Arthur Camins, director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) at
Stevens Institute of Technology, takes aim at Democrats for compromising with Republicans on education issues. He cites Martin Luther King’s warning about the moderates who abandon their principles in an effort to placate their adversaries.

He writes:

“At King’s writing in 1963, he decried the entreaties of “moderates” to be patient, to engage in less direct action, to accept slow incremental changes. Today, the brakes on transformational change come with the dogma of pragmatism. Especially in education policy, the politics of social justice and equality denial have taken a more cynical turn. Instead of promoting and supporting the highest quality education for every child, currently dominant education policies promote the expansion of charter schools in which parents must compete for limited slots for some children. Worse, taxpayer-funded charter schools drain funds from existing public schools. Instead of a national and state system of equitable funding for every school based on progressive income and corporate taxes, politicians leave unchallenged reliance on inequitable local property taxes and state funding formulas. Instead of a full-fledged assault on poverty, the pragmatists settle for escape from poverty for a few. Instead of advocating for enriching and expanding democratic participation, bipartisan support for state takeovers of local school governance and promotion of private charter schools has subverted democracy while making no substantive improvement in reducing inequity.”

We have come to expect that free-market zealots will tear down our public schools. But why are so many Democrats–think Andrew Cuomo, Dannell Malloy, Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, Rahm Emanuel–siding with those who would destroy our public schools?

John Thompson, historian and teacher, writes that parents have shaken up the education landscape:

“February has always been a time when blizzards keep blowing across the nation but, too often, it now marks the end of meaningful learning in our classrooms. Long before Spring arrives, the test prep season begins, followed by the annual testing ordeal. During the last few years, however, the grassroots Opt Out movement has risen to the occasion, and fought to restore authentic teaching and meaningful learning to public schools.

The refusal of parents and students to participate in the test, sort, reward, and punish season has knocked the corporate reform movement back on its heels. It has undermined the imposition of Common Core and value-added evaluations, which were top-down mandates enforced by High Stakes Testing. The assertion of families’ democratic rights to choose engaging and respectful instruction, and reject soul-killing teach-to-the-test, has predictably prompted some reformers to retreat, while it has angered others. The second response by blood-in-their-eyes reformers may prove to be one of their most consequential mistakes. They are inviting an even more effective counter-attack by the Opt Out movement.

In 2009 and 2010, the RttT, the SIG, and an alphabet soup of other social engineering initiatives essentially imposed the full test-driven, competition-driven reform agenda on the entire nation. The non-educators who dreamed up Common Core, value-added evaluations, mass charterization, the mass “exiting” of teachers, and the resulting focus on nonstop remediation of students’ weakness, while ignoring their strengths, often were oblivious to the inherent contradictions in their dictates. Regardless of what they didn’t know, and when they didn’t know it, their mandates were so divorced from reality that they exposed accountability-driven, market-driven reform to an overwhelming political backlash. Those few reformers who are grounded in classroom realities must now know that their school improvement hypotheses are doomed.

The more interesting – and probably the more important – reaction by corporate reformers has been a consequence of their angry (and ego-driven?) response to defeat. Apparently blaming educators for failing to recognize what they believed was the beauty of their incentives and disincentives, and resenting patrons who fought against the testing toxicity that flowed down on their children, many elite reformers have thrown a huge temper tantrum. In doing so, they unintentionally revealed the true nature of their desire to micromanage schools. By their angry outbursts, elites show how oblivious they are to the feelings and interests of regular people.
Rather than go to school on the failure (or at best the modest benefits of hugely expensive experiments) of attempts to transform Newark, Memphis, New Orleans, and other systems, “astroturf” reform think tanks doubled down on discrediting objective scholars and journalists who documented results that were underwhelming at best. Next Steps in Newark: Superintendent Chris Cerf Responds to Dale Russakoff’s ‘The Prize’ – Education Post Then, the Broad Foundation, apparently seeking revenge on Los Angeles educators and elected officials, proclaimed its intention to charterize half of the LAUSD.

