PAA comments on ESSA at Wyoming Community Roundtable
PAA interim executive director Julie Woestehoff presented a brief version of the following comments to members of the U.S. Department of Education at a community roundtable on the Every Student Succeeds Act held today in Casper, Wyoming:
Parents Across America Comments on ESSA
Presented at the Community Roundtable on ESSA held in Casper, WY
on October 26, 2016
Good morning. My name is Julie Woestehoff. I am a resident of Evanston, WY, and the interim executive director of Parents Across America, a national network of parents from all backgrounds across the United States who share ideas and work together to improve our nation’s public schools. PAA is committed to bringing the voice of public school parents – and common sense – to local, state, and national education debates. We currently have forty-five chapters and affiliates in twenty-six states.
U. S. Education Secretary John King recently spoke about “What School Can Be,” at the Las Vegas Academy of the Arts. Secretary King reflected on the school programs and experiences that had the greatest impact on him — had, in fact, saved his life. The programs he talked about as so transformative and critical for him and other students included performing on stage, going to the zoo and museums, playing in an orchestra, dancing, and going out into the community to tackle real and needed projects – what Secretary King calls a well-rounded education.
A couple of years ago, PAA prepared a position paper, “What is a Quality Education?”, which is quite similar in tone and aspiration. Our vision is that quality education is child-centered, requires skilled professionals, and promotes justice, equity and democracy.
We appreciate the fact that the new federal education law proclaims the fundamental importance of family and community vision and values in setting education goals and making key decisions about the best ways to support and strengthen schools. It was right and necessary to move those decisions back to the state and local level.
Unfortunately, the influence of corporate reform and the push for the monetization and privatization of democratic public education, which has been so strongly opposed by families, communities and educators, remains far too prominent in parts of ESSA and the draft regulations and guidance the department has published so far. These documents continue to misrepresent the real interests and concerns of most parents, using these misrepresentations to justify ineffective, harmful, and expensive programs such as expanded funding for charter schools, misuse and overuse of standardized tests, punitive school labeling, and, more recently, heavy promotion of digital instruction without including adequate protections for student health and data privacy, and all at a time when public education budgets are under severe strain.
Accountability
PAA submitted comments on the draft accountability guidance in July. Briefly, we objected to:
- The extensive, punitive regulations surrounding the requirement that 95% of all students take state accountability tests, which undermine parents’ rights to opt our children out of these tests, even in cases where such tests are misused or overused.
- Requirements that states set three levels and single accountability labels for schools, and give “much PAA comments on ESSA at Wyoming Community Roundtable | Parents Across America:
