Senate Democrats Push For Federal Guidelines On "Student Achievement," Teacher Evals Tied To Test Scores

Tom Harkin doing the bidding of Barack Obama and Arne Duncan:

Until recently, U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, the chairman of the Senate education committee, and Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, the panel's top Republican, were in talks to see if there was any chance of getting a bipartisan bill to reauthorize the long-stalled No Child Left Behind Act together in this Congress. But now it's looking like the two lawmakers were unable to resolve fundamental disagreements, making an already very tough reauthorization process that much harder.

The reason: philosophical differences on a couple of key areas that scuttled the chance at bipartisanship between the chairman and ranking member, advocates and congressional aides say. Perhaps the biggest area of disagreement? Harkin would like to see states set goals for student achievement as they now must under the NCLB waivers granted by the U.S. Department of Education. (That's a big change from legislation he supported in the previous Congress.) Meanwhile, Alexander sees that as too much federal intrusion, advocates say.

In including a requirement that states set student-achievement goals in the bill, Harkin is hoping that he can help build on the momentum of the waivers, which are now in place in 34 states and the District of Columbia, a Senate Democratic aide said. The administration had outlined the criteria for the waivers when the committee considered the bill back in 2011, but states hadn't yet applied.

...

Back in 2011, the Senate education committee approved a bill, which Alexander reluctantly supported, that essentially didn't include achievement targets—and got absolutely clobbered by business groups and the civil rights community, including groups representing students in special education, who have long seen Harkin as a champion.

Goals were a sensitive issue even during committee consideration of the bill. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., introduced an amendment that would have called for states to set goals for student achievement that are similar to the parameters spelled out in the administration's ESEA waivers. But he then withdrew it so the bill could move forward without dealing with the super-sticky issue.

What's more, the still-under-discussion measure will likely call for states to create teacher evaluation systems based in part on student achievement, as they must now under the waivers. The goal will be to bolster teacher professional development, the Democratic aide said. The focus will be on supporting professionals in the classroom with the meaningful feedback and targeted professional development they need, the aide added.

Teacher evaluation was another major sticking point last time. When the Harkin bill was first introduced as a draft in 2011, it included a provision that would have required states and districts to craft teacher-evaluation systems based in part on student achievement. But Republicans (including Alexander) saw that provision as too much of a federal intrusion and worked to get the language out of the bill. Needless to say, the National Education Association was pretty happy about that development, and Democrats on the committee were spared from having to choose between supporting the NEA and voting with Harkin and the administration. This is an issue to watch again this time around. 

Obama and Duncan are trying to keep their test-based teacher evaluations/RttT/Common Core juggernaut going.

But this bill, even if it gets out of the Senate (which is unlikely), isn't going anywhere in the House.

I voted for Obama the first time around and still regret that vote.

Every time I see his latest education proposal, I regret that vote more and more.

It is clear that Obama and Duncan are never going to walk away from their test-based teacher evaluations/RttT/Comon Core policies.

These are their signature policies and they are going to remain with them until the bitter end.