In December 2015, Congress passed the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA) of 1965. This law replaces the previous re-authorization, better known as No Child Left Behind. Since then, former New York State Education Commissioner John King has succeeded former Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and we can begin to see how the new law will unfold. The ESSA is being touted as a new move to return education to local control, but the devil is in the details. The Federal Department of Education’s interpretation of the bills language will determine the true effect of the law upon the states. The American Priciples Project has commented on how the law was passed. Read the commentary here.
Articles tagged with: federal
MEDUSA
Multi-fad Education Dooms USA
By Lucy Wells
THE LATEST FAD
Educational fads usually have names that sound like perfect solutions to our failing educational system. People are inclined to assume good intentions, so they give these fads a chance. Yet the fads, tragically, victimize generation after generation. [read more]
Wednesday, July 8, 2015, despite many phone calls from citizens against the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as No Child Left Behind, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill which helps cement the Common Core, its assessments, and intrusive data-collection into place. Also a prominent feature of the bill is an emphasis on the social emotional aspect of students even though parents want more emphasis on academics.
The vote was 218-213. All 218 of the “yes” votes were cast by Republicans.
See the voting results. Read a commentary by Emmett McGroarty here.
This means it is even more important than ever to stop the corresponding bill in the US Senate. Call your U.S. Senators, and tell them to vote “No” on the “Every Child Achieves Act,” S1177.
The Capitol Switchboard number is (202) 224-3121, or toll free (877) 762-8762
Please call your Congressman/Congresswoman and federal Senators to stop the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA – S 1177) in the Senate and the Student Success Act (SSA – HR 5) in the House. These are updates of the No Child Left Behind Act. Federal moneys to the states started with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, begun—unconstitutionally—by Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The Tenth amendment states that the powers not delegated by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Control of Education is one of those powers not delegated to the federal government.
Read the alert notice from our friends at Education Liberty Watch here.
It would be better if the ESEA were left to expire and control of education was returned to the states.
What a difference a year makes! We first linked to Truth in American Education’s resistance map back in March of 2014. Here is an update.
The Common Core landscape has certainly changed. Many more states have pending legislation in to reject the Common Core. Several states have also terminated their membership in their Common Core assessment consortium. More parents are becoming aware of the problems with the Common Core standards, assessments, and especially with the data collection.
Keep up the resistance!
At first 46 states and the District of Columbia signed on to the Common Core State Standards, but Minnesota soon rejected the Common Core math standards while retaining the English/Language Arts standards. Now, more states are re-examining their decision and are taking steps to reject the Standards. States are realizing they have given up state control over their own education system and have committed themselves to spending billions on an unproven education plan. Truth in American Education has updated their resistance map. Read their commentary.
The Washington State House of Representatives now has a bill to eliminate the Common Core!
House Bill 2165, sponsored by Representative Elizabeth Scott, calls for a revision of the Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs) such that they do NOT align with the Common Core, and it calls for Washington to withdraw from the Smarter Balanced Assessments Consortium.
The happy news is that bills such as this one and Senate Bill 6030 against the Common Core, will be alive for two years. Even though the bills may not become law during this session, they still have a chance next year.
They say politics make strange bedfellows, and it’s true. A coalition of very progressive grassroots progressives, very conservative grassroots conservatives, and the whole spectrum in between have joined to reject the Common Core State Standards. At the same time, Democrat Senator Marilyn Chase and Republican Senator Pam Roach have co-sponsored Senate Bill 6030 to reject the Common Core and return to what we had before–the Washington Essential Academic Learning Requirements or “EALRs.”
While we have never been fans of the the EALRs, at least they were Washington State EALRs. This bill is a first step in returning education control to the state level. When we once again have control over our own state standards, we will have the ability to improve them.
Read Washington State Senate Bill 6030 here.
Stay tuned. There will be a similar bill soon in the Washington State House of Representatives.
This analysis is from LEARN (Lynn’s Education And Research Network) and was written in the era of education “reform” in the 1990s. That “reform” and transformation has been accelerated by the current Common Core system. It is important to understand that the transformation has been occurring for decades.
Education Transformation
by Lynn Stuter
As parents look at education reform, little do they realize that education and the purpose of education are being transformed. No longer is education to produce an innovative, creative, intelligent child, who has a broad but intensive liberal arts background such that he or she can reach for the star of stars of his or her choice. The purpose of education, under this transformation, this paradigm shift, is to mold the child to meet the needs of the global economy of the 21st Century, to produce a world class worker with the attitudes, values and beliefs wanted by big business.
But this is not a phenomenon that transpired with the advent of education reform. Over the past thirty years, since the advent of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, schools have been being used to validate programs that are now being used under education reform. This is why parents have watched education deteriorate in the last 30 years, as teaching methods moved from didactic approaches to dialectic approaches founded in a growing philosophy that goes back to beyond 1965 and the ESEA and find definition in the following quotes that pre- and post-date the ESEA:
What we are classifying is the intended behavior of students—the ways in which individuals are to act, think, or feel as the result of participating in some unit of instruction. [1]
…a large part of what we call “good teaching” is the teacher’s ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students’ fixed beliefs and getting them to discuss issues.
…our concern is to indicate two things: (a) the generalization of this control to so much of the individual’s behavior that he is described and characterized as a person by these pervasive controlling tendencies, and (b) the integration of these beliefs, ideas, and attitudes into a total philosophy or world view. [2]
Since the real purpose of education is not to have the instructor perform certain activities but to bring about significant changes in the students’ patterns of behavior, it becomes important to recognize that any statement of the objectives … should be a statement of changes to take place in the student. [3]
…education, as now conceived, leads to demonstrable changes in student behaviors, changes that can be assessed using agreed-upon standards. [4]
But in a broad survey of employment needs across America, we found little evidence of a far-reaching desire for a more educated workforce. [5]
Worker bees—cooperative, collaborative, team players, not too well educated but willing to work for a pittance for the good of the collective whole (ie, the state). Knowledge is power! A culturally illiterate nation will not long remain free. William Pearson Tolley, Chancelor of Syracuse University, wrote, in 1943,
In a slave state, vocational training may be education enough. For the education of free men, much more is required.
Thomas Jefferson, in 1779, defined the value of education to our society, to our nation, when he wrote,
The most effectual means of preventing the perversion of power into tyranny are to illuminate…the minds of the people at large, and more especially, to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that they may…know ambition under all it shapes, and…exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.
_________________
[1] Bloom, Benjamin, editor; Taxonomy of Educational Objectives; Book 1: Cognitive Domain; New York: Longman; 1956.
[2] Bloom, Benjamin, David Krathwohl and Bertram B Masia; Taxonomy of Educational Objectives; Book 2: Affective Domain; New York: Longman; 1964.
[3] Tyler, Ralph; Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction; Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1949.
[4] Conley, David; Roadmap to Restructuring; Eugene: ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management, University of Oregon; 1993.
[5] Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, National Center on Education and the Economy; America’s Choice: high skills or low wages!; Rochester: National Center on Education and the Economy; 1990.
Here’s another good example of an expression that means different things to different people: School Choice.
Of course people want choices. Who wouldn’t? However, often various education choices are either deliberately or unintentionally mixed together. Private school, homeschooling, online schools, vouchers, and charter schools are often mixed together as “choices,” but there are big differences.
Private school, homeschooling, online schools, vouchers, and charter schools are often mixed together as “choices,” but there are big differences. Within these choices, private schools, homeschools, and non-government online schools are independent of government money. In homeschooling and independent online schooling the parents are free to choose a curriculum that fits the child and the parents’ goals for that child. In private schools, the directors of the school choose the curriculum, but must be responsive to the parents’ wishes. However with government online schools, vouchers, and charter schools, all funded by government money, there are strings attached. Various aspects of the education the child receives will be dictated by the state. For example, currently in Washington State, all charter schools must follow the Common Core Standards.
There is a more insidious difference with government-funded education options. They work to destroy representative government. With charter schools, the school board members may be chosen by the charter corporation, not elected by the parents or taxpaying citizens, and thus they are really not accountable to the parents or taxpayers. Some say parents can “vote with their feet” and withdraw their children, but what about taxpayers who don’t have children in that school? They still have to pay taxes for that school. In New Orleans, all the schools are charter schools, so the people there are disenfranchised with respect to the schools.
I rarely defend the current public school system, but at least the structure is compatible with representative government. The people elect the school board, and the school board makes education decisions for the district. If the people are dissatisfied, they can elect different school board members. I admit, in reality different political interests tug in multiple directions and a sort of stalemate often occurs, but the structure still honors representative government. In the Charter school system the parents’ voting input is so indirect that they are effectively out of the governance structure.
Many people think charter schools are akin to a free-market option. If the government is funding the school and controlling the curriculum, how can it be a free market option?
Please read Anita Hoge’s commentary, “Common Core, Choice, and Charter Schools.” Please be aware that even though the Obama administration is directing the development of Charter Schools, as well as promoting the Common Core and data collection, these concepts have been promoted by people from both parties for decades.