It’s Not Nothing: Why I Support the ‘Every Child Achieves Act’
No more federal intervention.
No more reducing schools to a number.
That’s the promise of the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA).
Sure, it’s not perfect. But this Senate proposed rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) could do a lot of good – even if it includes some bad.
Imagine it.
States would be in control of their own public schools. The U.S. Department of Education and its appointed Secretary would lose much of their power to impose unfunded federal mandates.
For example, the federal government could no longer force states to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores. It could no longer force states to adopt Common Core or Common Core look-a-like standards. It could no longer label high poverty schools “Failing” and then demand they be closed.
That’s not nothing.
But to realize these goals, we may have to compromise.
This federal law (currently known as No Child Left Behind) governs K-12 public schools. It has to be reauthorized.
We tried in 2007, but no one could agree. So the Obama administration took over – offering states a waiver from the worst consequences of the current disastrous law if they just doubled down on those same failing policies.
The result? Seven years of continued educational failure. Policies to privatize, punish the poor and enrich profiteers.
And now we have another chance to reauthorize the law!
We can change course! We can right the ship! We can get our heads out of our collective asses and actually do what’s right for our children!
But this is politics. It’s never that simple.
We have a divided Congress. We have a President who never met a corporate school reform scheme he didn’t like.
But we also have a citizenry who is fed up with all the bullshit. People are demanding change.
We have a real opportunity. If we can seal the deal, a generation of children will be the better for it. If not, the current calamitous law will stay in place for at least 7 more years.
That’s just unacceptable.
The biggest flaw in this proposed act is that it keeps annual testing in place. If approved in its current form, public schools would still have to give standardized tests to children in grades 3-8 and once in high school.
If you’re like me, you just threw up in your mouth a little bit.
However, supporting ECAA doesn’t have to mean supporting testing. There is anamendment proposed by Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana) that would replace annual testing with assessments only once at the elementary, middle and high school levels.
Yes. It’s not enough. We really should have zero standardized tests in our schools. If we have to accept Grade Span Testing – as Tester’s proposal is called – it should be done by a random sample. Don’t test all kids. Just test some small group and extrapolate their scores to the whole.
But Tester’s amendment is not nothing.
Even if it weren’t approved – even if all schools are mandated to continue annual testing as is – the ECAA requires no minimum length for those tests.
How many questions do we need to have on our exams? How many sections? Right It’s Not Nothing: Why I Support the ‘Every Child Achieves Act’ | gadflyonthewallblog:
