Obama Administration Doubles Down On Federal Overreach In Education

If Race to the Top was NCLB Jr., the latest proposal put forth by Tom Harkin in the Senate at the behest of the Obama administration is NCLB III: Revenge of the Data Trackers:

No Child, which is the most recent version of the half-century-old Elementary and Secondary Education Act, has been up for reauthorization since 2007. Mr. Harkin’s 1,150-page bill, which was described in a statement issued by the education committee as an effort to get “the federal government out of the business of ‘micromanaging’ schools,” received moderate praise from some quarters and drew criticism from the left, the right and overlapping groups in between.

The bill faces an uphill climb. Although it is co-sponsored by fellow Democrats on the education committee, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the ranking Republican on the committee, will introduce a competing version this week. The bill would also have to pass a fractured House. 

Jim Jeffries, a spokesman for Mr. Alexander, said that Mr. Harkin’s bill was “congested” with federal mandates and that Mr. Alexander’s bill “will get Washington out of the business of deciding whether schools and teachers are succeeding or failing.” 

At its core, Mr. Harkin’s bill retains the most controversial plank of the current law: the requirement that states test all students in reading and math every year from third through eighth grades and once in high school. Schools must report test scores, and how different groups, including racial minorities, students with disabilities and those learning the English language, perform against annual goals.

Educators and parents have complained that No Child Left Behind focuses too narrowly on standardized tests and then prescribes stringent consequences for schools that failed to hit benchmarks. 

Mr. Harkin’s bill would allow states to use portfolios or projects as well as standardized tests to assess students. And in contrast to current law, which requires states to choose from a short menu of turnaround measures like closing schools or firing staff members at schools labeled failing, Mr. Harkin’s bill gives states and districts more flexibility to devise their own supports for all but the most struggling schools. 

The bill would require states to base student assessments on “college and career ready” academic standards for reading, math and science. Already, 45 states and the District of Columbia have adopted the Common Core, a set of standards that outline what each student should learn from kindergarten through high school.

In other words, every state must use the Common Core, the testing madness continues, the data tracking madness continues, and states must use "student performance measures" in teacher evaluations.

Meet the new NCLB III, same as NCLB Jr. and the ESEA waivers.

Critics of the new proposal abound:

But some critics said the bill remained too tough. “To say that this bill provides flexibility is laughable,” said Michael J. Petrilli, executive vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education policy group, who said states should be allowed to decide how to rate schools. “Let states do it differently, and let’s find out how it works.” 

Groups that have pushed to roll back high-stakes testing were also deeply disappointed. “The Senate bill fails to undo the damage caused by No Child Left Behind to teachers and students and schools,” said Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing.

The bill has no shot of being passed into law.