Give credit where credit is due: Even though the Republican majority in the Senate seems eager to privatize public schools, for fun and credit and to satisfy their inner Ayn Rand, they did something right: they eliminated former Secretary of Education John King’s regulations to measure the effectiveness of teacher education. King wanted to judge teacher education institutions by student test scores. It was likely if not inevitable that teachers who went to affluent districts would get better results than those who taught in the neediest schools.
Teacher educators lambasted King’s effort to micromanage teacher education and warned that his demands would drive teachers away from high-needs schools.
This is one example where deregulation was necessary and didn’t make matters worse.
The Senate also voted to roll back an Obama administration rule to “hold schools accountable,” which passed by only 50-49, over vociferous Democratic opposition. Frankly, I don’t know which rule this is. If it was the Obama-Duncan-King test-based accountability, then I think its repeal or elimination is a step forward. As we saw again and again over the past eight years, the Obama Department of Education had an obsessive devotion to test-based accountability that harmed students, teachers, and schools. If this is what the Senate knocked down, count me in. Even the znational Academy of Sciences issued a report critical of test-based accountability, but Duncan was as smitten with standardized testing as DeVos is smitten with vouchers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yes, education policy was not Obama’s strong suit. He put NCLB on steroids. I was excited when Invest in Innovation funds were announced, but alas that was a huge expensive disappointment. Has there ever been any follow up on what that accomplished?
No positive results for any part of Duncan program. $5 billion wasted.
Billions of dollars never really go to waste.
They usually end up in the pockets of the neediest — Pearson’s CEO, for example.
Will the Gates’ Impatient Opportunists continue their plots, targeted at evaluating professors? Or, will they stop being a drain on American productivity?
“Will the Gates’ Impatient Opportunists continue their plots, targeted at evaluating professors? ”
Unfortunately, it seems this will continue. Profs are sleepers.
We are certainly down the rabbit hole if we have to thank Republicans from saving PUBLIC education from the Democrats.
David,
We have been down the rabbit hole for years.
Very happy about this (I think). The Reformers may have their wires cross. Randi Weingarten further muddies the waters by supporting the regulations with predictably questionable reasoning.
If you want to see the Road to Failure, just watch where Randi is going. Her instinct for failure and doing the wrong thing is as reliable as clockwork.
😀
She’s done pretty well for herself considering her “failures”
She pulls in nearly $400k per year in salary, while the average teacher makes about 1 seventh as much.
Weingarten learned well early on (at Cornell ILR school) how to play the game.
Yes, she’s done quite well on our dime. As awful as she is, however, at least she works for her salary, and is an able performer (if a lousy union leader). Her replacement in NYC, the embarrassing, negligent and incompetent Michael Mulgrew, can’t even be bothered to attend the Executive Board meetings of the union he’s generously paid to ostensibly lead.
You’d think, with the union facing the prospect of right-to-work legislation, and thus danger to their own budgets, that they’d be roused from their complacency, and actually start doing something for members who may soon have a choice about whether to pay dues or not, but these people are utterly clueless and hopeless.
I shudder to think of how bad things have to get before people start waking up, or if they ever will.
She may work for her salary, but the question is “for whom?”
Her support of Common Core and last support of VAM really make you wonder.
https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/weingarten-really-against-vam-or-was-her-conversion-a-sham/
Past support
Now we need some states to come through by ending harmful use of testing. Candidates?
State laws in Ohio still impose draconian requirements. Not having the feds in the picture may not help a lot. The test-centric charters will not be pleased by this. Test scores were a point of pride and key to their advertising.
The roll back on evaluating teacher education programs by the test scores their graduates can extract from their students was on the wish-list of Gates and all of the test-centric charters.
I’m not expecting any help in Ohio, but I’m hopeful that some state — any state — can show a better way. Why are we wasting so much money? Why are we sacrificing joy of learning? When did test scores become the be all and end all of education? Surely some state will figure it out, right? Right?! This at least may open the door.
http://abc27.com/2017/03/07/standardized-tests-arent-worth-the-hefty-cost-state-senator-says/
Oh my gosh! So much common sense (not from the Sec of Ed)! Instant Hall of Fame nomination, Diane! No waiting period required!
Assuming reports are true that Ohio Senate Education Committee Chair, Peggy Lehner, is the sister of the President of a Gates-funded national teacher measurement system, it’s expected.
Reading the article in Education Week makes me fear that part of the plan is to lower teacher preparation and licensing regulations. If they don’t plan to prepare teachers, they wouldn’t care how effective they are.
There is no such thing as a Republican free lunch.
Well, except that if you wanted to privatize schools and set up a backpack voucher system you wouldn’t want any widely applicable measure of those schools.
They don’t want accountability measures because they want an unregulated choice system. It was never about “great schools”. It was about replacing public schools.
There are two camps in ed reform- regulated “choice” systems and unregulated “choice” systems. Republicans are in the “unregulated choice system” column. Hence, they now object to measures of schools.
I don’t think it has anything to do with public schools. They’re all laying groundwork for “backpack vouchers” and “portfolio systems”. Public schools are an afterthought- incidental to the ideological vision.
I fear you’re right
Ditto. But this is an immediate relief for kids. Diplomacy is better during ceasefire.
Gates gave the Center for American Progress $2.2 mil. from 2013-2015. It would be shocking if the Dems didn’t carry Gates’ freight. Walton-funded CAP is about as influential as it gets in the Democratic Party.
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2016/11/29/2016-27985/elementary-and-secondary-education-act-of-1965-as-amended-by-the-every-student-succeeds
Here’s the link.
I had the feeling while reading this article that the Republicans weren’t with us at all. I agree with the above comments that this is a way of opening the door to Charters and Vouchers galore. I think the public is becoming more and more aware with the lack of accountability in the “private yet public” sector out there. They are scared of the nation insisting that the requirements of receiving public money will be more transparency. If we do away with it then they can continue to errode our most prized institution. Maybe it was part of the grand plan. Have the nation go test crazy and then take it away and the “natives will stop being so restless and stop screaming” as they come in the back door and destroy another important part of our society. The dark days are ahead of us NOT behind us.
Lots of dark days ahead, for sure.
But don’t forget that King’s regulations were intended to keep NCLB test-score obsession alive.
And King was as big a supporter of charters as DeVos. He founded a charter chain.
Diane, Thanks for your objectivity.
An interesting observation on failing scools:
Public Schools: Who Is Failing Whom? A MUST READ by Ann P Cronin
Education advocate and fellow education blogger, Ann Cronin, has written another powerful piece, this time asking who is failing whom when it comes to the nation’s public schools.
Ann Cronin writes;
If the same words are repeated over and over again, they begin to begin to be taken as true. “Failing public schools” are such words. I see them written and hear them spoken by legislators, journalists, and commentators who probably have not been in a public school in decades since they attended one or never because they were educated in private schools.
Looking at who is taking Advanced Placement courses and how those students are faring is one of many ways to bring the term “failing public schools” into question. The number of high school students taking Advanced Placement exams increased in 2016, and more of the test takers were from low-income families, according to the College Board’s annual report on the Advanced Placement program. More than 1.1 million high school students took at least one Advanced Placement course during high school, 25,000 more than in 2015. That means that of the 3.1 million students who graduated from high school in 2016, more than 20% of them earned a score of 3 or better on an AP exam. Scoring a 3 allowed them to gain college credit at most colleges and universities.
The increase in the number of test-takers from low-income families continues a trend. In 2003, just over 94,000 students from low-income families took an AP exam; whereas, in 2016, 554,500 students from low-income families took at least one AP exam. Those who believe public schools are failing probably think that increasing the number of test-takers, especially low-income students from urban schools, would lower the overall performance on the AP tests. Not so. The average scores on all AP exams have held steady. In fact, the average score was actually higher in 2016 than in 2003 when far fewer students took AP exams. As Nat Malkus of the American Enterprise Institute said recently, “The fact that 1 in 5 public school graduates passed an AP exam in 2016 pushes back against the ‘public schools are failing’ narrative.”
So, the public schools in urban areas, where the increased population of test-takers is coming from, are doing good work in challenging students to learn. The students have performed well on AP exams and gained college credits for their efforts.
But what are those in power doing to foster that positive growth?
Nothing.
Those in power are working hard to end that trend.
Low-income students are in danger of not being able to take AP exams and gain college credits because they cannot afford the cost of taking AP exams now in 2017 and in the future. A federal grant program that subsidized AP exams for low income students has ended. It was replaced in the Every Student Succeeds Act by a block grant program in which the funds given to states do not have to be used to subsidize the cost of taking AP exams in the future, and the grants are not available at all for this 2016-2017 school year.
This creates a problem for cities like Worcester, Massachusetts. Under the leadership of Maureen Binienda, the Superintendent of Schools, high school students have been encouraged to challenge themselves by taking AP courses. She said that emphasizing rigorous academic course offerings has changed the culture of the city’s high schools. Last year, low-income Worcester students, utilizing the federal subsidy, took 1, 919 AP exams. The fee for taking an AP exam is $93.oo; with the subsidy, students paid $15.00 per exam. This year, with no federal subsidy, low-income students will be required to pay the College Board reduced fee of $53. That College Board discounted price is still too expensive for many families in Worcester. Ms. Binienda appealed to the state legislature for funds, but the legislators could not help and suggested she try local businesses.
Appealing to private citizens and businesses is exactly what the state of Washington did. Washington state officials became concerned that low-income students, due to the removal of federal subsidies, will not be able to take AP exams so they set up an emergency fund to raise $800,000. That fund would allow low-income students to keep paying $15 per test. Microsoft, Boeing, the Shultz Family Foundations, other corporations, individuals, and nonprofits contributed to the emergency fund. The state legislature appropriated $75, 000. The result was that more than the $800,000 was raised, and low income students will take their 2017 AP exams for free.
In Connecticut, the state is picking up the costs for this one year only to provide subsidies for all of the low income students taking AP exams but with no promise of future funding by the state.
So there we have it. One state is fully funding the subsidies. In another state, private citizens and corporations are providing the subsidies. And in a third state, low-income students currently have no funding to take AP exams and earn college credits.
That is the wave of the future. Each state for itself. Each state will decide for itself who gets access to college credits through AP courses. Each state will decide for itself what students receive services for special needs. Each state will decide for itself about providing vouchers for segregated schools. We have a Secretary of Education who said at her confirmation hearing that she does not support equal accountability for all schools. We have a President who said that a model school, one that is worthy of taxpayer support through vouchers, is one in which the students pledge allegiance to the Bible. We have a bill proposed in Congress (HR610) which will give block grants to the states to use as each state wishes rather than for specified and uniform standards for special education, integration, or equal access to challenging courses and qualifying exams for college credits. In fact, the grants, according to HR610, do not have to be used from public education at all and will provide taxpayer money for vouchers to totally unaccountable private schools. Shame on us.
It is not the schools that are failing our children. It is the adults with political power who are failing our schools.
You can read Ann Cronin’s commentary piece and her other posts at: https://reallearningct.com/2017/03/09/public-schools-who-is-failing-whom/