SFER - The $7 million+ “student run” Corporate Education Reform Industry Front Group - Wait What?

SFER - The $7 million+ “student run” Corporate Education Reform Industry Front Group - Wait What?:

SFER – The $7 million+ “student run” Corporate Education Reform Industry Front Group

An update on Students for Education Reform, Inc.

SFER is a model of how the Pro-Charter School and Corporate Education Reform Industry works to control the narrative surrounding public education while seeking to “win the hearts and minds of federal, state and local policymakers.

Dedicated to promoting the privatization of public education, more taxpayer funds for privately owned, but publicly funded charter schools, the Common Core, the Common Core testing scheme and a host of anti-teacher initiatives, Students for Education Reform, Inc. (SFER) was created in late 2009,  according to their narrative, by a couple of undergraduate students at Princeton University.

Claiming to have over 100 chapters across the country, the “student run” advocacy group has, as of late last summer, collected more than $7.3 million since its inception to fund their “education reform” activities.

According to the organization’s most recent Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 990 reports (2014), in addition to the $5.7 million that has flowed into SFER’s coffers as of September 1, 2014, an additional $1.6 million has been collected by a closely-related company called the SFER Action Network Inc. which appears to serve as the political arm of SFER and formed in 2013.

Although Students for Education Reform is “run” by students, the self-described “grassroots” group is governed by a Board of Directors that is made up of some of the biggest corporate executives and players associated with the Corporate Education Reform Industry.

SFER’s website reports that the present Students for Education Reform Board of Directorsincludes;

April Chou (Chair) – The Chief Growth Officer at the KIPP Bay Area Charter School chain.

Adam Cioth (Treasurer) – The founder of Rolling Hills Capital hedge fund and a major funder of the public school privatization movement.

Christy Chin – The Managing Director of the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, the philanthropy arm of the venture capital firm, Draper Richards.  The Foundation is one of SFER’s funders.

Stuart Cobert – The Deputy General Counsel at the Unilever Corporation.

Justin Cohen – The President of Mass Insight, a major Education Reform Consulting company.

Shavar Jeffries – Recently appointed President of Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), Jeffries was recently the unsuccessful “education reform” candidate for Mayor of Newark, New Jersey.

Nancy Poon Lue – A Partner in the Silicon Valley Social Venture Fund

And Chris Stewart, Director of Outreach and External Affairs for the Gates Foundation funded Pro-Corporate Education Reform Blog called Education Post.

Until recently the SFER Board also included acclaimed education reform financier SFER - The $7 million+ “student run” Corporate Education Reform Industry Front Group - Wait What?:

Some look Zuckerberg's gift horse in the mouth - POLITICO

Some look Zuckerberg's gift horse in the mouth - POLITICO:

Some look Zuckerberg's gift horse in the mouth

“If I was advising Zuckerberg, I think the question is: Is he searching for a silver-bullet solution?”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to pour billions of dollars into a high-tech idea that has been billed as the future of learning, but which critics see as a half-baked notion that could jeopardize student privacy and spread ideas despised by public school advocates.

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced Tuesday night that they’re pouring 99 percent of their Facebook shares into charity through their new Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The shares are currently worth about $45 billion. One of the goals of that initiative, inspired by the birth of their daughter Max, is to advance “personalized learning," although it isn't clear how much of the money might be invested in that.

That approach to learning is generating lots of buzz — the Obama administration, for instance, has doled out tens of millions for efforts to use it across the country. But some say personalized learning is a fuzzy idea and there’s little research on its effectiveness — and what’s out there is mixed.

“Many believe in it and see the future in it,” said Douglas Levin, president of EdTech Strategies, LLC. “But we need to find proof points of where it’s working and then there’s the question of scaling it up.”

“If I was advising Zuckerberg, I think the question is: Is he searching for a silver-bullet solution?” Levin said.

Personalized learning involves using technology like computers and tablets — along with help from teachers — to shape instruction that responds to an individual student’s needs. The pace of instruction, the approach to teaching and even what’s taught are all adjusted to how students best learn as well as their interests.

That can mean collecting data on individual student performance, like how students tackle problems and answer questions, what gives them pause and what they’re able to breeze through.

Some worry that such large amounts of student data could be used to sell products and would be vulnerable to hackers. That data collection has “tremendous negative implications for privacy,” said Leonie Haimson, a parent and privacy advocate and the executive director of Class Size Matters.

For example, she said, parents worry about third parties and companies using student data to target ads at their children.

Critics are also concerned that Zuckerberg will join the ranks of reform-minded billionaires like Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg and Eli Broad who want to shake up what they see as a failing public school system in ways that many teachers and parents may oppose.

That suspicion is heightened by the fact that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is an LLC, not a nonprofit, which some see as a sign that Zuckerberg may use the

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-216373#ixzz3tHPRsCoa

Judge suspends penalties linked to state’s teacher eval system - The Santa Fe New Mexican: Northern New Mexico Education

Judge suspends penalties linked to state’s teacher eval system - The Santa Fe New Mexican: Northern New Mexico Education:

Judge suspends penalties linked to state’s teacher eval system

A Santa Fe judge struck a blow against the state’s contentious teacher evaluation system Wednesday, temporarily halting provisions that would punish teachers for poor scores until a trial can determine whether the rating system is valid.

The 70-page ruling by state District Judge David Thomson focused primarily on the complicated combination of student test scores used to judge teachers. The ruling prevents the Public Education Department from denying teachers licensure advancement or renewal, and it strikes down a requirement that poorly performing teachers be placed on growth plans.

Local chapters of the American Federation of Teachers, individual educators and some Democratic legislators who filed the suit called the decision a win, while the Public Education Department stood by its teacher evaluation system.

The next round of teacher evaluations is set to be released in May.

Thomson said the teacher evaluation system varies from district to district, which goes against a state law calling for a consistent evaluation plan for all educators.

“The problem is that is not easy to pull back the curtain and the inner workings of the model are not easily understood, translated or made accessible,” the judge said.

Thomson’s ruling marks the first successful challenge of the teacher evaluation system instituted by state Secretary of Education Hanna Skandera in the 2013-14 school year. Similar lawsuits previously were dismissed in the state Court of Appeals and in a state District Court in Albuquerque.

The ruling came in a case that had stalled in Thomson’s courtroom for the past two months. What was supposed to be a single day of testimony in September stretched into five days of arguments and expert statements spread over the course of two weeks.

The union originally had asked Thomson to halt all teacher evaluations until an April hearing on whether to permanently put an end to the system. But during the final day of the hearing, union attorney Shane Youtz narrowed the original request, asking Thomson only to suspend a provision that called for placing low-performing teachers on improvement plans or other punitive measures. Youtz said districts can fire teachers who don’t improve, which is wrong if the teacher evaluation system is flawed.

The Public Education Department uses a combination of student test scores, Judge suspends penalties linked to state’s teacher eval system - The Santa Fe New Mexican: Northern New Mexico Education:

No Child Left Behind replacement would give other states the freedom California has already claimed - LA Times

No Child Left Behind replacement would give other states the freedom California has already claimed - LA Times:

No Child Left Behind replacement would give other states the freedom California has already claimed

With No Child Left Behind one step closer to being a thing of the past, the governance of schools in other states is poised to look a lot more like California’s. 

On Wednesday afternoon, the House overwhelmingly passed the proposed Every Student Succeeds Act by 359 to 64. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure before year’s end, and the White House has signaled President Obama's willingness to sign it.

The bill would continue to require annual standardized testing in grades 3-8 and once in high school, and the results of different student groups will continue to be publicly reported. But for the most part, it will be up to states to determine what to do with those results.

The measure requires states to intervene in the bottom 5% of their schools, and in high schools with graduation rates below 67%, and where specific groups of students consistently underperform. For the most part, it will be up to states to determine how to identify those bottom-performing groups and how to intervene to make them better, as long as the interventions are “evidence-based." To make these designations, in addition to test scores, states must consider other factors — such as school engagement and climate — but will have more leeway over how to count each one in their overall rankings. 

California is already in the process of changing its school accountability system. As students prepared to take tests aligned with the Common Core this year, the state Board of Education voted to extend the suspension of California’s Academic Performance Index, a measure based on test scores. Instead, the board began devising a new system that includes factors such as attendance, how quickly students who don’t speak English are learning the language, college readiness, dropout rates and suspensions. By March, the state is slated to present a proposal to the Legislature about the new assessment system.

“California really has claimed the space that this bill now opens up,” said David Plank, aStanford University professor and executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education. “With the Local Control Funding Formula, with the changes that have been made and are in progress on accountability policy in California, and with the implementation of Common Core, we’re really where the federal government now says states can go.”

In other words, “it catches up to where California may have already gone,” said Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun professor of education at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and a member of the state’s Advisory Task Force on Accountability and Continuous Improvement. “A lot of states are looking to California.”

The Every Student Succeeds Act would replace No Child Left Behind, the much-maligned 2001 George W. Bush bill that dramatically expanded the federal government’s footprint in schools by requiring regular standardized testing and tying consequences — such as restrictions on certain school funds — to results from those tests. No Child Left Behind also included a goal of 100% proficiency by 2014, which turned out to be unrealistic.

Instead of those consequences, the proposed new law would hand responsibility back to No Child Left Behind replacement would give other states the freedom California has already claimed - LA Times:

TeachStrong: Will New Campaign Undo Teacher Bashing and Sustain Those Called to Teach? | janresseger

TeachStrong: Will New Campaign Undo Teacher Bashing and Sustain Those Called to Teach? | janresseger:

TeachStrong: Will New Campaign Undo Teacher Bashing and Sustain Those Called to Teach?

Did you know there’s a brand new campaign to improve teaching, a campaign, according toLyndsey Layton of the Washington Post, that says its goal is “modernizing and elevating” the teaching profession?   This is a project of the Center for American Progress, the primarily Democratic Washington think tank that has ironically pushed far-right “corporate reform” in education. Valerie Strauss wonders if TeachStrong is a Gates-funded initiative, as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation granted $850,000 to the Center for American Progress this past summer.

As it launched TeachStrong, the Center for American Progress announced: “In order to ensure that all students are taught by excellent teachers, leaders must reimagine the systems and structure of the teacher career continuum. Yet the United States has never made a serious commitment to modernizing, elevating, and professionalizing the teaching pathway.”

Daniel Katz, a Seton Hall University professor of education who trains secondary teachers and secondary special education teachers, wonders at the coalition the Center for American Progress has pulled together for this new campaign: “Lyndsey Layton mentioned in theWashington Post that the coalition includes ‘some strange bedfellows,’ and she certainly was not kidding.” On the one hand are the traditional professional organizations representing teachers, school administrators, and colleges of education: the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, and the New Teacher Center.  Then there are the groups that want to disrupt the teaching profession: Teach for America, Educators 4 Excellence, Deans for Impact, Relay (online) Graduate School of Education, Education Post, and finally the National Council on Teacher Quality—which has taken it upon itself to rate colleges of education in a questionable system that merely looks at the courses listed in each program’s catalog—no visits, no observations.  Katz comments: “(I)f the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics partnered with the Hormel corporation to design a school lunch program—you hope the more knowledgeable partner is guiding the work, but you strongly suspect that a lot of snouts and tails are going to get in there too.”

As a teacher educator, Katz worries about a “campaign (that) appears rooted in the notion that TeachStrong: Will New Campaign Undo Teacher Bashing and Sustain Those Called to Teach? | janresseger:

Before Minecraft, The Blocks Were Made Of Wood : NPR Ed : NPR

Before Minecraft, The Blocks Were Made Of Wood : NPR Ed : NPR:

Before Minecraft, The Blocks Were Made Of Wood

For our Tools of the Trade series, we're exploring the iconic, seminal tools that some of us remember using in our early schooling. Things like the slide rule and protractor, the Bunsen burner and the planetarium.

Today we explore the simple, powerful tool that is still alive and well in some early learning classrooms: the wooden block. You might call it the anti-app.

Measurement. Balance. Math. Negotiation. Collaboration. And fun. The smooth maple pieces need no recharging, no downloading.

"Let's just put these blocks up," says 4-year-old Jacques. "I think this will probably work. Be careful, Corrine."

"I know," says Corinne, who is also 4.

With focused intensity, Jacques and Corinne work to balance and secure two semicircular wooden blocks atop two long, straight ones.

Whoa, careful, it's leaning!

The tower collapses to the carpeted floor at Stanford University's Bing Nursery School.

They work the problem.

It is Silicon Valley, after all. Fail early, fail often, kids. Iterate. Collaborate.

Jacques makes a pitch for stability.

"Corinne, I think if we just put a little on each side and used the right amount where mine was, it would work," he says. "OK?"

"OK, let's try," says Corrine. "OK!"

The tower grows.

Then, to paraphrase Homer, the tower falls thunderously and the blocks clatter about.

"It keeps falling down! Maybe a little higher," Jacques says, resisting the urge to lose patience.

The block party is on. Soon other kids wander over to try to help build this hour's great random structure.

"If we can't do it, we could build something else!"

"OK, what?"

Two blocks or four? Big or small? What shape? This is negotiation and collaboration, pre-K style.

"Those are the kinds of skills that we need later on," says Jennifer Winters, the Bing school's director. "We'll need to learn to work together on projects, to collaborate, to bounce ideas off one another."

Building A World

House Restores Local Education Control in Revising No Child Left Behind - The New York Times

House Restores Local Education Control in Revising No Child Left Behind - The New York Times:

House Restores Local Education Control in Revising No Child Left Behind

Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, left, and Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican. Credit Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The House on Wednesday approved a sweeping bill to revise the contentious No Child Left Behind law, representing the end of an era in which the federal government aggressively policed public school performance, and returning control to states and local districts.

No Child Left Behind, which had strong bipartisan backing when it passed in 2001, was the signature education initiative of George W. Bush, who said the failure of public schools to teach poor students and minorities reflected the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

That law ushered in high-stakes testing to measure student progress in reading and math between the third and eighth grades. Schools were required to make every child in the nation proficient in those subjects by 2014, as measured by standardized tests. Schools that failed to hit targets along the way were subject to federally required sanctions, ranging from tutoring to school closing in the worst cases. Over time, the law became anathema to both the right and the left, and it became clear that the sanctions as well as the goal of proficiency by 2014 were unworkable.

The overhaul passed by the House on Wednesday, 359 to 64, jettisons No Child’s prescribed goals and punishments, and allows states and school districts to set their own goals and to decide how to rate schools and what to do with those that underperform.

After months of compromise and negotiation, the bill earned nearly unanimous approval from a conference committee of House and Senate members two weeks ago, and is expected to be passed by the Senate next week. A White House official said Wednesday that President Obama plans to sign it when it reaches his desk.

Representative John Kline, the Minnesota Republican who is chairman of the House Education Committee, said the existing law had left the federal government “micromanaging” the education system.

“No Child Left Behind was based on good intentions, but it was also based on the flawed premise that Washington knows what students need to succeed in school,” he said in a statement.

The bill passed Wednesday retains the annual testing requirements in math and reading. Schools must also continue to report the results by students’ race, income and disability status.

Some said they were uneasy about whether the new law could exacerbate uneven schooling across the country.

“The real question is what authority is left to the federal government to intervene should the states in one way or another fall short of what the hopes are?” said David Steiner, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and a former New York state education commissioner. “We all are concerned that we not go to a place where based on where you happen to be born or which state you’re in, you face very, House Restores Local Education Control in Revising No Child Left Behind - The New York Times:

Go Ahead, Pass Every Student Succeeds Act, But Don’t Celebrate It

12/3/2015 – Pass Every Student Succeeds Act, But Don’t Celebrate It:

Go Ahead, Pass Every Student Succeeds Act, But Don’t Celebrate It

December 3, 2015 Subscribe

THIS WEEK: US Falling Behind … College Attendance Rates Fall … Diversity Works … California’s Alternative To Testing … Teacher-Powered Schools Grow

TOP STORY

Go Ahead, Pass Every Student Succeeds Act, But Don’t Celebrate It

By Jeff Bryant

“On Wednesday afternoon, the House overwhelmingly passed the proposed Every Student Succeeds Act. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure this month, and the White House has signaled President Obama’s willingness to sign it … For sure, there are things to like and dislike about the bill, but while lawmakers and policy wonks are back-slapping and glad-handing each other, this is also an opportune time to reflect on where we are in the evolution of education policy compared to where we should be.”
Read more …

NEWS AND VIEWS

US Falls Behind Other Nations In The Global Knowledge Economy, Says 46-Country Report

The Hechinger Report

“The United States continues to fall behind internationally in producing a college-educated workforce … In the very early years, many countries are now sending a much higher percentage of their kids to preschool than the United States … In several countries, nearly 60% of 25- to 34-year-olds have a college education … In the United States, by contrast, only 46% of the younger generation has a college education … On the early childhood front, the United States has one of the lowest enrollment rates among OECD countries, where, on average, more than 70% of young children attend preschool … In the United States, only 41% of 3-year-olds and 66% of 4-year-olds are enrolled in preschools.”
Read more …

College Enrollment Rates Are Dropping, Especially Among Low-Income Students

The Washington Post

“Low-income high school graduates were far less likely to enroll in higher education in 2013 than in 2008, a downward trend that came at the same time the Obama administration was pushing to boost college access and completion … College enrollment rates have fallen for all students since 2008 … But the enrollment rates among the poorest students has fallen much faster … Enrollment was dropping at the same time as federal and private grant aid was increasing and high school graduation rates were rising – two trends that higher education advocates hoped would boost college access for poor youth.”
Read more …

Study Finds Diversity Plan Lessened Wake County School Segregation

The News & Observer

“Wake County’s efforts to balance schools by income kept it more diverse than other large North Carolina school systems and also helped to reduce the achievement gap between white and black students … Wake switched in 2000 to trying to balance the percentages of students receiving subsidized lunches in its schools while the other districts moved to neighborhood schools and choice … Wake County’s math and reading scores rose slightly and the achievement gap between black and white students narrowed after the switch.”
Read more …

California Leads Drive To Reverse Focus On Standardized Tests

Ed Source

“California is … in the middle of devising a new accountability system, a massive and complex undertaking in a state as large and diverse as California, that is intended to go far beyond a narrow preoccupation with test scores … Gov. Jerry Brown has been consistent in challenging the role of testing – and has clashed repeatedly with the Obama administration on this issue … The state is moving toward establishing a much broader accountability system, of which tests – improved ones, according to proponents – will comprise just one part. In California, the new accountability system will be based on ‘multiple measures’ rooted in eight “priority areas” established by the state in the 2013 Local Control Funding Formula law championed by Brown … All this is taking place as Congress, after years of gridlock on the issue, appears to be moving to replace the No Child Left Behind law with one that will move the nation distinctly in the direction California is already going.”
Read more …

Why Teacher-Powered Schools Are Picking Up Momentum

Center for Teaching Quality

Barnett Berry, the executive director of the Center for Teaching Quality writes, “In teacher-powered schools, students are at the center of every decision. Teachers secure autonomy to make the big choices about a wide array of factors, such as the learning program, school-community partnerships, and budgeting … The teacher-powered model isn’t new, but it’s definitely picking up momentum. More than 80 public teacher-powered schools currently operate in at least 15 states … New research reveals not only the positive effects of teacher collaboration on student achievement, but also the specific factors that contribute most to teachers’ professional growth and leadership … Polling data reveal that the vast majority of parents have trust and confidence in teachers, and while they want more school choices, they are most interested in teachers leading.”
Read more …

12/3/2015 – Pass Every Student Succeeds Act, But Don’t Celebrate It:

John Thompson: The Failed Claims for Market-Driven Reforms | Diane Ravitch's blog

John Thompson: The Failed Claims for Market-Driven Reforms | Diane Ravitch's blog:

John Thompson: The Failed Claims for Market-Driven Reforms

John Thompson, historian and teacher, analyzes the specious arguments for market-driven reforms. (Note: Although John says that Susan Dynarsky’s New York Times article is “intellectually honest,” Ipreviously wrote that she pulled the reformer trick of studying only successful charter schools in Boston, leaving out the ones that had no lottery, and ignoring the dreadful charters in her own state, Michigan.)
“The second shoe is falling. Hillary Clinton criticized charters for not taking their fair share of the harder-to-teach students. Predictably, corporate reformers have responded as one with their standard talking points. To get a quick overview of the herd of independent minds who are emptying the arsenal of reform soundbites on Mrs. Clinton, check out Real Clear Education.

“Susan Dynarski’s New York Times commentary is a more intellectually honest, but flawed, effort to change the subject from the issue raised by Mrs. Clinton. Dynarski repeats the same market-driven line, “Not all charters are successful, of course, but we should not expect them to be. … Some of these experiments produce great results. Others don’t. It’s the job of government to distinguish between the successful schools and the failures, and to shut down the failures.”

Dynarski acknowledges part of the problem with the research used to promote charters. Quantitative researchers seek to compare the outcomes of students who attend charters with those who applied for the admissions lottery and who were not chosen. The problem is, “Perhaps only the best charters are popular, and that’s why the lottery studies produce such positive estimates. We can’t use the lottery approach to assess a school that does not have high demand for its seats.”

“To her credit, Dynarski acknowledges the flaws in the methodologies that find big benefits for oversubscribed charters and “smaller but still positive gains” for some charters (as in Boston) that are not oversubscribed. But, then she cites a popular high-poverty, high-performing charter, Boston’s Match High School, that actually undermines the case for competition-driven school reform.

“True believers in choice admit that mistakes will be made and students will be hurt by inevitable errors. But give charters enough time and they should learn how to avoid “selection bias;” high-poverty charters that outperform neighborhood schools can somehow be scaled up. Match was established in 2001, however, and it still only serves 290 students.

“A second defense of market-driven reform is offered by Greg Richmond, of the National Association of Charter Authorizers, in his “Blind Men and the Elephant.” Richmond’s logic has a point, but it also undermines the case for charters as they are now being imposed of urban districts.

“Richmond lists multiple, discrete reasons why different people support charters – they are supposedly like blind men touching different parts of an elephant. If each effort to advance charters is as separate as an elephant’s ear is to its tail, competition-driven reform is not an existential threat to the teaching profession and public schools. The goal of the blind men who finance market-driven reform, however, is to pull these different approaches together to destroy “the status quo,” i.e. the traditional education system, unions, local governance, and the teaching profession as we know it.

“Richmond correctly recalls that teachers unions and Hillary Clinton have long believed that “the purpose of charter schools is to offer programs that supplement the offerings of the traditional system and to transfer lessons learned from charter schools into district-operated schools.” Similarly, if charters had remained simply a way to expand choices to families, they would not have carried so many risks.

“But, “mom and pop” charter start-ups were followed by charter John Thompson: The Failed Claims for Market-Driven Reforms | Diane Ravitch's blog:

Are Republicans who Voted For ESEA Really Democrats in Drag? » Missouri Education Watchdog

Are Republicans who Voted For ESEA Really Democrats in Drag? » Missouri Education Watchdog:

Are Republicans who Voted For ESEA Really Democrats in Drag?

Is this the face of the GOP?  Are the GOP House members who voted for the ESEA reauthorization–a 1000 plus page bill that was made public only two days ago and filled with Federal carrots/sticks to make sure states don’t direct their own educational direction/delivery–really Democrats in drag?  ALL Democrats who voted did so in the affirmative and only 64 Republicans voted against it.  The Republicans who voted for this bill buy into the Nancy Pelosi style of government of needing to sign the bill so they could find out what’s in it.  And even if they DID have time to read it, how did they miss what Oklahoma Representative Jim Bridenstine discovered in the bill that made him vote no?

CONTACT:

Sheryl Kaufman, Communications Director

Phone: 202-225-2211

Email Address: Sheryl.Kaufman@mail.house.gov

Congressman Jim Bridenstine Opposes Federal Control of Education

Washington, DC, December 2, 2015     

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Today, Congressman Jim Bridenstine voted against the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which would replace No Child Left Behind. The bill passed 359 to 64.

Bridenstine said, “ESSA expands the role of the federal government by creating a program for pre-school managed by the Department of Health and Human Services and expanding after school programs.

“No Child Left Behind was a seriously flawed law that greatly increased federal control of education. I was disappointed that the Every Student Succeeds Act missed the opportunity to return control of our children’s education to where it belongs: states, local school districts, and ultimately, parents.”

ESSA also maintains several troublesome aspects of current law:

·         Maintains the federal testing burden

·         Requires states to intervene in schools underperforming by federal metrics

·         Allows federal education spending to continue to grow

·         Forces states to develop standards that conform with federal guidelines

“I voted for the House version of this bill because that legislation, while not perfect, moved education policy in the right direction by allowing funding to follow students to the school of their parents’ choice (“portability”), allowing parents to opt their students out of federally mandated testing, and shortening the timeframe in which Congress must next examine education policy. ESSA strips these crucial provisions,” the Congressman explained.

“I believe that the best education for our children is not one dictated by politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, DC. We should return control of education to those who know the needs of students the best. Therefore, I opposed ESSA.”

Regards,

Sheryl Kaufman

Communications Director

These Missouri House Republicans in drag (masquerading as ‘conservative’ politicians stating they want to reduce Federal involvement/mandates/debt) need to be primaried for their vote: