi and Hillary jumped the gun with Hillary’s endorsements clearly looking forward to all this, and how best to make her look like a hero rather than a key plutocratic oligarch.
thank you NYS parent for clarifying.
Nothing is better than continuing the testing regimen and a LOT better than delegating the testing to States… By passing ESSA the whole issue of testing will be “solved” in a “bi-partisan” fashion and any hope of giving a new President a chance to undo the test-and-punish regimen will be gone. Education has been missing from any debates so far… ESSA’s passage will take the issue off the table completely and kids will be taking high stakes tests for another decade or more. By that time, test-and-punish will be standard operating procedure in schools— the “way we do things”— and the teachers who remember the days before testing will be few and far between.