Dumb And Dumber In The Republican House Education Bill #NOonHR5

Dumb And Dumber In The Republican House Education Bill:

Dumb And Dumber In The Republican House Education Bill

 For sure, there is a lot for Democrats to dislike about the current version of No Child Left Behind federal education legislation steaming toward approval in the US House of Representatives. The bill, HR5 the Student Success Act, was written completely by Republicans, passed through committee without any Democratic support, and has already drawn strong opposition from the Obama administration and others.

But with Republicans firmly in charge of efforts to rewrite NCLB, it’s important to identify specifics in the bill that should become bright lines Democrats can’t cross and points for inclusion to fight for in Senate negotiations and joint deliberations.

What’s Dumb

At the top of the list of what Democrats oppose in the Student Success Act is the insistence among Republicans that federal money for public schools be further constricted.

While a number of state governors and prominent voices on Capitol Hill have come to the realization that levels of spending on education need to increase substantially, the bill from the Republican controlled House would ensure long terms cuts. Quick to criticize this, President Obama was quoted in Beltway news outlet The Hill saying the Republican bill would “lock in cuts to schools for the rest of this decade.” A White House report elaborated, explaining how the bill would cement education cuts demanded by the 2013 sequester and ensure federal education funding will be lower in 2021 than it was in 2012.

At The Huffington Post, president of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten voiced similar criticism that the Republican bill would “lock in recession-driven cuts to education. It would allow state and local governments to walk away from their responsibility to maintain funding from year to year.”

And as Valerie Strauss reported on her blog at The Washington Post, 115 education groups contend the funding levels proposed in the House bill “are inadequate to properly support K-12 public education.” In a letter to Congressional leaders, these organizations argue, “HR5 locks in over $1.7 billion in education cuts” at a time when “public school enrollment will increase by more than 2.2 million students.”

There is definitive research that spending at sufficient levels is really important if we want “student success,” as the Republican bill purports to legislate. And the federal government has a very important role to play in providing this funding, especially because most states are currently reliant on federal money to help them maintain education funding from year to year.

What’s also galvanizing Democratic Party opposition to HR5 is the bill’s complete neglect of funding for preschool education. Education Week reporter Alyson Klein reported US Secretary Arne Duncan opposes the Dumb And Dumber In The Republican House Education Bill:

Tell Congress: Vote NO on H.R. 5 – The Student Success Act

 #NOonHR5

#STOPHR5 #NOonHR5 US Representatives on Twitter Find your Member Hit them with a Vote No on HR5 Tweet http://bit.ly/17s6O1b

Tell Congress: Vote NO on H.R. 5 – The Student Success Act

White House threatens veto of GOP bill to fix education law - US News #NOonHR5

White House threatens veto of GOP bill to fix education law - US News:

White House threatens veto of GOP bill to fix maligned No Child Left Behind education law

Tell Congress: Vote NO on H.R. 5 – The Student Success Act

 #NOonHR5

By KIMBERLY HEFLING, AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is threating to veto a Republican bill to fix the widely criticized No Child Left Behind law that is set for debate in the House on Wednesday, calling it "a significant step backwards."

Republicans say the bill would restore local control in schools and stop top-down education mandates. Democrats say it would allow billions in federal dollars to flow out without ensuring they will improve student learning.

The White House said the measure "abdicates the historic federal role in elementary and secondary education of ensuring the educational progress of all of America's students, including students from low-income families, students with disabilities, English learners, and students of color."

The White House's statement Wednesday is the latest in a series of veto threats issued since both chambers of Congress went under Republican control last month for the first time in Barack Obama's presidency.

A vote is expected on Friday, and it's possible that members will vote strictly along party lines. That's what happened with a similar bill in 2013.

The bill maintains annual federal testing requirements. It consolidates or eliminates many federal programs, creates a single local grant program and allows public money to follow low-income children to different public schools. It would also prohibit the federal education secretary from demanding changes to state standards or imposing conditions on states in exchange for a waiver around federal law.

The bipartisan law President George W. Bush signed in 2002 sought to close significant gaps in the achievement of historically underserved group of students and their more affluent peers. It mandated annual testing in reading and math for students in grades three to eight and again in high school. Schools had to show student growth or face consequences.

No Child Left Behind required that all students be able to read and do math at grade level by 2014. The Obama administration in 2012 began allowing waivers around some of the law's more stringent requirements if schools agreed to certain conditions, like using college- and career-ready standards such as Common Core.

House Republican leaders view the bill as a way to show their opposition to the Obama administration's encouragement of the Common Core state standards. The standards have been adopted in more than 40 states and spell out what English and math skills students should master at each level. They have become a political issue in many states because they are viewed by critics as a federal effort even though they were developed by U.S. governors.

In the Senate, there appears to be more of a bipartisan effort to fix the law. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and the committee's senior Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., have said they were working together on a proposal. Alexander said this week he wants to get a bill to the full Senate in March.White House threatens veto of GOP bill to fix education law - US News:

#STOPHR5 #NOonHR5 US Representatives on Twitter Find your Member Hit them with a Vote No on HR5 Tweet http://bit.ly/17s6O1b

Tell Congress: Vote NO on H.R. 5 – The Student Success Act

Moales and Charter School Industry go down to crushing defeat in Bridgeport - Again - Wait What?

Moales and Charter School Industry go down to crushing defeat in Bridgeport - Again - Wait What?:

Moales and Charter School Industry go down to crushing defeat in Bridgeport – Again

Despite the support of Governor Malloy’s political operatives, including Bridgeport Mayor Finch and the ConnCAN/Achievement First Inc. charter school industry, pro-charter school candidate Reverend Kenneth Moales Jr. couldn’t even muster enough voters to impact yesterday’s Special Election for a seat in the Connecticut State Senate.

The infamous Reverend Kenneth Moales Jr. came in a distant 3^rd place in yesterday’s Special Election collecting only 503 votes compared to the winner, Working Families Party candidate and former state senator Ed Gomes, who received 1,504.  The Democratic Party endorsed candidate Richard DeJesus, who Finch initially supported before turning to Moales, garnered 791 voters.

According to the Working Families Party, Ed Gomes becomes the first candidate in the country to win a legislative seat running only on the Working Families Party line.

Kenneth Moales Jr. has been one of the most outspoken supporters of Governor Malloy’s Corporate Education Reform Industry initiatives.

Moales was not only a leading champion of education reformer extraordinaire Paul Vallas but has been a major proponent of Steve Perry’s plan to open a charter school in Bridgeport.

The Reverend Kenneth Moales Jr. sits on the Board of Directors for Perry’s charter school and was a lone voice on the Bridgeport Board of Education when the democratically-elected board asked the Malloy administration NOT TO approve Perry’s charter school application.

However, Malloy’s Commissioner of Education and his political appointees on the State Moales and Charter School Industry go down to crushing defeat in Bridgeport - Again - Wait What?:

Before Book Deal, Andrew Cuomo Backed Bills That Helped News Corporation:

Before Book Deal, Andrew Cuomo Backed Bills That Helped News Corporation

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo likes to portray himself as a crusader against corruption in Albany, the state's capital, taking a hardline position against allowing state lawmakers to collect outside income that may be connected to pending legislation. He has championed a bill that would require lawmakers to disclose more of their outside income lest they write bills that benefit special interests in pursuit of private cash.

"We must prove once again that state government can be trusted, and that means passing tough new ethics laws and creating a system that deters, detects and punishes individuals who seek to abuse and corrupt," he said last week in a statement announcing ethics reform legislation. "We must bring sunlight to ethical shadows. New Yorkers deserve nothing less."

But the Democratic governor's strong words don’t quite square with his own personal appetite for cash earned outside the confines of his state work. Cuomo has so far raked in more than $188,000 from HarperCollins, a News Corporation subsidiary. That is part of a book deal that could ultimately net him more than $700,000. With Albany’s transactional politics now the subject of a federal probe, the context of that April 2013 book deal is particularly significant: An International Business Times review of New York state documents reveals that News Corporation gave Cuomo a book contract after Cuomo’s administration backed a series of state initiatives that benefited the media giant.

One of the initiatives was a bill that created a special sales tax break for online-only publications that charge for subscriptions. News Corporation, which was one of the two companies that lobbied for the bill, was at the time investing tens of millions of dollars in such a publication. Another initiative was a special tax exemption that Cuomo’s administration created for electronic books, which are sold by, among others, HarperCollins. State records list News Corporation as lobbying Cuomo’s tax department in the months before the exemption was announced. And, while News Corporation lobbied the governor’s office in 2012, Cuomo championed an expansion of controversial film and television tax credits that have benefited News Corporation’s films, and that News Corporation had lobbied for in the past.

News Corporation did not respond to IBTimes’ request for comment. Cuomo’s office -- his calls for transparency notwithstanding -- declined IBTimes’ request to release the text of the contract for the book, which has reportedly sold just 3,000 copies. The governor’s office also declined to comment about the legislation he signed and the administrative tax change his officials enacted. The governor has Before Book Deal, Andrew Cuomo Backed Bills That Helped News Corporation:

How Twitter is changing the national Common Core debate - The Washington Post

How Twitter is changing the national Common Core debate - The Washington Post:

How Twitter is changing the national Common Core debate

Is Twitter affecting the national debate on the Common Core State Standards initiative? Three researchers working on a digital reporting project say “yes” — and they call this the first national policy conversation played out in social media.

The university researchers looked at hundreds of thousands of tweets at #commoncore over a six-month period and analyzed them not only for content but also by author. One key finding:  Twitter is “making the invisible visible,” giving people who usually have no voice in national discussions power to express their opinions and affect discourse. The researchers also noted that the debate over the Core isn’t only about the Core standards themselves, but, rather, about issues such as the federal involvement in local education issues, student privacy,  standardized testing, the role poverty plays in student achievement and how for-profit companies are affecting education.

The researchers undertaking the project are Jonathan Supovitz, professor of education policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and co-director of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education; Alan J. Daly, chair of the Department of Education Studies at the University of California, San Diego; and Miguel del Fresno, a communications professor at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Spain.

They analyzed some 190,000 Tweets from September 2013 to February 2014 at #common core from 52,994 Tweeters (and are now analyzing hundreds of thousands more Tweets). Most of the tweets were written in opposition to the Core or related reforms, though the researchers said they found  only two specific sets of complaints about the standards themselves:

Claims that the Standards are developmentally inappropriate because they were back-mapped from college- and career-ready outcomes to early childhood expectations;

and

Critiques that the Common Core focused solely on academic skills and expectations while ignoring equally important social and emotional development.

Noting that “politics makes strange bedfellows,” the researchers divided the tweeters into three “particular structural communities”: one that generally supported the Common Core, one made up of educators who opposed the Common Core, and the third comprising actors from outside of education who opposed the Common Core primarily due to their connecting it to larger social issues.” The most active participants using #commoncore on Twitter came from the third group. Supovitz wrote:

But another important lesson from our analysis of the Common 

How Twitter is changing the national Common Core debate - The Washington Post:

Big Education Ape: #commoncore Project - How social media is changing the politics of education http://bit.ly/18hHH23

Russ on Reading: From Text Complexity to Considerate Text

Russ on Reading: From Text Complexity to Considerate Text:

From Text Complexity to Considerate Text

The Common Core State Standards call for kids to read lots of complex nonfiction text so they can be "college and career ready." As Appendix A of the English Language Arts section of the Common Core rather breathlessly puts it,

[T]he clear, alarming picture that emerges from the evidence... is that while the reading demands of college, workforce training programs, and citizenship have held steady or risen over the past fifty years or so, K–12 texts have, if anything, become less demanding. This finding is the impetus behind the Standards’ strongemphasis on increasing text complexity as a key requirement in reading.

As I have discussed in previous posts here, here and here, this Common Core call for employing more complex texts has led to much confusion and inappropriate instruction. The statement is also demonstrably wrongwhen it comes to readability on the K-3 level.

There is, however, another issue related to text complexity that I have yet to see anyone explore in the Common Core context. Text complexity is not an unqualified good. Indeed, it may be more reflective of the writer than of the reader. Just what is the responsibility of the author to the reader when writing any text?

Any act of reading is by definition an effort by a reader to comprehend, but it is also an attempt by a writer to be understood. There exists, in whatLouise Rosenblatt has called the reading "transaction", an implicit contract between writer and reader. The writer promises to make every effort to be understood and the reader promises to make every effort to understand.  So, if a reader's comprehension breaks down when faced with a complex text, is that a failing of the reader or a failing of the writer or a little bit of both?

Nathaniel Hawthorne said, "Easy reading is damned hard Russ on Reading: From Text Complexity to Considerate Text:

Elected School Board referendum wins by a landslide in 37 wards – Chicago's Students Deserve an Elected School Board

Elected School Board referendum wins by a landslide in 37 wards – Chicago's Students Deserve an Elected School Board:



Elected School Board referendum wins by a landslide in 37 wards

Elected School Board referendum wins by a landslide in 37 wards

Chicagoans’ preference for an elected board will continue to be pushed in Springfield

CHICAGO – Today an overwhelming number of voters in 37 wards across Chicago voted yes to an elected school board (totals below), signaling a vote of no confidence in the past twenty years of failed school reforms by mayor-appointed board members. Voters made clear that the appointed members have not made the grade and going forward a democratic process must be used to keep school board members accountable, like every other district in the Illinois. 97% of school boards in the United States are elected. The next move for the Campaign for an Elected, Representative School Board is to bring these vote totals to Springfield and push state legislators to change the law allowing Chicago taxpayers to vote for the people running Chicago’s schools.

The referendum appeared on the ballot after a month-long canvassing and petition drive by thousands of volunteers across the city. The elected school board measure is being pushed by a broad coalition of parents, teachers, and community organizations from every corner of the city. Chicagoans took this campaign to the streets on Martin Luther King Day and again on Presidents Day, when canvassers spread throughout the city going door-to-door urging voters to support the elected school board referendum. Some activists took it directly to the mayor’s doorstep, but were asked to leave by the police.

“Chicago parents, teachers and students understand that the current school board works for the mayor, not for us,” said Irene Robinson, member of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization and parent and grandparent of students whose school was closed in 2013. “Their job is to rubberstamp the mayor’s privatization agenda, which seeks to destabilize and ultimately close neighborhood schools—regardless of how the community feels about it.”

“It’s time for the school board to be accountable to the people the schools serve, parents, teachers, students and community residents across the city,” Janeth Herrera, member of the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, added. “We are the ones who know best what our schools and our children need and we deserve a say in the critical decisions that affect them.”

Mayoral control with an appointed school board began with the 1995 Amendatory Act – a state law that handed school governance over to the Mayor. Failed reforms from Mayor Daley’s “Renaissance 2010” to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s closing of 50 schools in 2013 were forged through, despite overwhelming community opposition. In 2012, a similar referendum for an elected board was on the ballot in 13% of Chicago precincts and 87% voters in those precincts voted yes to an elected school board.

“An elected school board is the first step to ensure parents and the community have a say in the direction of public education,” said Jose Caraballo, member of Communities United and parent at Hanson Park Elementary.

Yes Votes by WardElected School Board referendum wins by a landslide in 37 wards – Chicago's Students Deserve an Elected School Board:

House to Debate Partisan Bill to Fix No Child Left Behind - ABC News #NOonHR5 #ESEA

House to Debate Partisan Bill to Fix No Child Left Behind - ABC News:

House to Debate Partisan Bill to Fix No Child Left Behind

WASHINGTON — Feb 25, 2015, 3:49 AM ETBy KIMBERLY HEFLING AP Education Writer

Tell Congress: Vote NO on H.R. 5 – The Student Success Act

 #NOonHR5

No Child Left Behind is a widely criticized law, but a GOP bill intended to fix it isn't winning popularity contests among House Democrats.

House Republicans say the measure, set to be debated in the chamber Wednesday, would restore local control in schools and stop "top-down education mandates."

But, House Democrats and the White House say the bill would lead to the federal government abandoning its responsibility to poor, minority, non-English-speaking and disabled children, while allowing billions in federal dollars to flow out without ensuring they will improve student learning.

A vote is expected on Friday, and it's possible that members will vote strictly along party lines. That's what happened with a similar bill in 2013.

The bill maintains annual federal testing requirements. It consolidates or eliminates many federal programs, creates a single local grant program and allows public money to follow low-income children to different public schools. It would also prohibit the federal education secretary from demanding changes to state standards or imposing conditions on states in exchange for a waiver around federal law.

The bipartisan law President George W. Bush signed in 2002 sought to close significant gaps in the achievement of historically underserved group of students and their more affluent peers. It mandated annual testing in reading and math for students in grades three to eight and again in high school. Schools had to show student growth or face consequences.

No Child Left Behind required that all students be able to read and do math at grade level by 2014. The Obama administration in 2012 began allowing waivers around some of the law's more stringent requirements if schools agreed to certain conditions, like using college- and career-ready standards such as Common Core.

House Republican leaders view the bill as a way to show their opposition to the Obama administration's encouragement of the Common Core state standards. The standards have been adopted in more than 40 states and spell out what English and math skills students should master at each level. They have become a political issue in many states because they are viewed by critics as a federal effort even though they were developed by U.S. governors.

In the Senate, there appears to be more of a bipartisan effort to fix the law. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and the committee's senior Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., have said they were working together on a proposal. Alexander said this week he wants to get a bill to the full Senate in March.

#STOPHR5 #NOonHR5 US Representatives on Twitter Find your Member Hit them with a Vote No on HR5 Tweet http://bit.ly/17s6O1b

Tell Congress: Vote NO on H.R. 5 – The Student Success Act

Los Angeles Unified’s teachers union faces test of organizing strength:

Los Angeles Unified’s teachers union faces test of organizing strength

Pressman Jonathan Verduzco shows off one of the several hundred posters that will be tacked onto pickets when teachers go to the picket line. United Teachers Los Angeles was busy printing signs Tuesday to protest for better wages and working conditions later this week. Los Angeles, CA February 24, 2015. (Photos by John McCoy / Los Angeles Daily News)

 The print shop below United Teachers Los Angeles’ headquarters cranked out 7,500 signs for protestors to carry when they descend on downtown Thursday, demanding higher pay, fewer students per classroom and better working conditions.

Union leadership is calling for “tens of thousands” of teachers to rally at Grand Park from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in a demonstration of strength promising that 35,000 educators will strike, shutting down schools should Los Angeles Unified fail to offer acceptable terms.

UTLA outlined its contract terms in a union campaign called “The Schools LA Students Deserve.” Smaller classes, better pay and more staff — teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians — are just a few issues UTLA is using to build membership support.

“We are going to be making sure literature gets out to everyone who’s there, so they can be in contact with the school board and superintendent, pressing them to reach an agreement in support of the Schools LA Students Deserve,” said Alex Caputo-Pearl, UTLA president.

UTLA took its first official step toward meeting the legal requirements to strike last week, when they declared negotiations with LAUSD had reached an “impasse.” The state’s labor board will consider calling in a mediator. If the two sides still can’t come to terms, a fact-finding panel will be formed. Recommendations made by the panel are non-binding.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials estimate the two sides remain apart by more than $800 million a year. UTLA wants an 8.5 percent salary hike, while LAUSD is offering a 5 percent bump. The majority of costs is in increased staffing levels. The district estimates adding the teachers, counselors and other staff needed to meet the union’s demands would cost $525 million more than the district’s $26 million offer to reduce class sizes.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines said last week he doesn’t believe the district can afford to offer any more money as it faces a projected deficit of nearly $160 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1. In hopes of balancing the budget, Cortines has asked every department to cut between 7 percent and 10 percent. The recurring cost of employees — paychecks and benefits — will be a priority for reducing the deficit, Cortines said. LAUSD expects to send out a first round of pink slips next month.

Caputo-Pearl has called Cortines’ budget outlook a “scare tactic.” Revenues are increasing under a funding formula started by the state on July 1. Additionally, those revenues have been revised and are expected to be even higher by the time a budget is Los Angeles Unified’s teachers union faces test of organizing strength:

The teachers union Chris Christie says he struck an agreement with says not so fast - The Washington Post

The teachers union Chris Christie says he struck an agreement with says not so fast - The Washington Post:

The teachers union Chris Christie says he struck an agreement with says not so fast

(Update, 4:55 p.m.: This post was updated to reflect further information about the pension reform proposal.)

The plan touted by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in his Tuesday budget address is far from complete, according to the union with which Christie says he struck the deal.

“You may have the skeleton, but you don’t have the meat on the bone,” Wendell Steinhauer, president of the New Jersey Education Association, said in an interview with New Jersey Public Television after the speech. The group has agreed to a short roadmap for reform, while a broader set of recommendations was released by a Christie-appointed commission.

Christie, a potential GOP presidential candidate, devoted most of his budget address to his state’s substantial pension problem. In the speech, Christie touted what he described as “an unprecedented accord with the NJEA.”

The $33.8 billion budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins on July 1 included no new taxes, keeping in line with each of Gov. Christie’s last six proposals. It also included a $1.3 billion payment to the pension system for the 2016 fiscal year, which Christie described as “the largest single pension payment that has ever been made in New Jersey history in one year.”

But the core of his speech was focused on a “Roadmap for Reform,” the short, broad-strokes agreement between the NJEA and the New Jersey Pension and Health Benefits Study Commission, which itself issued amuch-longer reform proposal.

“The recommendations by the Commission that make up the Roadmap are far-reaching, and they’re groundbreaking,” he said. “At their core they seek to bring fairness to a system that has long been unjust and create parity between public and private sector employees.”

