NAEP Scores Fall, Arne Duncan Says Nothing To See Here

Heckuva job education reformers:

For the first time since 1990, the mathematical skills of American students have dropped, according to results of a nationwide test released by the Education Department on Wednesday.

The decline appeared in both Grades 4 and 8 in an exam administered every two years as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and sometimes called “the nation’s report card.” 

The dip in scores comes as the country’s employers demand workers with ever-stronger skills in mathematics to compete in a global economy. It also comes as states grapple with the new Common Core academic standards and a rebellion against them.

Progress in reading, which has been generally more muted than in math for decades, also stalled this year as scores among fourth graders flat-lined and eighth-grade scores decreased. The exams assess a representative sampling of students on math and reading skills in public and private schools.

 And of course reformers have all sorts of excuses for why the scores dropped:

“It’s obviously bad news,” said Michael J. Petrilli, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning education policy group in Washington. “We don’t want to see scores going in this direction.”

“That doesn’t mean we should completely freak out,” he added. “This could be a one-time variation, and maybe we’ll see things come back next time. But if it were the beginning of a new trend, it would be quite disappointing and disturbing.”

And:

“It’s not unusual when you see lots of different things happening in classrooms to first see a slight decline before you see improvement,” said William J. Bushaw, the executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policies and achievement levels for the tests.

Arne Duncan claims there's nothing to worry about here, that the scores indicate nothing about the efficacy of his reform agenda, that his education reform policies will eventually show big dividends on the NAEP in the "long term," but Carol Burris says he's wrong:

It is difficult to see any real growth across the board since 2011, with math scores backsliding to 2009 levels, eighth-grade reading flat for four years, and a small uptick in fourth-grade reading that is not a significant increase from 2013, which, in turn, was not significantly different from 2011.

Considering that the rationale for the Common Core State Standards initiative was low NAEP proficiency rates, it would appear that the solution of tough standards and tough tests is not the great path forward after all. For those who say it is too early to use NAEP to judge the Common Core, I would remind them that in 2013, Education Secretary Arne Duncan used NAEP increases to do a victory dance about the states that had already implemented the Core at that time—and I never heard any reformer complain.

Two years ago, Duncan attributed  Tennessee’s, Hawaii’s and the District of Columbia’s NAEP score increases to their enthusiastic adoption of Race to the Top. Likewise, he attributed increases in Kentucky, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi and North Carolina to their early embrace of the Common Core.

This year, the District of Columbia and Mississippi had fourth-grade score gains in mathematics, but the rest of Duncan’s superstars had mathematics scores that dropped or were flat. All of Arne’s superstar states had eighth-grade scores that dropped or did not budge.

The District of Columbia, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina had score gains in fourth-grade reading this year, but so did states like Oklahoma and Vermont that have resisted Race to the Top reforms. And in Grade 8 reading, all of Duncan’s superstars had scores that were flat or took a dive.

Colorado, a state that recently received high praise from Bill and Melinda Gates for its implementation of corporate reforms, had reading scores that were flat and math scores that significantly dropped.

NAEP scores were not the only disappointment this year. A few months ago, we saw a significant drop in SAT scores—7 points in one year alone.

Although NAEP and the SAT were not designed to align to the Common Core, they measure what the Common Core Standards were supposed to improve—the literacy and numeracy of our nation’s students. Considering the billions of dollars spent on these reforms, one would expect at least some payoff by now.

As usual with education reformers, there is no accountability for the mess.

Falling SAT and NAEP scores - but hey, it's all good.

Just wait - you'll see improvement in another ten years or so.

Sure we will.

Opt Out Parents Will Not Be Fooled By Rhetoric Shifts On Testing

The Obama administration issues some meaningless rhetoric yesterday about there being too much emphasis on testing in schools, an announcement that was hailed in some quarters (e.g., the professional shill class - the unions) and met with skepticism in others (e.g., many parents and teachers in the blogosphere and twitterverse.)

Here at Perdido Street School the announcement was met with a shrug.

The testing cap the Obama administration talked about yesterday (limiting testing to 2% of school time) is meaningless so long as teachers and schools are rated and either fired or closed based upon test scores.

Educrats can put some arbitrary cap in place all they want - the insane emphasis on testing and test prep will remain so long as the tests are used as bludgeons against teachers and schools.

And in fact, the Obama administration has ensured that teachers will be rated via test scores because they threatened to take NCLB waivers away from any state that didn't follow that Obama administration dictate on test score-based teacher evaluations - and did take away Washington State's waiver for not following it.

So the Obama educrats can talk about seeing the light on testing all they want - their actions speak much differently than their words and show that the emphasis on testing is not changing at all.

Same goes with Governor Andrew "I will break the public school monopoly" Cuomo in New York State.

Cuomo hailed the announcement on testing yesterday even as has moved to increase the weight of test scores in teacher evaluations to 50% and put into place a receivership program that hands schools that are "struggling" on their test scores to charter school operators.

In addition, Cuomo refused to let his test-centric teacher evaluation system be part of his Common Core review, ensuring that no changes would come to the system (even though it's currently being challenged in court because of irrational swings in the test score component.)

Like Obama, Cuomo says one thing about testing but contradicts those words with his actions.

The Endless Testing regime lives on despite the rhetoric shifts from the Obama and Cuomo administrations.

Politicians think voters are stupid and easily misled but as Chris Cerrone pointed out yesterday, this is not so with opt out parents:

#optout parents are VIGILANT. We know what changes must occur to our children's education. pic.twitter.com/yNisLOngmI

— Chris Cerrone (@Stoptesting15) October 24, 2015

The politicians and educrats are trying to knock off the number of test opt outs by issuing some meaningless rhetoric around testing, but we will NOT be fooled by their words.

