Mercedes Schneider has read the new Every Student Succeeds Act, every word of it.
First, the bill requires 95% participation in state tests. It is vague about parents’ rights to opt their children out of the test. States can ask for waivers, but this puts them, as she puts it, “at the mercy of” the Secretary of Education.
Second, she is worried about the security of data that the U.S. Department of Education collects. It has confidential data on every student and teacher. In a recent hearing, Congressmen mentioned that the Department’s data system had been hacked in the past. Why trust them now?
Third, ESSA is as charter-friendly as NCLB. Certainly, the Department is eager to shovel millions, hundreds of millions to charters. Mercedes cites the recent decision of ED to give $71 million to Ohio charters, even as the state’s charter industry was experienced a series of charter scandals. Clearly, the Department is good at talking standards, but its own standards are mighty low.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Let’s not forget all the damage forthcoming to programs that prepare teachers: https://dianeravitch.net/2015/12/05/kenneth-zeichner-essa-is-a-disaster-for-teacher-education/
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Yes. ESSA promotes profiteering from preschool through Pay for Success programs. Obama had put this in place before ESSA. Investors front the costs and hope to get a minimum of 5% return. How? Cherry pick kids who get to enroll (no severe special needs), only mild learning disabilities. Shove Kindergarten and first grade work down to preschools. Bet that most of these kids will meet milestones, one of these read by Grade 3, another graduate on time and so on. Use exotic statistical formulas to calculate the cost of educating the kids, and the money “saved” by not having to provide special ed, by getting more kids to graduate on time, and so on.
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Comment on preschool was intended for ciedie aech
Alexandra, Agree. The teacher prep provisions look like they were written by staff from the Gates foundation. The people that Gates has hired to promote “teacher prep transformation centers” and to fund these love Relay Graduate School of Education and think Doug Lemov no-nonsense discipline for low income minority students is great. The law endorses the idea that teachers should be free from the burden of knowing anything about education beyond what is required for a specific grade, subject, and job market (local, or state)…and in some cases learned only on the job–coursework offered by the district who may hire the candidate. Add the idea that the teacher prep program will be rated by the test scores and “growth” their graduates produce in classrooms during their first three to five years of teaching.
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Also, I’ve heard that there are provisions to continue “Pay For Success” programs for very young children?
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Yep. http://www.sltrib.com/home/3032598-155/preschool-paying-off-for-goldman-sachs
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In ESSA is a deliberate acceptance of CBE or “personalized learning” despite the fact there is little to no evidence of its value. Could it be Gates’ people were given free reign to use poor students as guinea pigs as it is written into the language of the law? This will further erode the need for a balanced curriculum including the arts, and parents have no awareness or voice about all the data mining that will occur. http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2016/03/testing-all-time.html
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Not just Gates. Add the lobbyists for the tech and test industries.
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