Senate introduces No Child Left Behind successor

[Starry Messenger]

http://news.yahoo.com/senate-introduces-no-child-left-behind-successor-155001147.html

WASHINGTON (AP) — The one-sized-fits-all national requirements of No Child Left Behind would give way to standards that states write for themselves under legislation Senate Democrats announced Tuesday.

The state-by-state approach to education standards is already largely in place in the 37 states that received waivers to the requirements in exchange for customized school improvement plans. The 1,150-page proposal from Senate education committee chairman Tom Harkin would require some of those states to tinker with their improvement plans and force the other remaining states to develop their own reform efforts. Education Secretary Arne Duncan would still have final say over those improvement plans, and schools would still have to measure students' achievements.

Buried on page 694 of the legislation, the proposal also includes protections for gay students. Schools that don't take stern measures against bullying or discrimination against gays or lesbians would see their federal funding cut. Democrats likened the measure to Title IX, which forced schools to provide equal opportunities for female athletes under threat of penalty.

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The sweeping Elementary and Secondary Education Act governs all schools that receive federal dollars for poor, minority, disabled and students whose primary language is not English. The latest version of the law eliminates 20 programs while encouraging states to expand art, physical education and pre-kindergarten programs.

<snip>

This new piece of legislation hadn't been on my radar at all, so I haven't had time to digest this. Thought I'd bring this over for thoughts.

[LWolf]

1. I wonder how it fits with the CCSS

that 40-something states have signed onto; the "standards that states write for themselves" part.

I wonder how that is different from the standards that every state wrote for themselves before the CCSS.

I wonder which 20 programs get eliminated; I've got a wish list. Apparently, though, the things at the top of that list are NOT eliminated, since we're still working with improvement plans and high-stakes testing.

That's what I wonder reading your snips, anyway. Further reading will have to wait for a couple of days, when I've wrapped up the year and have some time.

[Starry Messenger]

2. I wondered how it fit with CCSS too.

That was my first though, there seemed be some areas where they might not be mutually compatible. Not that consistency every bothered legislators, lol.

I like the part about linking anti-LGBT bullying to federal funding.

Good luck wrapping up the year, LWolf!

[duffyduff]

4. The nutball Bill Gates-inspired Common Core

was created as a harebrained counterpart to European countries that have "national standards." Well, what may work for those dinky little countries with homogeneous populations would NEVER work in the United States.

"National standards" undercuts everything that has made public education so great in this country, and that has to do with local control of schools.

[duffyduff]

3. More useless posturing

Obama/Duncan's blackmail initiative Race to the Top is a thousand times worse than NCLB.

This is going to have no effect at all.

[duffyduff]

5. This is no improvement at all

All it does is give Duncan permission to continue with his ruinous Race to the Top garbage.

Duncan should have been impeached for subverting Congress in the first place, but since D.C. politicians are totally worthless and on the take, they give him permission to continue with business as usual.

[duffyduff]

6. I am right. This is worse.

http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2013/06/obama-administration-doubles-down-on.html


This is giving the Obama administration everything it wants, and it is absolutely terrible on education policy.

It wouldn't matter if this ludicrous law passed because it is already being done by the Obama administration anyway.

[Igel]

8. It's only worse because it makes the situation bearable for a while longer.

The unbearable might produce a kind of revolution, and AYP will get us there in a year or two without the waivers.

I like it only because it neuters a bit of executive authority. There's too much of the "we can do it if there's nothing explicitly forbidding us to do it, or if nobody stops us." Nixon was a bit imperial; we justly said the same of *; Obama's following much of the same line.

Some of the mandated reforms are cart-before-the-horse nonsense. Others are the best thinking of today which is doomed to be considered utterly wrong in a few years--like the outmoded best thinking of 5 years ago, which replaced the outmoded best thinking of 10 years ago, which replaced the outmoded best thinking of 15 years ago ...

Duncan needs a bit of humility. The researchers don't have all the answers. In fact, they're probably not even asking the right questions yet because they're furiously answering the questions that they believe lead them to the answers they already know to be correct. And, surprise--the answers they get show that they were right.

New generation of researchers, new generation of beliefs, new generation of correct answers showing that the old ones were, well, limited, misguided, mistaken.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Anybody else sick of writing plans?

We have Title I plans, SIG plans, IDEA plans, ELL plans, plans for grant applications, plans for community engagement, plans for business partnerships, plans to improve achievement, plans to differentiate instruction, (yesterday I went to a meeting where we talked about a plan to differentiate evaluations!), plans to reduce truancy, plans to increase parent involvement . . . . and it goes on and on and on.

I'm moving to a new room so for the first time in a LONG time I decided to clean out my file cabinet last month. I never throw anything away. I found one thick file after another full of this plan or that plan. It was unreal. We write these plans, kill several forests to print them out and give everyone copies they never read, then we file them away and keep on doing what we've been doing, (sometimes that's in the plan and sometimes it isn't).

I should retire and start a business helping schools write plans. I feel like I have a PhD in plan writing, or at least in plan collecting

We don't need any more stinkin plans.

[Starry Messenger]

9. Good luck on the room move!

Is it a new classroom?

[proud2BlibKansan]

10. New to me.

Farther from the office and on a lower floor where it's cooler. I'm pumped.

[Starry Messenger]

11. Ooo nice!

That sounds great!