Most inexplicably, the post-Duncan USDOE has sought to intimidate the Opt Out movement. The attempt by the outgoing Arne Duncan and John King to bully opponents is likely to be the greatest political mistake of a reform movement that is frenetically striking out against stakeholders who disagree with them.
Apparently forgetting the myriad of ways that data-driven policies have failed to improve schools, the USDOE threatens to turn its numbers-driven club on states that do not squelch the Opt Out Movement. The federal government sent intimidating letters to 13 states, warning that they could lose funding if the test-taking rate falls below 95%. https://schoolsofthoughtny.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/review-of-withholding-penalty-history-confirms-threats-are-punitive-and-improper-usdoe-is-all-bark-no-bite/ For instance, after 20% of New York students refused to take bubble-in tests, State Superintendent MaryEllen Elia received “one of the most strongly-worded letters I’ve seen” from the USDOE demanding compliance. Elia claims, “I don’t know what the end result is going to be,” but most of us understand the result that is almost certainly inevitable. Parents and students will get their collective backs up even more, and the Opt Outs will grow stronger. http://www.syracuse.com/schools/index.ssf/2016/02/maryellen_elia_new_york_education_commissioner_common_core_testing.html 
As Jeanette Deutermann of New York Opt Out says, “The Feds gave the states a great little ‘bullying toolkit’ which basically says, ‘these parents aren’t afraid of us. Make sure they’re afraid of YOU.'” But, because it is impossible to determine which students refuse the test, opt outs undermine the little reliability and validity remaining in the attempt to use test score growth to sanction individuals. Moreover, because opt outs occur at different rates in various districts across states, it’s hard to see how states facing resistance can force compliance in regard to their accountability schemes. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/06/10/when-students-opt-out-what-are-the.html

States can respond to federal overreach by passing legislation, or twisting themselves into pretzels by reinterpreting current laws in order to punish Opt Outers. But, in addition to outraging voters, the get-tough tactic will cut both ways. The attempt to coerce parents into complying will raise awareness among the public, and as Carol Burris explains, it will invite legislative battles and demands for gubernatorial vetoes. Moreover, Opt Outers will study their states’ laws and inform parents of their rights in regard to protecting their children. For instance, Tennessee parents are now being briefed on the reasons why they should “refuse” permission for their children to be tested, rather than use the words, “Opt Out.” http://unitedoptout.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Tennnessee-Refusal-September-12-2014.pdf

Corporate reformers have shown themselves remarkably incapable of playing out the chess game and anticipating the predictable consequences of their heavy-handed policies. Let’s just say a state manages to prohibit formal Opt Outs and refusals. How will they enforce their decree? Will they actually punish students who publicly defy them? That would just encourage the more intractable problem of dealing with students who discretely push back by filling in test scan sheets by bubbling-in stars, triangles, and other patterns on them. Maybe a government can force students to fill out tests, but would it attempt to punish students who invalidate the test by marking-in answers at random?

At minimum, attempts force compliance will double the ways in which students and parents resist – by openly refusing the tests and by sabotaging the tests by bubbling improperly. That will double the unknowns, making it even more impossible to pretend that their test growth guess-timates are rational. This will create a geometrical increase in the difficulty in defending the reliability and validity of their models in court. 
Emeritus Regents Professor Gene Glass says it best in “Would Horace Mann Tweet?” Glass closes his summary of failed teach-to-the test, corporate reform with a review of the Opt Out movement’s accomplishments. http://www.gvglass.info/papers/Horace-Mann.pdf

He concludes:

I contend that what academics could not do, what the American Educational Research Association could not do, was done by citizens on social media. The voice of thousands, nay millions, of people spoke louder to politicians than the voice of Pearson-backed ALEC or the billionaire boys.