The proof will be in what happens in schools - and currently, the insane emphasis on testing remains because tests continue to be used as bludgeons against both teachers and schools.

Don't Believe The Obama Administration Jive On Capping Testing Time (UPDATED - 3:35 PM)

From the "We caused it - now we're trying to walk it back without really walking it back" file:

Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often high-stakes testing in the nation’s public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful.

... 

“I still have no question that we need to check at least once a year to make sure our kids are on track or identify areas where they need support,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, who has said he will leave office in December. “But I can’t tell you how many conversations I’m in with educators who are understandably stressed and concerned about an overemphasis on testing in some places and how much time testing and test prep are taking from instruction.

“It’s important that we’re all honest with ourselves,” he continued. “At the federal, state and local level, we have all supported policies that have contributed to the problem in implementation. We can and will work with states, districts and educators to help solve it.”

So long as teachers and schools are rated based upon test scores, the "cap" on testing time the Obama administration educrats talk about is meaningless.

In New York State, teachers currently have 20% of their ratings based upon state test scores (even if they don't teach classes that end with state tests) and 20% based upon so-called "local assessment" measures that may be state test data crunched a different way.

Last spring Governor "I want to break the public school monopoly" Cuomo shoved through a reiteration of the evaluation system tied to school funding that increases the weight of state test scores to 50% because not enough teachers were being rated ineffective and fired under the old system.

In addition, he shoved through a school receivership plan that forces "persistently struggling schools" to increase their test scores in one year and "struggling schools" to increase their test scores in two years or be taken over by the state.

With such a test-centric environment (one that was absolutely encouraged by the Obama administration's Race to the Top program and their NCLB waiver system), the Obama educrats can call for a cap on testing time all they want - nothing about the system will change so long as the scores are used to fire teachers and close schools.

In any case, the administration isn't going to put out "guidelines" until January on the testing changes, so for now all we have is some meaningless rhetoric that may excite Randi Weingarten but will have little practical effect on what happens to all the overtesting that is currently going on in schools.

In short, the Endless Testing regime continues no matter the Obama administration public relations statements.

UPDATED - 3:35 PM: Peter Greene points out in comments that the Obama administration has hawked this testing cap gambit before. 

He's got a new post analyzing today's announcement and finds they're

offering pointless PR nuggets and avoiding the real discussion, which is why, exactly, we need the BS Tests at all, and what possible justification there is for using the BS Tests to measure, rank and rate students, teachers or schools.

But the tests are a "civil right," don'tcha know?

Poughkeepsie Goes National: John King Replacing Arne Duncan Is A Fabulous Idea

Norm at Ed Notes nails this:

Happy Days for Opponents of Ed Deform: John King Replaces Arne Duncan

Call the King appointment "Building the national opt-out movement one education secretary at a time."

While some of our troops in the battle against ed deform, particularly those in NY State where King served as state ed commissioner, have been tearing a their hair and rending their clothing at Duncan's replacement - ACTING, I offer cheers for the man who had such an impact in fostering NY State in having the largest opt out movement in the entire nation with 20% opting out (Let's pray for a doubling - or more - this year.)

King threw much kindling on the opt out fire while he was here in New York, there's no reason to think he won't succeed similarly on a national stage.

Would also note, just another example of the hubris of the education reformers that they keep recycling the same faces and shuffling them around (Cerf, King, Elia, et al.)

John King To Become Acting Secretary Of Education

Continuing the theme that there is no failure an education reformer cannot fail upward from:

President Obama will tap former New York Education Commissioner John King to become the acting secretary of education, replacing Arne Duncan, who is stepping down at the end of the year. 

King, a Brooklyn native, was the youngest education commissioner in New York history, having been appointed to the post at the age of 36 in 2011 by the Board of Regents.

King’s background is in leading charter school organizations and was the co-founder and co-director of Roxbury Preparatory Charter School.

His tenure at the Department of Education was a rocky one: The roll out of the controversial Common Core education standards was criticized by both parents and the state’s teachers unions. Gov. Andrew Cuomo also was critical of the Department of Education’s handling of the implementation of the standards.

King left for the Obama administration at the end of 2014 to serve as a special advisor to Duncan.

A rocky tenure at NYSED?

That's an understatement.

Cuomo has blamed NYSED for the half-assed Common Core implementation - that was fully King's purview at SED.

Nice thing is, now he can take all that expertise at failing and bring it to the nation at large.

MaryEllen Elia Loses No Matter What She Does With The Opt Out "Problem"

NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has twice said there may be consequences for high opt out rates, last week saying there could be "ramifications" and this week saying she was working with the feds on a possible sanction plan for schools and/or districts with high opt out numbers.

The NY Times reports this morning that considering the politics around punishing schools/districts for parents who opt their children out from the state tests, she may just be talking empty threats.

The NY Times report notes that Elia tried to "walk a fine line" over the issue:

“I do think it’s good for kids to take the assessments,” she said. “I don’t think that it necessarily is good for kids to have resources taken away that should be supporting them in their classrooms.”

The Times also reports that Elia says she has no plan for what to do with districts with high opt rates:

Ms. Elia said that federal officials had asked her what her plan was for dealing with districts that had large numbers students opting out, and that she did not have one. But she said she would be speaking to superintendents and seeking to understand why districts with similar demographics had very different opt-out rates.

The truth is, if the feds force the state to impose sanctions or Elia herself decides to punish districts for high opt out rates, more fuel will be thrown onto the fire:

If state education officials “think parents are unhappy with them now, just wait until they take money away from school districts,” Loy Gross, co-founder of a test refusal group called United to Counter the Core, said.

Regardless of whether sanctions are imposed onto schools/districts for high opt out rates or not, parent leaders in the Opt Out movement are looking to expand the movement again next year:

Elaine Coleman, a parent in Yonkers who is active in opt-out and anti-Common Core groups, said she had already begun planning expanding the movement next year. “We’re hoping we’ll get double the number,” she said.

In 2014, 5% of students eligible to take the state tests opted out.

In 2015, 20% of students eligible to take the state tests opted out.

That's a clear trend line there, and state and federal officials are in a bind with what to do about it. 

The reality is, if they impose sanctions, they are going to increase the anger parents and teachers have toward the unelected educrats imposing an unpopular testing regime onto the children and schools of this state, but if they don't impose sanctions, the word is out - opt your children out next year because there's nothing they will do about it.

This problem could be solved if the federal and state educrats and the politicians who back them would come down off the Mount and stop dictating and imposing policies and instead legitimately consult with parents and teachers about education policy.

But in the oligarchy that is 2015 America, that kind of thing doesn't happen.

Instead educrats like Elia are tasked with carrying out the oligarchical agenda paid for by Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg and a whole host of Wall Street and hedge fund wealthy people irrespective of what parents or teachers think or feel about that agenda.

In effect, Elia loses no matter what she does here.

If she imposes sanctions, she will increase the anger toward her and NYSED exponentially and get some of what former NYSED Commissioner John King got at Poughkeepsie.

But if she doesn't impose sanctions, the message is plain for all to see - the state does not have the will to back up their threats over the state's testing regime.

I suspect she will look for a more middle course, where she says no sanctions will happen this year, in part because she wasn't around when the state tests were given, but next year, if opt out remains a problem, here is a specific and detailed plan for what will happen to schools/districts with high opt out rates.

But we'll see - that kind of approach is dangerous too, as it still risks fanning the flames of anger of parents who feel disenfranchised from their own children's education.

Frankly, I think it couldn't happen to a more deserving person that she be stuck between in a rock and a hard place with no good options.

That way, MaryEllen Elia gets to feel what many parents and teachers feel about the current education policies imposed upon them by educrats like herself.

Arne Duncan Blames Adults For Causing "Test Trauma" In Children

The tone deafness coming from the educrats on testing continues with this doozy, courtesy of Gotham Schools:

Duncan also said that students in some states are tested too much, and acknowledged that the exams are challenging for many students. But he argued that annual standardized exams are essential for tracking student progress and monitoring the score gap between different student groups. 

He also said the tests are “just not a traumatic event” for his children, who attend public school in Virginia. 

“It’s just part of most kids’ education growing up,” he said. “Sometimes the adults make a big deal and that creates some trauma for the kids.”

Duncan said if states don't get parents to stop opting their children out of state tests, the feds "will have an obligation to step in.”

Couple points to make here:

First, considering that Duncan once blamed "soccer moms" whose kids "are not as brilliant as they thought" for opposition to the Common Core, we shouldn't be surprised that Duncan is scapegoating parents over the opt-out movement.

His argument is ridiculous, of course.

Given that these tests are now used to close schools and fire teachers, his argument that the tests are "just a part of most kids' education growing up" doesn't hold water anymore.

Before No Child Left Behind, before Race to the Top, that argument may have held some water.

But since then, there are so many high stakes attached to these tests for school districts, schools, individual teachers and even children themselves (remember when Bloomberg used the tests for class advancement?), that this argument that they're "just tests" leaks more water than the Titanic as it was going down.

Testing anxiety is rife throughout the system and while educrats and politicians want to blame adults for making a big deal over these tests when they say there is no big deal, the children know from all the anxiety that adults have over the scores that they are a very big deal indeed.

That's what happens when you take a couple of days of testing and make the existence of a school or the career of a teacher contingent upon the scores.

Second point to make here:

Duncan is not the only educrat/politician to make this argument that the tests are no big deal - so did NY State Senate finance committee chair, John DeFrancisco:

“Quite frankly, I grew up at a time—I’m ancient. If I wouldn’t take a test, … my father would have whacked me on the side of the head.” [PRO] http://capi.tl/1zHV9TM

Is the Senator suggesting that's what parents should do now to their children who don't want to take the Common Core tests, "whack" them "on the side of the head"?

That's a bit unclear, but one thing is clear - DeFransciso, like Duncan, is trying to minimize the overtesting and test anxiety issues and make it seem like a bunch of cry babies just won't do what they're supposed to do and make their kids take the tests.

Now maybe this will be a winning argument for educrats like Duncan or politicians like DeFransciso, but frankly, I doubt it.

It's more likely that the parents who are opting their children out of the state tests will see this rhetoric for what it is - a desperate attempt to infantilize the opposition movement to the Endless Testing regime in order to keep the education reform train chugging on a little longer.

I suggest you call DeFrancsico and ask his office if the Senator is suggesting parents commit child abuse on their children in order to make them take their tests.

That certainly is one interpretation of the statement he made.

As for Duncan, he's irrelevant at this point.  He's a lame duck educrat in a lame duck administration that sunsets a year and a half from now.

But the politicians and educrats in Albany who continue to try and infantlize opposition to education reform must be dealt political prices to pay for their dirty work - and that includes DeFransciso and his "whack" statement.

So Long As Tests Are Used For High Stakes, Endless Test Prep In Schools Will Continue

Secretary of Education Privatization Arne Duncan plans to "draw a line in the sand" in a speech calling for a NCLB revision, demanding that students still be tested every year in math and reading (3rd-8th grade) and he's going to add three tests in science during those years.

But it is said Duncan will call for an end to "unnecessary tests" in his speech:

Duncan won't back away from policies the Obama administration has embraced from the get-go. Those include investing in teacher quality—and teacher evaluations; a state-federal partnership on accountability akin to the NCLB waivers the administration granted; and, yes, maintaining NCLB's annual summative tests. As he's said before, Duncan sees annual statewide assessments as an important part of the picture when it comes to ensuring that all students, especially disadvantaged kids, are making academic progress.

...

The secretary is open to changes in how standardized tests are used. The administration also wants to allow states to incorporate measures other than test scores into their accountability systems—flexibility that's largely already offered to states through the NCLB waivers (even though many haven't taken advantage of it).

And the secretary wants to ensure that states and districts aren't going overboard with a lot of unnecessary or redundant tests, something he's signaled before by applauding efforts by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the Council of the Great City Schools to help their members take a hard look at their assessment systems and weed out unnecessary or low-quality tests.

Okay, here's the deal.

So long as state tests are used for high stakes decisions to close schools, evaluate teachers, etc., an unhealthy emphasis on testing and test prep will remain in operation.

That's the deal.

Duncan and other ed deformers can say "Oh, we want to lessen testing by getting rid of unnecessary tests or "low-quality tests" (whatever the hell that means - as far as I an tell, they're all "low-quality"), but the truth is, so long as state tests are used to bludgeon teachers, close schools, etc., there will be an inordinate amount of time, energy, and resources spent on making sure as many students as possible pass the state tests.

That means the Era of Endless Test Prep will continue unabated in most schools despite Duncan's call for an end to "unnecessary tests."

And btw, the Education Privatization Secretary knows this, as do all the other reformers calling for an end to "unnecessary tests."

Duncan is trying to respond to the growing anti-testing movement, but he's simply paying lip service to it and not really listening.

Deformers need the testing to continue as high stakes because this is the weapon they use to destroy schools, teachers and public education.

You can see that in New York, where Cuomo complained about the Common Core roll-out and hammered NYSED and the Board of Regents over it, but still used the CCSS test scores as proof positive for why teachers suck and need to be fired.

Deformers need the tests to remain and they need the high stakes to remain to carry out their destructive plans to "break" the public school "monopoly."

It's a cynical ploy by Duncan and other deformers here to call for an end to "unnecessary tests" when they know that really won't change the obsessive testing culture in the system at all.

They need to be called on that cynical ploy.

Obama's Cynical Ploys On Education

From ABC News:

Free community college for all. 

Conversation-starter? Definitely. Political possibility? Not any time soon. 

President Obama unveiled the idea in a video posted to Facebook on Thursday night, then pitched it publicly at an event Friday in Knoxville, Tenn. 

"Community colleges should be free for those willing to work for it," Obama told a crowd at Pellissippi State Community College. "It's not a blank check, not a free lunch, but for those willing to do the work…it can be a game changer." 

The president called a community college education one of the "central pathways to the middle class." 

While certainly ambitious, the idea currently lacks a total price tag, proposed legislation, and Republican support on Capitol Hill. 

But the White House says that’s beside the point at this stage. 

The president merely hopes “to start a conversation,” Obama domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz told reporters. 

The administration said the plan would cost the federal government an estimated $60 billion over 10 years, in addition to tens of billions of dollars in commitments from the states. The Republican Congress would need to pass legislation approving funding. State governments would need to each act as well. 

Details on how the Obama envisions covering the federal cost remain a mystery.

Not a chance in hell this proposal is happening.

That's why the administration hasn't really put together a plan to make it happen - they know doing so would be a waste of time and resources.

It's a cynical PR ploy, that's all.

It's a shame that the president and his merry men and women in reform have decided to engage in cynical PR ploys because it's worthy idea that should and perhaps could be implemented (if the administration had laid the groundwork for it.)

But Obama, Duncan and the rest of the administration have made enemies on both sides of the political spectrum, especially on education issues.

On Monday, Duncan is supposed to call for the "repeal" of No Child Left Behind (though he'll demand many of the onerous parts of the law - like annual testing in grades 3-8 - remain.)

That too is a cynical ploy.

It's not a "repeal" when you demand much of the old law stay when you "repeal" it.

Next time Obama accuses his critics of not being serious about stuff, remember the community college plan he suggested that he has no intention of trying to enact but does want to use to juice his numbers with young people.

Same goes for his NCLB "repeal" that keeps much of the onerous (and odious) parts of the law in place.

Don't Expect The Agenda At Merryl Tisch's Board Of Regents To Change

Behind a paywall at Capital NY, but the title says enough:

Tisch: King's Selection Affirms Board Agenda

Tisch makes it sound like Arne Duncan taking John King to the USDOE is some sign from the heavens that the corporate education reform agenda she's pursuing is the right one.

It's not.

It's like one part of the education reform team moving a player over to the other part of the education reform team - that's all.

Not that this is a surprise, but you can bet the Regents, in their secret process to find King's replacement, will look for somebody who will carry on like King, just without the public meltdowns with parents or the incompetence with the CCSS rollout and the charter school approvals.

Goodbye To Race To The Top

It's Monday, but this should make you smile:

WASHINGTON – Opponents of Common Core standards for K-12 students will be happy that the fiscal 2015 budget bill Congress is expected to send to President Barack Obama by Monday morning would defund the administration's Race to the Top program.

It's official, folks.

Barack Obama is a lame duck, Arne Duncan's political juice has dried up and outgoing NYSED Commissioner John King sure isn't going to change any of that.

While the defunding of RttT doesn't change much of the educational insanity we have in New York courtesy of Andrew Cuomo and Merryl Tisch, it is one more reminder that as bad as things look in public education, there's sometimes a little something to make you smile.

And I gotta tell you, nothing makes me smile as much as hearing that Barack Obama's signature education reform program has just lost its funding.

Was Poughkeepsie The Beginning Of The End For NYSED Commissioner John King?

Poughkeepsie may have been the first ring of the death knell for King's career here in New York.

It was after Poughkeepsie that Regents Chancellor Tisch had to babysit him in future town halls and Governor Cuomo threw him under the bus when he criticized the NYSED implementation of Common Core that had so many parents, students and teachers around the state up in arms.

The "Dr" Ted Morris fiasco late last month, when it was revealed that King's NYSED gave a charter school to a con man who had lied about his credentials and work experience, may have been the last straw for King.

Regents Chancellor Tisch washed her hands of the mess and blamed SED fornot properly vetting "Dr" Ted and his false credentials.

There should be no tears for King, of course - he's failing upwards to the Obama administration where he and Arne Duncan will do their best to enshrine the Obama education reforms for the next decade despite an incoming GOP House and Senate hostile to that agenda.

After that, he'll cash in as a consultant for Gates, Broad, the Waltons or some other ed deform oligarch - maybe he'll even join Joel Klein at Rupert Murdoch's for profit education wing of News Corporation.

But make no mistake, King is being pushed out at NYSED, perhaps by Governor Cuomo alone, perhaps by Governor Cuomo, Regents Chancellor Tisch and Assembly Speaker Silver together.

It was first reported that he would be named deputy secretary to Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, but fearing a Senate confirmation battle, King will not be granted that title in the Obama administration.

He will instead be given the title "senior adviser" to Duncan, a job that does not entail confirmation.

It is possible it's just an accident that King is getting a title that skirts confirmation and accountability to the masses, but it's probably not.

Just as King saw himself above it all here in New York, he will be above it all in D.C. too.

No accountability for the Accountability Man.

In the end, his refusal to be accountable as NYSED Commissioner may have been the last straw for the people in power here.

They don't want to be held accountable any more than King does, but after a string of high profile screw-ups like the Common Core Core rollout Cuomo criticized, the Poughkeepsie meltdown and the "Dr" Ted charter school fiasco, sometimes somebody has to be the scapegoat.

King was low man on the power pole - so out he went.

Still, as I wrote about above, weep not for John King.

Say what you will about the education reform movement, but they always take care of their own.

Thus the gig at the Obama US Department of Education.

NYSED Commissioner John King Resigning Post, Heading To Obama Administration

Here's some interesting news:

State Education Commissioner John King, who has had a tumultuous tenure since he was unanimously appointed by the Board of Regents in May 2011, is poised to announce he’s leaving for a job in the Obama administration, TWC News has confirmed.

The commissioner will be taking a job as the second-in-command at the US Department of Education, headed by Arne Duncan.

Given that the Obama administration is out of steam with its education initiatives, especially with a Republican Congress coming into power that looks like it will defund Race to the Top, the Common Core testing consortia and a host of other Obama reform programs, it's hard to know why exactly King is leaving NYSED for the USDOE.

It's not like there's going to be a whole host of reformy things for Kingsie and Arne to do together in these last two years of the administration.

Still, bon voyage, John - don't let the door hit you on the way out.

And don't worry, you'll be able to find a school that doesn't have Common Core for your kids to attend in DC.

Maybe the same school Obama sends his kids to?

More later.

Obama Looks To Keep His Education Policies In Place Long After He's Out Of Office

Obama looks to lock in Common Core, high stakes testing and teacher evaluations tied to test scores long past the sunset on the Obama administration:

The Obama administration is inviting states to apply to renew their waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act. And according to guidance issued Thursday, these renewed waivers could last all the way through the 2018-2019 school year -- locking down some of President Barack Obama's education policy changes well into the next presidency.

The new guidelines don't radically change the criteria for escaping the law's strictures. According to an Education Department document, states will have to ensure that schools cannot receive top ratings for accountability if they are not closing "significant achievement or graduation rate gaps" between different groups of students. Some states have struggled to keep promises they made under the 2011 waiver guidelines to improve low-performing schools. Under the new guidance, states must update their lists of such schools "to ensure that interventions are being implemented in the lowest-performing schools."

Beyond that, a state must continue to show "how it will continue to ensure all students graduate from high school ready for college and a career, through implementation of college- and career-ready standards and high-quality aligned assessments," the new guidelines say. Many states have satisfied this waiver requirement by adopting the Common Core State Standards, a controversial set of learning standards that formally define what students need to know in English language arts and math by the end of each academic year. Oklahoma dropped Common Core earlier this year, and lost its waiver in August as a result.

States must also continue to show that they are implementing teacher evaluations that take student performance into account, as they promised when they initially joined the program. Washington state lost its waiver for failing to comply with this directive.

Peter Greene took on the news at Curmudgucation:

The new guidelines are essentially like the old guidelines, with a hard line emphasis on basing evaluation of teachers, schools, students, principals, bus drivers, landscaping artists and the guy who delivers paper supplies to the school on standardized tests. It was just a month ago that Duncan was shrugging his shoulders and saying, "Dang. I don't know why the heck everyone got so obsessed with testy stuff. I guess it was all of us, huh?" Now he's back to "You will all eat, breathe, live and die by the tests. Or else."

For Obama-watchers, there is no surprise in this news.

There was no way the Obama administration was going to back away from CCSS, high stakes testing, teacher evaluations tied to test scores and all the other ed reforms they brought to fruition.

Sure, Arne Duncan paid lip service to over-testing concerns.

But he was jiving - this is the Ed Sec who never saw a test he didn't like or a test score that wasn't the responsibility of a teacher.

So now they're looking to impose the Obama ed policies long after Obama and Duncan will be gone from the scene.

Obama is looking to do the same with his immigration policies.

There's been a huge outcry over Obama using executive orders to bypass Congress.

It will be interesting to see if the NCLB waiver renewals Obama and Duncan want in place through 2018 or 2019 cause the same furor.

They surely ought to, as Neal McCluskey at Cato points out:

If the outcry over unilateral executive moves we’ve seen over the last few years remains consistent, Obamacare and immigration are likely to keep sucking up most of Republicans’ attention and the media’s coverage. But just as sweeping have been executive waivers issued from the hated No Child Left Behind Act – really the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – that have been instrumental in connecting numerous states to, among other things, the Common Core national curriculum standards. And yesterday, the Education Department issued guidance offering states the chance to obtain waivers – if they do the administration’s bidding, of course – lasting well into the term of the next president: the 2018-19 school year.

These waivers are almost certainly illegal – even a Congressional Research Service report often cited to suggest the opposite says they are unprecedented in scope and, hence, an untested case – and even if they are not deemed technically illegal, the reality is they still amount to the executive department unilaterally making law. NCLB does grant the Secretary of Education the authority to issue waivers from many parts of the Act, but it grants no authority to condition those waivers on states adopting administration-preferred policies. Indeed, as University of South Carolina law professor Derek W. Black writes in a recent analysis of waivers, not only does NCLB not authorize conditional waivers, even if a court were to read any waiver authorization as implicitly authorizing conditions, the actual conditions attached – “college- and career-ready standards,” new teacher evaluations, etc. – fundamentally change the law. In fact the changes, Black notes, are essentially what the administration proposed in its 2010 “blueprint” to reauthorize NCLB. And quite simply, the executive fundamentally changing a law is not constitutional.

The latest waiver guidance goes beyond even the toxic status quo. Not only is the President using his vaunted pen and phone to unilaterally make education law, but law that would continue well into his successor’s term. It is a very dangerous move that, quite frankly, deserves at least as much alarmed coverage as Obamacare waivers and immigration actions. If for no other reason, because the action is moving us swiftly toward a de facto federal curriculum. In other words, direct control over what the vast majority of the nation’s children learn.

Federal power can’t get much more invasive than that.

Nope, it really can't.

The Obama administration has picked up where the Bush administration left off with their authoritarianism.  

Imposing policies, laws and the will of Congress (or the people) be damned.

Some Good News Out Of The Election - Race To The Top Is Probably Not Long For This World

A Republican-controlled House and Senate is almost certain to try and dump the Obama education agenda, including Race to the Top and the school turnaround program:

Conservatives will almost certainly use the budget process to try to eliminate the Obama administration's favorite competitive-grant programs, such as Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation, and the School Improvement Grant program. GOP lawmakers in the House have tried for the past few years to scrap those programs, but Senate Democrats have always championed them in budget negotiations.

Conservatives will undoubtedly push school choice and vouchers.

But we may also see a NCLB Jr. bill come to the president's desk that gets rid of some of the more controlling features of NCLB Sr:

 Alexander, a former U.S. Secretary of Education under President George H.W. Bush, has already laid out his education priorities, which include overhauling the NCLB law and tackling higher education legislation.

...

The starting point for Alexander would be a bill he introduced last year to renew the NCLB law. The plan garnered support from every GOP member of the committee, but didn't get a single Democratic cosponsor.

The measure would significantly scale back the federal role in K-12 policy, allowing states to devise their own accountability plans, among other things. As under the current law, schools would be required to test students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school, and report the results, including for subgroups of students, such as English-language learners and those in special education.

Obama won't want to sign anything like this into law even if it comes to his desk, so what we may end up with over the next two years is gridlock on these issues.

But if Lamar Alexander is going to push for more local control of schools, put a leash on Arne Duncan and his USDOE goons, scale back the accountability measures set by the feds and let states do some of their own setting, well, I'm all for that.

And if Alexander and his fellow Republicans kill RttT and the turnaround program, well, I'm all for that too.

The way politics works these says, especially around education issues, there's no red vs. blue dichotomy that works for me any more.

I may not support choice and vouchers as the GOP will push in this next session.

But I surely can support some of the other items on Alexander's list.

And if he goes after Common Core, well, I'm all for that too.

We'll see if these GOPers put their money where their mouths are on these issues.

After all, there are some corporations that stand to lose millions if education policy changes.

But if they do follow through on some of that stuff like getting rid of RttT and the turnaround program, I can get on board with that.

Howie Hawkins: Get Rid Of Common Core - And Standardized Testing

Here's why I am supporting Howie Hawkins for governor in next month's election:

ALBANY—Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins has entered the fight among liberals and conservatives over which side is more opposed to the Common Core standards.

Hawkins, during a conference call with reporters on Monday morning, said he wants New York to ditch the curriculum standards that New York adopted with the majority of U.S. states. But he also wants to get rid of statewide standards—and standardized testing—altogether, a position that he says sets him apart from his Republican opponent, Rob Astorino, who is running on a third-party line entitled “Stop Common Core.”

“My position is we need to opt out of Common Core because it’s dumbing down education,” Hawkins said. “It’s forcing our teachers to teach to the test. That whole high-stakes testing regime, which is part of Common Core, is a big drain on time and money in schools.

“We should let the local teachers and parents and school boards make the decisions about standards, curriculum and assessment,” he continued.

When asked about Astorino, Hawkins said: “He’s talking about setting up our own standardized assessments in New York. I think we’ve got to get away from that and let the teachers teach.”

During that conference call, a reporter noted that many of the state tests are part of a federal mandate:

“If the law says you gotta do it, you gotta do it,” Hawkins said, responding to a question about the federal requirements. “But we are adding to the tests by opting into the Race to the Top money.”

Hawkins' reference was to the Obama administration’s signature education initiative, a grant competition through which New York won $700 million in 2010. The funds required the state to adopt curriculum standards that aimed to boost college- and career-readiness, such as the Common Core.

The grant program also required New York to develop a statewide teacher-evaluation system that rates educators partly based on students' test scores. The evaluation system has resulted in more local testing in some districts, although some confuse that testing as being tied to the adoption of the Common Core.

Indeed, the mandates were made much worse by Race to the Top.

APPR?

Tied to Race to the Top.

inBloom?

Tied to Race to the Top.

Common Core?
 
Tied to Race to the Top.

All that testing added to every subject in nearly every grade in New York schools?

Consequence of APPR which is tied to Race to the Top.

It's true, the Obama administration has now tied some of the worst reforms to No Child Left Behind waivers, so even sending the RttT money back to the feds won't make some of the worst stuff go away overnight.

But the sun is getting ready to set on the Obama administration in a couple of years, so Arne Duncan and the rest of his merry men and women in reform aren't going to be in power forever.

There can be some post-RttT/post-NCLB waiver sanity.

Vote Howie Hawkins on Election Day.

College For All Once Again Exposed As Myth

The NY Times shows what's happened to the "American Dream" since 1989 - even for the college-educated:

YOUNG families are better educated than ever before, but they are earning lower real incomes.

The Federal Reserve Board’s newly released 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances indicates that the median family headed by someone under 35 years of age earned $35,509 in 2013 dollars. Adjusted for inflation, that is 6 percent less than similar families reported in the first such survey, in 1989.

Since 1989, the Fed has conducted extensive interviews of consumers every three years. Respondents are asked about their family’s income in the previous year, as well as about wealth, debt, education and attitudes toward financial issues. The results are released by family, not by individual, so the median family income may include the income of both spouses. Single-person households are included in the family calculations.

As can be seen in the charts, younger families have fallen further and further behind older families as time has passed. Nearly a quarter-century after the first survey was taken, families headed by people over 55 generally have higher incomes, after adjusting for inflation, than their predecessors did. But those in groups under 55 generally earn less than their predecessors.

In the first survey, the younger group included families headed by people born after 1954, and so was dominated by baby boomers. The latest group includes families headed by people born after 1984, and they seem not to have done nearly as well early in their careers. The earlier group came of age in a stronger economy and its members were generally not burdened by education loans as many of the latter group are.

The largest declines have come since the 2007 survey — the last one in which participants discussed their income in a year before the Great Recession began. The following survey covered income earned during the recession, and it was not easy to know how much of the falloff was a cyclical phenomenon that would disappear when the economy recovered.

But the newest survey covered income in 2012, three years after the recession ended, and shows that most of the lost ground has not been recovered. In fact, the real median income for all of the age groups except those in the 35-to-44 group declined from 2010 to 2013.

And you know that jive about how education is the issue, that those with higher educational attainment do better than those with lower?

It's jive:

Among families of all ages, those with more education tend to earn more than those with less. But that differential appears to be shrinking. at least for younger families. In 1989, the median income of families headed by young college graduates was twice that of similar families headed by high school graduates who never attended college. Now, the difference is only 52 percent. There are more college graduates in the group, but those graduates have a lower real median income than their predecessors.

They're still pushing college for everyone in schools, selling kids on the myth that people who go to college make more money than those who don't.

It's of course much more complicated than that, as can be seen by the diminishing gap between those with college degrees and those without in the recent surveys.

I know that the NYCDOE is pushing so-called "college readiness" as one of the school metrics for whether a schools is "good" or not.

That means there is pressure on administrations to push as many students into college DIRECTLY after graduation as they can.

Here's a lesson you won't hear much in schools these days, but one that needs to be given:

If students are not careful, going to college can harm them irrevocably for life.

Taking on tens of thousands of dollars in debt at the start of their adult lives for a piece of paper that doesn't do much for them is irrevocable harm, whether the NYSED, the NYCDOE or the USDOE want to use that piece of paper as an emblem for college readiness or not.

Yesterday, Fred Klonsky linked to a Huffington Post piece about senior citizens swamped with student debt who are having their Social Security checks garnished:

The Education Department is demanding so much money from seniors with defaulted student loans that it's forcing tens of thousands of them into poverty, according to a government audit.

At least 22,000 Americans aged 65 and older had a part of their Social Security benefits garnished last year to the point that their monthly benefits were below federal poverty thresholds, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Education Department-initiated collections on defaulted federal student loans left at least another 83,000 Americans aged 64 and younger with poverty-level Social Security payments, GAO data show. Federal auditors cautioned that the number of Americans forced to accept poverty-level benefits because of past defaults on federal student loans are surely higher.

More than half, or 54 percent, of federal student loans held by borrowers at least 75 years old are in default, according to the federal watchdog. About 27 percent of loans held by borrowers aged 65 to 74 are in default. Among borrowers aged 50 to 64, 19 percent of their loans are in default. The Education Department generally defines a default as being at least 360 days past due.

As unpaid student debt approaches $1.3 trillion, the federal watchdog's findings underscore the consequences of increased student debt burdens and the risk they'll wreak havoc on households in the coming years if U.S. workers continue to see little increase in their paychecks, the economy barely grows, and the Education Department's contractors keep borrowers in the dark on repayment options.

22,000 senior citizens having their Social Security benefits garnished now.

Just wait and see what those numbers look like when the younger generations surveyed by the Federal Reserve start getting older and are still swamped by student debt.

This is where we're at these days - the American Dream, circa 2014.

As Carlin said, it's called the "American Dream" because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Politico: Obama's Teacher Evaluation Reform Agenda In "Disarray"

It's a mess out there:

The idea seems simple enough: Identify the best teachers and reward them. Pinpoint the worst and fire them.

That’s been a linchpin of the Obama administration’s education agenda from the start.
But now the administration’s initiative is in disarray, with states scaling back, slowing down and, in some cases, putting off tough decisions until Obama is out of office.

Teachers union pressure, error-riddled evaluations and a wave of more difficult tests for students have won many teachers a reprieve from the newfangled evaluations during the school year now getting underway.

Teachers have filed suit in a half-dozen states to block complicated new evaluation formulas that in some cases have rated them based on the test scores of students they never taught. Parents have protested that their children have been required to take tests created for the sole purpose of evaluating teachers. One county in Florida is developing 724 new final exams — in classes like welding and P.E.

And after spending millions to develop modern evaluation systems, many states find they’re not identifying all that many bad teachers. In Rhode Island, 95 percent of teachers were rated effective or highly effective last year. In Florida and Indiana, it was 97 percent. In Tennessee and Michigan, 98 percent.

“It would be nice if we could have some kind of objective external measure to say, ‘This is what constitutes good teaching — or good enough teaching.’ But the fact is, there’s no way the statistical measures can do that,” said Brian Gill, a senior fellow at Mathematica Policy Research who works on so-called value-added calculations.

How much longer until it all falls apart?

Hard to say in New York, where Governor Andrew M. Cuomo is a staunch education reformer who claims teacher evaluation reform as one of his big accomplishments in his first term.

But the more these systems are revealed as error-riddled, the more the public learns that teachers are being rated on test scores for students they didn't teach or for subjects they aren't licensed in, the more teachers sue over the error-riddled ratings, the more teachers remind parents angry over testing that many of the tests their children are taking are for the sole purpose of rating teachers, the faster this evaluation reform agenda falls apart.

With NYSED and the Board of Regents in New York State now looking to make the test score component of the APPR teacher evaluation system 40% of a teacher's rating, you're going to see a lot of teachers getting rated using test scores for students they never taught or for subjects they aren't licensed in.

It behooves teachers rated "ineffective" or "developing" on that test score component to sue SED, the Regents and the governor over that system.

And of course continued pressure on the politicians who back this crap is important - helping Tim Wu beat Kathy Hochul for lieutenant governor is a way to send a message to the Common Core-supporting, education-reform shills in Albany that they may pay a price for pursuing that agenda.

A few years ago, the Endless Testing regime, the Common Core implementation and evaluation reform seemed like a done-deal in New York State, baked into the system, with little parents or teachers could do to fight them.

But as it becomes more and more apparent that much of this reform agenda is half-baked, error-riddled, indeed, even harmful to students and teachers, the more likely it is we can get this stuff pulled.

When Joe Nocera starts writing columns about the toxicity of the Endless Testing regime and test-based accountability for teachers on the Times opinion page, we're starting to get there.

Much work to be done yet.

But as we start a new school year here in New York City, you've got to smile to see a front page story in Politico about the Obama administration's evaluation reform agenda being in "disarray" and on life support that looks like it will be pulled when Obama leaves office.

Only States That Haven't Started Common Core Testing Are Eligible For Flexibility In Teacher Evaluations

Okay, here's an update on the late Friday post about New York not being eligible for the newly announced "flexibility" on teacher evaluations that Arne Duncan posted about on the USDOE website.

First a recap.

State of Politics linked to a Jessica Bakeman report at Capital NY on their Friday Extras round-up:

New York is one of two states not eligible for new “flexibility” policies announced by the federal government to help states transitioning to the Common Core standards.

The Bakeman article was behind the paywall at Capital NY,  no other news outlet reported specifically on New York's lack of flex eligibility for teacher evaluations and if that news was buried in other media stories about the flexibility announcement, I didn't notice it.

I did note in the Friday post that it seemed odd Duncan would announce flexibility for all states, including New York, after his DOE threatened the state back in June if they de-linked APPR teacher evaluations from student test scores.

I tweeted Bakeman to see what the story was behind New York's lack of flex eligibility.

She responded:

@perdidostschool The flex is only available for states that have not yet begun testing based on the Common Core.
— Jessica Bakeman (@jessicabakeman) August 24, 2014

Under those rules, it would seem New York and Kentucky would not be eligible for flexibility on evaluations.

If I remember correctly, Kentucky was the first state to tie their state tests to Common Core, New York was the second.

More on this as I get it.

Arne Duncan Says New York Is One Of Two States NOT Eligible For Testing "Flexibility"

Yesterday I posted that it seemed ironic Arne Duncan was now giving states flexibility around testing and teacher evaluations since his DOE had just threatened New York State in June that de-linking teacher evaluations from student test scores would result in New York losing nearly $300 million in Race to the Top money.

Well, tonight we learn that Duncan is saying New York is one of two states that is not eligible for that "flexibility."

This is a report from Capital NY and it's behind the paywall so I have no more details than this from State of Politics:

New York is one of two states not eligible for new “flexibility” policies announced by the federal government to help states transitioning to the Common Core standards.

How about that?

Duncan says testing is sucking the oxygen out of the classroom, taking the joy out of education, and therefore waiver states get another year before they have to link teacher evaluations to test scores.

Except for New York and one other state - they have to use test scores in teacher evaluations or have their No Child Left Behind waivers taken from them. 

More on this as details come in.