Laura Chapman responded to this post about the nil effects of NCLB:
She writes:
“The biggest lie was NCLB. The second biggest lie was Race to the Top. The third biggest lie is ESSA.”
NCLB was the template for what followed. I wrote about that jargon-filled fiasco as a heads up to colleagues working in arts education who did not know what hit them.
Race to the Top was the double whammy with a propaganda mill called the “Reform Support Network” designed to intimidate teachers who failed to comply. USDE outsourced the problem of compliance to people who did not know what to do with this fact: About 69% of teachers had job assignments untethered to statewide tests. The hired hands working for the Reform Support Network offered several absurd solutions. Among these were the idea that teacher should be evaluated on school-wide scores for subjects they did not teach (e.g., math, ELA) and that a writing assignment called SLOs (student learning objectives) should function as a tool for evaluation.
The SLO writing assignment required teachers to specify and predict gains in the test scores of their students from the beginning to the end of the year. Teachers were graded on their SLOs and up to 25 criteria had to be met for writing a “proper” SLO. That absurdity has been marketed since 1999, first in a pay-for-performance scheme for Denver conjured by William Slotnick (Master’s in Education, Harvard). There is no evidence to support the use of SLOs for teacher evaluation. Even so, this exercise is still used in Ohio, among other states.
ESSA is like NCLB in that the high stakes tests are still there, but they are surrounded with legalese about state “flexibility.” Some parts of ESSA calls for de-professionalizing the work of teacher education (see Title II, Section SEC. 2002).
Devos’ incompetence delayed and then mangled the “approval” of required ESSA “state plans“ for this school year, 2018-2019. In the meantime, groups that championed NCLB and Race to the Top publicized their own ratings of ESSA plans (e.g., Bellwether Education Partners, Achieve, and the Collaborative for Student Success). The Collaborative for Student Success is funded by the Bloomberg Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, ExxonMobil, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation–none friends of public education.
I think that compliance checks on ESSA, if any, will be outsourced and that the still pending federal budget will confirm the ten-yacht Education Secretary’s’ real priorities—choice and some of the increasingly weird things recently on her mind.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Laura is right.
This stuff was NOT an honest mistake
It was a lie — a fraud.
It was based on the Texas Miracle, which was just the first of George W. Bush’s many lies.
Trump ain’t got nothing on Bush.
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It began with NCLB, based on Texas Miracle.
But the lie/fraud was perpetuated and even extended by Race to the Top and ESsA.
The people pushing this stuff are highly dishonest.
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You must be kidding. Trump makes George W look good by comparison. As a human being, Bush had a modicum of decency, as evidenced by his friendship with Michelle Obama. He did not sneer at people and insult them. He did not try to destroy NATO and the EU. He understood the importance of alliances. You can make a long, long list of everything he did wrong, starting with NCLB. But he is nonetheless far above Trump by every measure. Trump is vile, a con man, a serial liar, a grifter, dishonest, cruel, inhumane, ignorant, racist, sexist, I could go on and on and on. He represents the worst in American life. He is the face of white nationalism. He lifted the rock and invited the KKK to come out into the open. Don’t get me started.
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I’m not kidding.
Dubyas lies got us into the Iraq war which killed thousands of American troops and over a hundred thousand Iraqis (bare minimum, based on morgue stats from Iraq Body Count)
Dubya had/has no decency.
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And lest anyone think I am minimizing Trump’s lies, don’t even suggest it because it is not true
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There needs to be an objective measurement of how terrible Republican presidents are, with consequences. As W. said, an accountability system needs consequences. I propose first a system of standards, for example:
Tax cuts 1.3: Enact the deepest tax cuts for the wealthy possible while complaining that the deficit is too large. Pay for a meaningless war and/or a ridiculous border wall at the same time as cutting taxes.
Ruin alliances 3.2: Whether by leading a “coalition of the willing” into a tragically nonsensical war or by just being too embarrassingly coarse and abrasive to stand aside onstage, make everyone in the world hate the U.S. Shove heads of state aside or throw up on them.
Lie 2.4: WMDs, affairs with porn actresses, doesn’t matter what, be dishonest. Advanced level lying includes mangling English grammar as well as vocabulary with your own, made up words like “bigly” and “misunderestimated”.
And we create tests to measure achievement and growth on the standards. If you don’t score or approach proficient year after year, you don’t get to be in the running for worst president ever, and you lose your Koch funding. Now that’s what I call data driven accountability. No Child-President Left Behind. Race to the Hall of Shame. Every Stupidity Succeeds Act. Done.
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NCLB = BAD
RttT = BAD
ESSA = BAD
AGREE NCLB, RttT, ESSA are meant to DECEIVE ….. for a FEW people’s bank account (KA-CHING) and to CONTROL the masses.
All (NCLB, RttT, and ESSA) = JIM CROW.
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All of these initiatives are designed to create a false sense of “accountability” for public schools. They attempt to keep teachers from doing their best, most interesting work. If teachers want to avoid punishment, they must play the testing game. it is all about keeping a vice grip control on public schools.
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They were doomed to fail public education because they were designed to fail public education. They were infected by an overriding corporate interest that shoved aside the interest in sustaining public education. And it will be that way as long as the corporate capitalist are in charge of public policy.
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What the federal government should worry about it this: is there any public school, anywhere in the country, where they believe any of this was supportive or helpful to schools?
It’s like they’ve completely lost sight of the people they are supposed to be serving- the reason they exist.
The point isn’t to batter public schools into submission, and get fawning compliments from the ed reform choir for being “bold” or “disruptive”. No one actually hired them to do that. They were supposed to ADD VALUE to public schools.
That should be the measure. Since George W Bush what have ed reformers in the federal government added to improve, support or sustain any public school in the country? Specifically.
If they can’t do that we don’t need them. A competent bookkeeper can administer federal funds to schools. If that’s the only value they add we can quite literally send the rest of them home and tell them not to come to work tomorrow.
If they’re not adding value to public schools then they’re not adding value to the schools 90% of children attend. They can cheerlead all the charter and private schools they want- they fail at the basic job description if they’re not serving 90% of schools.
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One of the people who works for DeVos went down to Florida to talk to public school principals.
Before he could talk to them he had to reassure them that he wasn’t there to HARM their schools.
I don’t know- is it possible to fail more than that? The people the US Department of Education supposedly serve believe that the US Department of Education not only add NO practical value to their schools, but believe that the US Department of Education is actively HOSTILE to their schools.
That this result doesn’t make ed reformers reconsider their approach is astonishing.
If the people you’re supposedly “serving” are telling you, over and over, that you’re not helping and they don’t trust you not to HARM them you have failed completely at your job.
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Democrat House Representative Susan Davis (California) who is 3rd ranking Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee advocates for choice and competition. She’s in a solidly Democrat district which she won by 39 points. Since she’s on the DFER-recommended list, did the AFT back a primary opponent against her? (Oddly, Davis’ 2nd largest contributor, after an aircraft company, was the AFT.)
Ocasio-Cortez is making plans to find a primary opponent against Hakeem Jeffries, who is also DFER’s buddy.
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Linda, Thanks for the reminder of who is shaping education policy and what is happening in the House, still pending bills for last minute action or possibly in the works for January. You can do some category and key word searches for more information. STEM is hotter than STEAM, CODE is a biggie, also service learning. The degree to which enacted federal legislation ( and funding for these progams) can shape local curricula is too often underestimated by reforms who complain about the status quo in schools.
https://www.congress.gov/committee/house-education-and-the-workforce/hsed00
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Thanks Laura- we’re all made better by your reporting at the magnificent blog that Diane created.
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“some of the increasingly weird things recently on her mind.”
Let’s face it, she is nuts.
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