After the testing dragon is slain, we can further build og the democratic energy sparked by the Opt Out movement. New York is already taking the lead, shifting gears from beating back testing to influencing future policy. http://ny.chalkbeat.org/2016/02/05/new-yorks-opt-out-movement-aims-to-influence-policy-not-just-parents-heres-how/#.VrSrgHnru72 This is just one emerging manifestation of the new Opt Out Spring. Now it can turn from successful protest to spurring a new humane, nurturing, and democratic era of school improvements.

John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times tells it straight. Florida’s legislature loves charters and disdains the state’s public schools, where most students are enrolled.

He writes:

Here is hell.

Here is a handbasket.

And here is your state Legislature continually packing Florida up like so many groceries ready for final delivery.

Granted, today’s outrage is more sneaky than blatant. It’s more sleazy than audacious. Still, it gets high marks for being both shameless and, in the long term, dangerous.

The subject itself — money for school construction — sounds like a bit of a snooze. But the devil, and his Tallahassee minions, is in the details.

Let’s begin with the guy driving this mess.

Rep. Erik Fresen, a font of smiling insincerity, wants the state to turn most of its school construction and renovation funds over to companies that run charter schools.

Never mind that traditional schools outnumber charters about 6-to-1. Never mind that from 2009 to 2014, charters got $312 million in capital funds and traditional schools got a pat on the head. Never mind that practically 1 out of every 4 charters eventually closes and that taxpayer money is forever lost.

Nope, let’s forget all of that for a minute and focus on Fresen, a Republican from Miami.

The guy the Miami Herald reports earns $150,000 a year consulting for an architecture firm that specializes in — I can’t make this up — building charter schools. The guy whose sister and brother-in-law are executives with one of the state’s largest charter operators.

Now, who thinks that might be a conflict of interest for a politician in charge of divvying up construction funds between charters and traditional schools?

But perhaps I’m being unfair.

After all, the original mission of charter schools in Florida was certainly admirable. Charters were considered cutting-edge education in the 1990s, and they were supposed to pick up the slack in areas where public schools were failing.

It was even spelled out in Florida’s original charter school statute:

The schools were to have “special emphasis on expanded learning experiences for students who are identified as academically low achieving.”

That sounds like at-risk kids. Poor kids. Minority kids.

And yet, all these years later, that’s not what’s happened.

For instance, based on the data included in the Florida Department of Education’s school grades released Friday, 68 percent of the students in traditional Hillsborough County schools are considered economically disadvantaged. And yet, in the county’s three dozen charter schools, only 30 percent of the students are economically at-risk.

So maybe Hillsborough is an outlier. An aberration.

Except poor kids also are underrepresented at charter schools in Pinellas County. And Pasco. And Hernando.

In South Florida, where charters are everywhere, the numbers are truly disturbing. Let’s look at the schools where more than 80 percent of the students come from low-income families. Can we agree those are the situations where charters might do the greatest good?

Well, in Miami-Dade, more than 51 percent of traditional public schools fall into that category, and only 35 percent of charters. How about the reverse situation? Schools where less than 20 percent of the students come from low-income families? That would be 1 percent of the public schools, and 13 percent of the charters.

In other words, the numbers are opposite what they’re supposed to be. Charters seem to be catering more to wealthy families and leaving the poor kids behind. And, as a bonus, the state keeps taking money away from those public schools to give to charters.

We’ve created a separate-but-(not necessarily)-equal school system.

This is not a knock on charters. Many are truly exceptional, and some are succeeding in situations where public schools failed.

Instead, this is a plea to parents. To taxpayers. To anyone who cares about public schools. Your Legislature has sold what remains of its dark soul to the growing industry of for-profit education. Lawmakers will talk fancy about being fiscal watchdogs, but it’s all a ruse to cater to companies that see students as living, breathing profit margins.

This nonsense has to stop.

Someone has to stand up to the ideologues, to the scammers, to the lemmings in the state Legislature. Either that, or buckle in for our continued ride to the netherworld.