In the speech, Christie twice described pension reforms achieved during his tenure as a “national model” and referred to this and other pension deals as the result of “real leadership.”

The roadmap would require the state to make contributions to a trust overseen by the NJEA each fiscal year for the next 40 years, Christie said. To commit the state to the payments, the plan could be put to voters as a constitutional amendment in the fall, he added. While Christie The teachers union Chris Christie says he struck an agreement with says not so fast - The Washington Post:

Want to hone your school reformer skills? Jeb Bush’s foundation has a MOOC for you. - The Washington Post

Want to hone your school reformer skills? Jeb Bush’s foundation has a MOOC for you. - The Washington Post:

Want to hone your school reformer skills? Jeb Bush’s foundation has a MOOC for you.

Are you an education policymaker or an education reform partner? If so, this one’s for you.

Former  Florida governor Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education is offering three MOOCS — massive open online courses — with “convenient, self-paced modules to accommodate busy schedules” to help you do more to “advance and effectively implement trending reforms.” You get to hear from leading reformers, among them Joel Klein and John King, in courses such as these, as described in a foundation e-mail announcing the courses:

“Securing Our Nation’s Future” : A failing American educational system threatens U.S. national security. In this course, participants will hear from national leaders and experts about these threats, the urgent need for education reform and how America can ensure its own security and global leadership for future generations.

A second course is labeled as being about data privacy and a third, titled “Winning the Ed Reform Conversation,” will help students hone their messages so they can, obviously, win the education reform conversation. (Is the foundation concerned that it is losing the education reform conversation?)

This is a Bush foundation education policy training program in the form of a MOOC, and features people who agree with the Bush brand of school reform, which he implemented as the focus of his governorship of Florida from 1999-2007 and took national in the years since.  The centerpieces of these reforms are standardized-test based “accountability” — which has led to growing protests around the country among parents, teachers, principals and superintendents — and the spread of charter schools and voucher/voucher-like programs that use public money to pay private school tuition. Bush has been seen as so much of a national “reform” leader that President Obama himself lauded the former governor as being a “champion of education reform” when the two appeared together at a Miami school in 2011.

(If you are wondering how we can have a failing American educational system after so many years of Jeb Bush-inspired school reforms that have swept across the United States, this “Securing” course probably isn’t for you.)

Along with Klein, the former chancellor of New York City public schools, and King, the former New York State education commissioner who is now a top adviser to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, you will hear from people including John White, Louisiana state superintendent of education; Patricia Levesque, CEO of the Bush foundation, who sent the e-mail announcement; and Greg Hughes, Utah Speaker of the House.  The 18 people shown on the foundation Web site who are involved in the courses come from the policy and legislative (and not the education) world.

So here’s the e-mail sent out recently by the Foundation for Excellence inWant to hone your school reformer skills? Jeb Bush’s foundation has a MOOC for you. - The Washington Post:

Nathan Hale High School in Seattle says “No!” to the Common Core Standards SBAC test | Seattle Education

Nathan Hale High School in Seattle says “No!” to the Common Core Standards SBAC test | Seattle Education:



Nathan Hale High School in Seattle says “No!” to the Common Core Standards SBAC test

The SBAC will begin to be implemented in March but this afternoon the Nathan Hale High School Senate, which functions as the Building Leadership Team typically made up of teachers, parents, staff and students, voted nearly unanimously not to administer the SBAC tests to 11th graders this year.

The Senate also recently voted not to administer the PSAT test to 10th graders at all in the future.

The reasons for refusing the SBAC for 11th graders included:

1. The SBAC is not required for graduation

2. Colleges will not use the SBAC this year

3. Since NCLB requires all students to pass the tests by 2014, and since few if any schools will be able to do that, all schools will therefore be considered failing by that standard. There is thus no reason to participate in erroneous and misapplied self-labeling.

4. It is neither a valid nor reliable nor equitable assessment. We will use classroom based assessments to guide our next instructional steps.

5. Cut scores of the SBAC reflect poor assessment strategy and will produce invalid and unreliable outcomes.

6. Students made the point: “Why waste time taking a test that is meaningless and that most of us will fail?”

7. The SBAC will tie up computer lab time for weeks.

8. The SBAC will take up time students need to work on classroom curriculum.

As a representative of Nathan Hale stated:

This is an important step. Nathan Hale High School is asserting its commitment to Nathan Hale High School in Seattle says “No!” to the Common Core Standards SBAC test | Seattle Education: