Archives for category: NCLB (No Child Left Behind)
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Stephen Singer: Why I Support the Senate ESEA Bill

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2015 //
32

Stephen Singer, teacher and BAT leader, here endorses the bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka NCLB), as written by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee.

He writes:

“No more federal intervention.

“No more reducing schools to a number.

“That’s the promise of the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA).

“Sure, it’s not perfect. But this Senate proposed rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) could do a lot of good – even if it includes some bad.

“Imagine it.

“States would be in control of their own public schools. The U.S. Department of Education and its appointed Secretary would lose much of their power to impose unfunded federal mandates.

“For example, the federal government could no longer force states to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores. It could no longer force states to adopt Common Core or Common Core look-a-like standards. It could no longer label high poverty schools “Failing” and then demand they be closed.

“That’s not nothing….

“We have a divided Congress. We have a President who never met a corporate school reform scheme he didn’t like.

“But we also have a citizenry who is fed up with all the bull….. People are demanding change.

“We have a real opportunity. If we can seal the deal, a generation of children will be the better for it. If not, the current calamitous law will stay in place for at least 7 more years.

“That’s just unacceptable.

“The biggest flaw in this proposed act is that it keeps annual testing in place. If approved in its current form, public schools would still have to give standardized tests to children in grades 3-8 and once in high school.

“If you’re like me, you just threw up in your mouth a little bit.

“However, supporting ECAA doesn’t have to mean supporting testing. There is an amendment proposed by Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana) that would replace annual testing with assessments only once at the elementary, middle and high school levels.

“Yes. It’s not enough. We really should have zero standardized tests in our schools. If we have to accept Grade Span Testing – as Tester’s proposal is called – it should be done by a random sample. Don’t test all kids. Just test some small group and extrapolate their scores to the whole.

“But Tester’s amendment is not nothing.

“Even if it weren’t approved – even if all schools are mandated to continue annual testing as is – the ECAA requires no minimum length for those tests.
How many questions do we need to have on our exams? How many sections? Right now, most states have three sections in both Reading and Math of around 30-40 questions each.

“If I’m reading this correctly, it’s conceivable that states that disagree with standardized testing could give assessments of only one section with only one question.

“Talk about opting out!

“That’s not nothing.

“Moreover, the proposed law does not require states to continue evaluating teachers based on student test scores. States are free to stop using the same junk science evaluations currently championed by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan or not. It’s totally up to the states.

“That’s not nothing.”

Singer contrasts the Senate bill to the House bill, which turns federal aid into vouchers (“portability”) and finds the Senate bill superior.

It is amazing that Arne Duncan’s lasting legacy will be the destruction of support for the federal role in education among liberals and conservatives alike.

Categories Duncan, Arne, NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

Mercedes Schneider Gives Her Judgment on the Senate Bill to Reauthorize ESEA/NCLB

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2015 //
6

Having read and reviewed every line of the Alexander/Murray proposal to rewrite the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka No Child Left Behind), Mercedes Schneider here renders her judgment about the bill as a whole and compares it to the one that the House of Representatives has been working on.

 

There are aspects to this bill to dislike: its love for charters, which make no sense unless you think the nation needs two publicly funded school system, one free to choose its students, the other not; its retention of annual testing, which has not achieved its goals for the past 13 years, making the United States the most over-tested nation in the world. And there are aspects to like a lot: like stripping the Secretary of Education of any power to control state and local decisions about standards and tests.

 

Though the bill is not perfect, it has one great advantage: it abandons the absurd goals, mandates, and sanctions that were central to NCLB.

 

Read Mercedes to see what she concludes.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Testing

Mercedes Schneider Reviews 20 Amendments to Senate ESEA Proposal

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2015 //
7

Mercedes Schneider continues her slog through the turgid legislative language in the reauthorization of ESEA/NCLB. It matters because the revision of the law was supposed to happen in 2007, and because it defines the federal role in education. She reviews 20 amendments here.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

Mercedes Schneider: Don’t Believe the Conspiracy Theories about ESEA

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2015 //
30

A reader named Anita Hoge has posted comments here and elsewhere claiming that the Senate committee proposal on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Act (aka NCLB) contains federal requirements for “medicalizing” children and other such assertions. When I disagreed, because I know that the bill reduces the federal authority rather than enlarging it, the writer asked me if I had read the entire bill, as Anita Hoge did. I had not; I had read summaries. It is typical of legislation these days that few people, even members of Congress, read huge bills. Sorry to say so, but it is true as legislative language is tedious and bills tend to be very long (NCLB was more than 1,000 when it passed in 2001). So I turned to someone who had read every single line of the bill, Mercedes Schneider, and asked her to review Ms. Hoge’s contentions.

Here is her response. Schneider checked and could not find evidence for Hoge’s claims.

There are good things in the bill (it shifts responsibility for the use of assessments to the states, it prohibits the Secretary of Education from interfering in which standards and assessments states adopt), and it allows states to try new ways of assessing students), and there are bad things in the bill (it continues to mandate annual assessments, which is my view is wrong, inasmuch as these assessments provide little useful information [other than test scores and rankings] and no high-performing nation tests every child every year). Whatever federal policymakers say they need to know can be learned from the NAEP assessments.

One of the few rules of this blog is: no conspiracy theories. So, I will no longer post comments that make claims about this bill or other bills that are not factual.

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

CNN: Excellent Reporting on Opt Out Movement Gone National

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2015 //
11

CNN ran an excellent segment about the burgeoning opt out movement. It is especially strong in New York, but it is rapidly spreading across the country as parents recognize that the tests provide no information other than a score and have no diagnostic value. For some reason, the defenders of high-stakes testing continue to say that the tests are helpful to our most vulnerable children, who are likeliest to fail the test, because until now we have neglected them. We didn’t really know that they were far behind and now they will get attention. After years of No Child Left Behind, in which no child was left untested, this is not a credible claim. Every child has been tested every year since at least 2003. How is it possible to say that no one knows that special education students need extra time and attention and accommodations? How is it possible to say that without Common Core testing, we will not know that English language learners don’t read English? In New York, we have had two administrations of the Common Core. Five percent of the children with disabilities passed the test; 95% were told they were failures. Three percent of English language learners passed the test; 97% were told they failed. How were they helped by learning that they had failed a test that was far beyond their capacity?

Categories Common Core, English Language Learners, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Special Education, Standardized Testing

Albany Times-Union: Wake Up, Politicians and Billionaires! This Is a Revolution!

By dianeravitch
April 19, 2015 //
43

Fred LeBrun, a regular columnist for the Albany-Times-Union, writes that the scale of the opt out movement sends a powerful message to the President, Arne Duncan, Governor Cuomo, “and an entire ruling cabal of moronic billionaires convinced that public education can only be elevated by punitive measures and the cold imposition of numbers in a database.” He wisely recognizes that the movement was an uprising by parents, who are sick of the test-driven, data-driven policies of the past dozen years and sick of the Governor’s demand to make the consequences of the test even harsher. Parents know that this means more resources devoted to testing, less time for the arts and other subjects and activities that their children enjoy. LeBrun understands that parents are fed up with No Child Left Behind, fed up with Race to the Top, and fed up with the politicians who blindly embrace the agenda of these policies that are so harmful to genuine education.

LeBrun writes:

That’s not just an opt-out movement anymore. It’s civil disobedience, and a step away from a growing stampede. That should make elected officials squirm, and they deserve it.

But we haven’t seen the half of it yet. This coming week those same children will go back to take three days of standardized math tests — or not.

How the numbers who didn’t take the English tests will impact the numbers taking the math tests will be illuminating. It’s hard to imagine anything but a tumbling effect. Reports have surfaced that those English tests had a number of questions that were ambiguous, poorly designed and written in language too sophisticated for the age level, yet again. One parent said that the tests seem to be about creating failure, not measuring learning. She likened the exams to child abuse. Of course, since these tests are endorsed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, self-proclaimed guardian of our young minds, this couldn’t possibly be true.

Regardless how many show up for the math tests, what the parents have done so far is as strong a repudiation of national and state public policy as we have seen in a long time. These parents have given a resounding ”no” to the president, our governor, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and an entire ruling cabal of moronic billionaires convinced that public education can only be elevated by punitive measures and the cold imposition of numbers in a database.

Well, the public is not having it. Not just here in New York, but across the country. The reauthorization of No Child Left Behind in progress right now will reflect enormous national pressures to change course from a reliance on testing and the linking of teacher evaluations and student achievement to those tests. Federal funding will not be connected to meeting any federal standards, as it is now.

Categories Democracy, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), New York, Obama, Opt Out, Race to the Top

Mercedes Schneider Winds Up Her Close Reading of the Senate Bill to Reauthorize ESEA/NCLB

By dianeravitch
April 18, 2015 //
6

Mercedes Schneider has diligently slogged through all 601 pages of the Alexander-Murray bill. I am late posting this because I was traveling, so it lacks the acknowledgement that the Senate committee approved it unanimously with some amendments.

 

This is her final installment. It includes links to her previous five reports on the bill.

 

There is much to be learned here, but the central point of this legislation is to prevent the Secretary of Education from telling states and districts how to run their schools. Of course, this has nothing to do with civil rights enforcement. It is a reflection of how both parties feel about Arne Duncan’s intrusive mandates that dictated how states and districts are supposed to turnaround low-performing schools, as well as his advocacy for Common Core and for the two assessments he funded. If this bill passes in its current form (it must still be approved by the full Senate and House), Duncan will no longer have the power to tell states and districts what to do and how to do it.

 

This is vintage Lamar Alexander. He has always said he didn’t want a “national school board.” When he was Secretary of Education, he had a keen sense of federalism and didn’t want the federal government telling everyone how to run their schools, not even himself.

Categories Duncan, Arne, NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

NSBA Applauds Senate Committee Approval of ESEA Bill

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2015 //
11

Here is the response of the National School Boards Association to the bill approved unanimously by the Senate committee. It must now be endorsed by the Senate, then be merged with a bill from the House of Representatives.

NSBA contact: Linda Embrey, Communications Office
703-838-6737; lembrey@nsba.org

National School Boards Association Calls ECAA Vote ‘A Great Victory’

April 16, 2015 – By unanimous vote, the Senate HELP Committee today reported out the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA), as amended. The three-day mark-up of the Senate’s legislation to modernize and reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) allowed committee members to consider and debate more than 50 amendments, with 29 adopted, 8 defeated, and 20 withdrawn.

Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) encouraged a ‘yes’ vote on ECAA due to its bipartisan approach and “because the process was fair,” stating that “if you like the fact that we have the Department of Education running schools through waivers in 42 states, vote no.” Moments later, the Committee’s final vote was 22 to 0.

“Today marks a great victory for local and community leadership in public education,” said Thomas J. Gentzel, Executive Director, National School Boards Association. “Though there is much more work to be done, today’s powerful vote demonstrates that we are one step closer to rewriting the broken No Child Left Behind Act and modernizing ESEA.”

Selected highlights from this week’s mark-up of interest to local school board members include:

A voucher amendment withdrawn, but expected to be discussed during the Senate’s floor debate on the bill (Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.)
Grants to states to improve the quality and reliability of state assessments (Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc.)
An amendment to improve data collection methods and systems, intended to reduce the burden on school districts (Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo.)

A change of the funding formula ratio, to 80 percent poverty, 20 percent population, regarding funding for high-quality teachers, principals and other school leaders (Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.)

Related to the Burr amendment, a “hold harmless” provision for states that would lose funding due to the change in the funding formula (Sen. Bob Casey, D-Penn.)

Related to the Casey amendment, a gradual decrease of “hold harmless” funding, phasing out the provision in seven years (Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.)
Some of the more contentious amendments – a voucher amendment introduced by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and an anti-bullying measure introduced by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) – were withdrawn, and are expected to resurface on the Senate floor.

While the Senate bill is “imperfect,” according to Gentzel, “it is something NSBA and our strong base of public school advocates can work to perfect moving forward.” Gentzel also noted that NSBA is prepared to remain steadfast in its opposition to privatization – vouchers, tuition tax credits, and non-locally authorized charters.

While the Senate HELP Committee action is another big step in the legislative process, Senators must agree to move ECAA to the Senate floor for an up-or-down vote. Also still on the horizon is the House version (H.R. 5) which has been debated on the House Floor, with no final votes yet taken.

# # #

The National School Boards Association (NSBA) is the leading advocate for public education and supports equity and excellence in public education through school board leadership. NSBA represents state school boards associations and their more than 90,000 local school board members throughout the U.S. Learn more at http://www.nsba.org.

Contact:
Linda Embrey, Communications Office
National School Boards Association
(703) 838-6737; lembrey@nsba.org
http://www.nsba.org

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

BREAKING: Senate Committee Passes ESEA Reauthorization

By dianeravitch
April 16, 2015 //
65

The Senate committee HEALTH, Education, Labor, and Pensions passed the Alexander-Murray bill today.

A note from Leonie Haimson:

“Senate committee passed ESEA re-write 22-0 today; a tremendous rebuke to Arne Duncan’s prescriptive & damaging ed policies. Feds will no longer be able to mandate or incentivize specific standards, school improvement strategies or teacher evaluation policies.”

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

Mercedes Schneider: Part 4 of Her Close Reading of the Alexander-Murray Bill to Reauthorize NCLB

By dianeravitch
April 13, 2015 //
5

Here is Mercedes Schneider’s fourth installment in her monumental task of reading and analyzing the 600+ pages of the bipartisan Senate bill to reauthorize NCLB.

 

She writes:

 

 

As was true of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the Alexander-Murray reauthorization is an assessment-centered document. A principal difference between this draft and NCLB is in the role of the federal government, with the federal role being much more prescriptive (and punitive) in NCLB. The Alexander-Murray draft mandates assessments; however, the particulars it leaves up to states without the punitive outcomes of NCLB.

 

Thus, state selection of assessments is critical. What a state chooses as its assessments largely determines the focus for the rest of the Alexander-Murray programs and “competitions.”

 

The “competitions” in the Alexander-Murray draft are optional to states; nevertheless, when coupled with a state’s choice of assessments (which could be assessments specific to the “competition”), state involvement in many of these “competitions” could mimic the oppression of NCLB or even US secretary of education Arne Duncan’s NCLB “waivers.”

 

A state could go the way of NCLB oppression. Or it could not.

 

It all depends upon the preferences of a state’s governor, or legislature, or board of education, or superintendent.

 

The Alexander-Murray reauthorization leaves room for states to implement assessment systems that require a lot less classroom time lost to testing, for example, or to even further downplay the importance of standardized tests by also incorporating projects and portfolios in the assessment process. However, the important piece here is that the states must be willing to pursue these avenues and include them as the official assessments selected for inclusion in the state ESEA application.

 

The state-level choice of assessments is critical in determining the degree to which education in that state will continue to be “NCLB-like” or even “Common Core-PARCC-SBAC-like.” Beyond that, the state’s choice of Alexander-Murray “competitions” can set the same NCLB/CCSS “stage.”

 

The mandate of annual assessment aside, under the Alexander-Murray draft, the state is the principal decision maker and therefore the primary entity for determining the degree of pressure brought upon public education by both the assessments it chooses and the ESEA “competitions” in which it participates for ESEA-related funding.

 

The state is even able to change its standards and assessments after receiving ESEA money by submitting the changes for re-evaluation by the US secretary– who does not have the authority to mandate a particular set of standards or particular assessments. According to the language of the Alexander-Murray draft, there is no rigid, seven-year lock-in to state standards and assessments. That noted, it would be best for a state to be certain about its choice of assessments at the outset of the application process for the proposed Alexander-Murray reauthorization.

 

Stay tuned. She will slog through this leviathan to the very end and inform us all.

 

Categories NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Testing
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