An intercepted memo
Memo from Bill to Arne:
Our progress thus far and plans for the future
The current Blueprint provided a strong beginning. The Blueprint calls for a substantial increase in testing, far beyond the level required for NCLB. We will test more subjects (eventually all, I hope), do pre (fall) and post (spring) tests in order to have value-added scores unaffected by summer, and interim tests all along the way, as the Achieve people are already doing with PARCC. The Department of Ed's $170 million is certainly well spent there. Their testing plan will reach over 60% of US schools. In addition, the technology report demands quantification and a demonstration of cost benefits for all aspects of education.
The public reaction has been far better than expected. There have been practically no protests of this gigantic increase, even though nearly everyone agrees that NCLB required too much testing. We deserve some of the credit for this: We have kept teachers so busy that they have little time or energy to study current issues and obscure documents, and we have kept the potential protesters busy with a number of pronouncements that we knew they would