Senators Try To Revise No Child Left Behind — A Few Years Behind : NPR Ed : NPR

Senators Try To Revise No Child Left Behind — A Few Years Behind : NPR Ed : NPR:

Senators Try To Revise No Child Left Behind — A Few Years Behind

 Newsflash: Members of the U.S. Senate will work across party lines tomorrow for the sake of America's students.

Well, at least for a few more days.

Tomorrow, a bipartisan group of senators on the HELP committee will begin hashing out the details of a proposed re-write to the massive education law known as No Child Left Behind. The law, itself a reauthorization of the landmark Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, was supposed to have been revised back in 2007.

Obsessives and political ed junkies, grab your popcorn. You can stream the mark-up live here.

If you're a public school teacher, there is a lot to like in this major revision of President George W. Bush's signature education law, passed in 2001. The proposed changes would let states — not Washington — decide how to evaluate their teachers and fix struggling schools.

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, says she's heartened that, as it stands, the revision gets the federal government out of the teacher-evaluation and closing-schools businesses and de-emphasizes testing.

Weingarten says the bill would "create some oxygen again for teaching and learning, for instruction, for the joy of teaching, for engaging kids for where they are and not where you want them to be as displayed by a test score."

The Senate proposal was negotiated by Republican Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Democrat Patty Murray of Washington in a rare stroke of bipartisanship.

To be clear, the bill would not reduce the number of tests kids are required to take — one each year in reading and math from third through eighth grade and one test round in high school. But, significantly, those tests would mean less.

The bill would not require states to evaluate teachers or measure them based on student test scores. And schools would no longer face federal sanctions if they fail to make what was called "adequate yearly progress" — a benchmark that critics have long called unrealistic and onerous. It would now be left to states to decide how and when to sanction low-performing schools.

"We are incredibly optimistic by what the Senate has put forward. Number one, it's bipartisan," says Chris Minnich, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers. "It also gives states additional flexibility. It's not a one-size-fits-all solution. The states have to continue to work on low-performing schools. It's a problem in this country. So by saying that the states have more control over this does not mean we don't need to focus on this. It means that states are better equipped to do that than the federal government," Minnich says.

NPR ED

Arne Duncan Wants To Drop 'No Child Left Behind' — But Keep Its Tests

NPR ED

Why Some Parents Are Sitting Kids Out Of Tests

In a nod to the bitter fights over the Common Core State Standards, the bill tells the federal government to back off. The Senate proposal would still require states to adopt "challenging" academic standards. But it explicitly bars the Education Department from pressuring states to adopt any specific guidelines. Common Core was always state-led and state implemented, but critics have charged that Washington unduly pushed those standards.

Bush's No Child Left Behind was a revision of the ESEA, passed as part of Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. The law is supposed to be revised every few years, but Congress has been unable to find common ground on a major revision since NCLB technically expired in 2007.

Weingarten says this proposal, especially on federal funding, helps restore the original intent of the law: To better support the nation's most vulnerable students. "It really says that money has to follow kids who are in high concentrations of poverty. And that's a very important equity issue."

On his blog, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called the proposal "a good first step," especially in promoting "transparency on resource inequities and rejecting earlier proposals to allow resources to be siphoned away from our neediest schools."

But Duncan called for improvements in key areas as the bill moves forward, including expanding federal support for high-quality preschool, bolstering resources for schools with high proportions of low-income and minority students, and ensuring what he calls "meaningful accountability" for persistently underperforming schools.

The bill, of course, has a long road ahead. The Senate and House versions are expected to be far apart. The House version was abruptly withdrawn earlier this year when it became clear it wouldn't pass. To many Democrats, it was too conservative, and to many Republicans it wasn't conservative enough.

At least one subject of debate has unified some members of the more activist wings of their parties — those who agree that testing and the stakes attached should be radically reduced. This Senate proposal, they argue, still places too much emphasis on standardized testing.

"There needs to be a further de-linking of test scores from educational high-stakes decisions about students, teachers and schools," says Robert Schaeffer, the public education director of the watchdog group Fair Test. "They've still maintained the federal foot on the testing accelerator by requiring every kid to be tested every year in elementary and middle school in reading and math and by not allowing an opt-out provision."

Fair Test proposes reducing the number of required tests to nine in what's called "grade span" testing. Under that idea, students would be tested once in elementary, middle and high school in math, science and reading.Senators Try To Revise No Child Left Behind — A Few Years Behind : NPR Ed : NPR:

‘Why do you believe you need the Common Core?’ — principal - The Washington Post

‘Why do you believe you need the Common Core?’ — principal - The Washington Post:

‘Why do you believe you need the Common Core?’ — principal

 This is the fifth in a continuing series of letters between two award-winning school principals, one who likes the Common Core State Standards and the other who doesn’t. The debate over the Common Core State Standards has become so polarized that it is hard to get people who disagree to have reasonable conversations about it. The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news Web site focused on inequality and innovation in education, is hosting a conversation between Carol Burris of New York and Jayne Ellspermann of Florida (in a format that Education Week once used with Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier as the authors).  The Report’s editors as well as both principals have given me permission to republish each letter.

Burris has served as principal of South Side High School in the Rockville Centre School District in New York since 2000. In 2010, she was recognized by the School Administrators Association of New York State as their Outstanding Educator of the Year, and in 2013, she was recognized as the New York State High School Principal of the Year. Ellspermann is principal of West Port High School in Ocala, Florida.  She has served as a principal in elementary, middle, and high schools for the past 24 years and is the 2015 Principal of the Year for the National Association of Secondary School Principals. 

The first letter was written by Burris, a Core opponent, to Ellspermann, a Core supporter. Burris explained why she once liked the Core but changed her mind after New York State schools began to implement them several years ago. You can read her letter to Ellspermann here. Ellspermann’s reply letter, which you can read here, explained why she thinks the schools in her district benefit from the Common Core. The fourth, by Ellspermann, says that critics should not blame the Common Core standards for bad implementation and she writes why she likes the English Language Arts emphasis on reading text rather than allowing students to rely on personal experience. This is the fifth letter, from Burris.

Dear Jayne,

I am glad to hear that you were able to avoid the problems with Common Core testing experienced by other Florida schools. Testing is stressful enough without technology glitches.

New York will begin its third year of 3-8 Common Core testing next week. Last spring, the parents of 60,000 New York students refused to have their children take the test. This year the number will be far higher, with estimates of a quarter million or more. Thirty percent of our district’s parents have already handed in opt-out letters. The superintendent of the Comsewogue Schools has test refusal letters for 80% of his students, and a principal upstate has over 60%. All across the state, resistance to Common Core tests is increasing.

Boards of Education have reacted in various ways to the opt-out movement but most districts have been tolerant of parental rights. Many local teacher associations have their support, and the president of the New York State United Teachers, Karen McGee, called for a boycott of the tests. One of the members of our state’s Board of Regents, Kathleen Cashin,  a retired superintendent, publicly stated that she does not believe that the Common Core tests measure learning and that they should not be used to evaluate teachers, principals or schools.  She also said she understood why parents were refusing to have their children take the test.

In my 25 years in education, I have never seen such resistance to standards and their tests. Opt-out has become a movement of conscience for parents and teachers. Prior changes to standards and tests were implemented with some grumbling, but we quickly adapted. This is not the case with the Common Core.

The local television station, PIX11, did a series on the standards. The reporter, a Yale graduate, took the eighth-grade test and was stumped by several questions. I was interviewed by him and asked to participate in a Webchat on the topic. One after another, parents expressed their dismay. I was saddened when two students lamented, “I don’t think this test really measures if I am smart.” I reassured them that it does not.

I find that to be one of the most distressing aspects of standardized testing—students internalizing the results and drawing conclusions about their abilities and potential. Whether it is an IQ test, SAT or a Common Core ‘Why do you believe you need the Common Core?’ — principal - The Washington Post:

Seattle Students Resist New Common Core Tests

Seattle Students Resist New Common Core Tests:

Seattle Students Resist New Common Core Tests

 According to the “I am an educator” website, Nathan Hale High School in Seattle has taken the lead in resisting the new “Smarter Balanced Assessment” Common Core Tests being pushed on the high schools in the city. Common Core is a school curriculum that is meant to be followed lockstep, which its proponents claim will make schools more rigorous, students smarter, and the country stronger. They claim that states have been getting onboard with the plan of their own volition, because the curriculum is just better. Opponents claim that the plan is being foisted on the schools by the federal government, that its teaching methodologies are flawed, that its main goal is to get students to all believe the same ideals, and that it means less true thinking for students.

Educators at Garfield High School, where the rebellion against standardized testing began, sent an open letter of thanks to their counterparts at Nathan Hale for coming out so strongly against this nine-hour monster of a test. They stated:

We are writing to congratulate you for taking a bold stand against the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium testing. Your school Senate’s vote to oppose the SBA has helped many all across Seattle find the courage to join this growing movement for authentic assessments.

Where did these tests come from? Where else but from the U.S. Department of Education, proving beyond any doubt that this is part of the federal takeover of America’s local public schools. The Race to the Top Assessment Program, authorized in 2009 by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, provided funding for these tests that would measure student achievement against the new Common Core standards. A PDF government document states:

In September of 2010, the U.S. Department of Education awarded two Comprehensive Assessment Systems grants to the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) Consortium and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia (SBAC). The consortia are to develop and implement assessment systems by the 2014-2015 school year. In addition, PARCC and SBAC were each provided a supplemental grant award to support the work in their approved application and to successfully transition to the new standards and assessments.

In other words, this is the federal government’s not so subtle way of taking complete control of American education by financing assessment tests tied to the Common Core curriculum. To what extent student and educator resistance to these tests will put a stop to this federal takeover is still to be seen. According to Education Week, so far, $360 million in federal grants has gone to 37 states to implement the tests. However, 15 states have rejected the program: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Utah, Arizona, Minnesota, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Alaska, and Hawaii.

Who are some of the educational bureaucrats in charge of this federal program? Jeffrey Nellhaus, who holds a masters degree from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a doctorate degree from the University of Maryland, is director of PARCC (Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers). According to the PDF:

Before joining PARCC, Mr. Nellhaus spent nearly 25 years with the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education [MA DESE] where [he] held the positions of Deputy Commissioner, Acting Commissioner, and Associate Commissioner for Curriculum and Assessment. While at the MA DESE, Mr. Nellhaus directed the design, development and implementation of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS), and the development of the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks, which include the Common Core.

Nellhaus is a true establishment bureaucrat who will implement whatever the federal government wants. Another such dedicated functionary is Joe Wilhoft, executive director of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Prior to this appointment, he was assistant superintendent for assessment and student information for Washington State. His job is to develop new state assessment systems aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The PDF states:

He is past president of the Maryland Assessment Group, the Washington Educational Research Association, and the American Educational Research Association Classroom Assessment Special Interest Group. He has been involved in multiple collaborative data and assessment efforts, including having served on technical advisory committees in several states and the Technical Work Group for the most-recent congressionally-mandated evaluation of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). He previously served as co-chair of the NAEP Policy Advisory Task Force, a collaborative effort of the National Assessment Governing Board and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

In other words, Wilhoft has spent his entire professional life in educational testing on every level possible. When I was going to public school in New York City in the 1930s and '40s, the only tests we took were the ones given us by our teachers, who wanted to know if we were learning what they were teaching. Since they were teaching the basic traditional curriculum in reading, writing, and arithmetic, they could easily keep track of every student’s progress. At the end of high school, we were all required to take the state’s Regents Test in order to get our diploma. I don’t recall many not passing that test, which was taken with pencil and paper.

Fast forward to the age of computer technology. From March 25 to June 13, 2014, more than 4.2 million students, 16,549 schools, and thousands of teachers have participated in the Smarter Balanced Field Test — the largest online assessment ever. And the technology worked well.

Nevertheless, two high schools in Seattle have decided not to participate in the tests, complaining that they take too much out of Seattle Students Resist New Common Core Tests:

Test Cheating vs Charter School Fraud - Justice for All?

Risking Public Money: California Charter School Fraud | Center for Popular Democracy:

Deals offered to educators convicted in cheating scandal

Donald Bullock, left, former Usher-Collier Heights Elementary testing coordinator in Atlanta, reacts April 1, 2015, as a jury finds him guilty in the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating trial. (Photo: Kent D. Johnson, AP)

ATLANTA — Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard has offered convicted Atlanta Public Schools educators last-minute deals that would keep them out of prison.

The sentencing hearing for 10 of 11 convictedAtlanta Public Schools educators is happening now. The educators have been in jail since they were convicted on racketeering charges April 1.

One witness, Cynthia May, called defendant Sharon Davis Williams, found guilty of racketeering but not guilty of two counts of false statements, a woman with a strong faith in God. May pleaded with the judge to show mercy when she is sentenced.

Relatives of other former educators also are testifying.

USA TODAY

11 Atlanta educators convicted in cheating scandal

Under the deal, teachers would avoid prison and instead would serve home confinement, a lawyer for one defendants said. They would waive their right to appeal, apologize and pay a fine, believed to be around $5,000. They would not be considered first-time offenders.

Convicted administrators were offered a similar deal, but they were not offered home confinement. Instead, they would serve a year in jail, rather than prison.

Donald Bullock, left, former Usher-Collier Heights Elementary testing coordinator in Atlanta, reacts April 1, 2015, as a jury finds him guilty in the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating trial. (Photo: Kent D. Johnson, AP)

It's not yet known if Judge Jerry Baxter of Fulton County Superior Court has approved the deal, or whether any of the defendants plan to accept them.

Community activists have been pushing for leniency. They've requested no jail time and an alternative sentence.

Baxter has the authority to sentence them to probation or prison. The maximum penalty on the racketeering charge is 20 years, and many educators were convicted of multiple charges.

One defendant, who was pregnant when she was convicted, will be sentenced later. One of the 12 defendants was acquitted of all charges.

The case is one of the nation's largest cheating scandals of its kind.

The former educators were accused of falsifying test results to collect bonuses or keep their jobs in Atlanta Public Schools. In all, 35 educators were indicted in 2013 on charges including racketeering, making false statements and theft. Many pleaded guilty and some testified at the trial.

Philip Holloway, a criminal defense lawyer in Marietta, Ga. and WXIA-TV's legal analyst, said the deal benefits all sides.

"Any post-trial deal makes great sense because it would save taxpayers countless thousands of dollars," Holloway said. "With a trial that complicated and lengthy, there's a good chance that there may be reversible error, and it would be in the state's interest to eliminate the risk of having some or all of the convictions overturned. It would also be in the interests of the defendants because it takes the 'unknown' out of the equation."

USA TODAY

Ex-Atlanta school chief, charged in cheating case, dies

A state investigation found that as far back as 2005, educators fed answers to students or erased and changed answers on tests after they were turned in. Evidence of cheating was found in 44 schools with nearly 180 educators involved, and teachers who tried to report it were threatened with retaliation.

Former Atlanta School Superintendent Beverly Hall was among those charged but never went to trial, saying she was too sick. She died a month ago of breast cancer.

Hall insisted she was innocent. But educators said she was among higher-ups pressuring them to inflate test scores to show gains in achievement and meet federal benchmarks that would mean extra funding.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Click here to Go to GEORGIA CHARTER SCHOOL SCANDALS

State audit finds evidence of fraud, conflicts of interest by Oakland charter school operator

 Ben Chavis, founder of the American Indian Public Charter School, listens to the deliberations of the Oakland Unified School District Board, as they reached a decision to renew the school's charter, on conditions, for another two years, at the conclusion of a special meeting Wednesday, April 4, 2012 in Oakland, Calif. Chavis had been accused of financial malfeasance and the school of having teachers without proper credentials. (D. Ross Cameron/Staff Archives)

State audit finds evidence of fraud, conflicts of interest by Oakland charter school operator

Risking Public Money: California Charter School Fraud

Mar 19, 2015

Executive Summary

In 1992, California became the second state in the nation to pass legislation authorizing the creation of charter schools. Since the law’s passage, which originally authorized 100 charter schools, the number of charter schools in California has grown rapidly. Today, California is home to the largest number of charter schools in the country, with over 1100 schools providing instruction to over half a million students. In the 2013-14 school year, California charter schools received more than $3 billion in public funding.

Download the full report here.

Despite the tremendous investment of public dollars and the size of its charter school population, California has failed to implement a system that proactively monitors charters for fraud, waste and mismanagement. While charter schools are subject to significant reporting requirements and monitoring by oversight bodies, including chartering entities, county superintendents and the State Controller, no oversight body regularly conducts audits.

In 2006, California took a step in the right direction by amending the Charter Schools Act to permit county superintendents who suspect fraud or mismanagement at charter schools to request an “extraordinary audit” from the Financial Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), a state agency charged with helping local educational agencies fulfill their financial and management responsibilities. Although FCMAT only conducts an audit when requested to do so, its findings reveal internal control deficiencies and various forms of mismanagement ranging in severity and form—from inappropriate self-dealing by charter school staff to the spending of thousands of public dollars without documentation. Even after 2006, charter schools in California continue to operate year in and year out without regulator-level audits that are designed specifically to determine whether the public dollars funding these privately managed schools are being spent properly. This lack of appropriate government audits is a problem, especially given the findings of FCMAT’s audits.

The number of instances of serious fraud uncovered by whistleblowers and the FCMAT suggests that the fraud problem is likely not isolated to the charter operators that have been caught. In fact, California’s charter oversight system’s deficiencies suggest that the $81,400,000 in fraud, waste and abuse by charter operators that has been uncovered to date is likely just the tip of the iceberg. Based on conservative estimates, California stands to lose more than $100 million to charter school fraud in 2015. The vast majority of this fraud perpetrated by charter officials will go undetected because California lacks the oversight necessary to identify the fraud. In this report we describe three fundamental flaws with California’s oversight of charter schools:

• Oversight depends heavily on self-reporting by charter schools or by whistleblowers. California’s oversight agencies rely almost entirely on audits paid for by charter operators and complaints from whistleblowers. Both methods are important to uncover fraud; however,neither is a systematic approach to fraud detection, nor are they effective in fraud prevention.
• General auditing techniques alone do not uncover fraud. The audits commissioned by the charter schools use general auditing techniques rather than techniques specifically designedto detect and uncover fraud. The current processes may expose inaccuracies or inefficiencies; however, without audits targeted at uncovering financial fraud, state and local agencies willrarely be able to detect fraud without a whistleblower.
• Oversight bodies lack adequate staffing to detect and eliminate fraud. In California, the vast majority of charter schools are authorized by local school districts that lack adequate staffing to monitor charter schools and ferret out fraud. Staff members who are responsible for oversight often juggle competing obligations that make it difficult to focus on oversight and identify signs of potential fraud and abuse.

To address these serious deficiencies in California’s system, we recommend the following reforms:

Mandate Audits Designed to Detect and Prevent Fraud

• Charter schools should be required to institute an internal fraud risk management program, including an annual fraud risk assessment.
• Charter schools should be required to commission an annual audit of internal controls over financial reporting that is integrated with the audit of financial statements charter schools currently commission. These integrated audits should require auditors to provide an opinion on the quality of internal controls and financial statements.
• Oversight agencies, such as the State Comptroller’s Office and Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), a state agency, should conduct audits on charter schools once every three years.
• Auditing teams should include members certified in Financial Forensics trained to detect fraud.

Increase Transparency & Accountability

• Oversight agencies should create a system to categorize and rank charter audits by level of fraud risk they pose to facilitate public engagement.
• Oversight agencies should post the findings of their annual internal assessments of fraud risk on their websites.
• Oversight agencies should determine what steps charter school nonprofit governing boards and executives have taken to guard against fraud over the past 10 years and issue a report to the public detailing theirs findings and recommendations.
• Charter school authorizers should take fraud risk assessments into account when evaluating whether to renew a school’s charter.
• Until the state implements the oversight mechanisms described above, authorizers should only approve new charters that commit to the fraud controls recommended above.

Given the rapid and continuing expansion of the charter school industry and the tremendous investment of public dollars, California must act now to reform its oversight system. Without reform, California stands to lose millions of dollars as a result of charter school fraud, waste, and mismanagement.

Download the full report here.

Campaigns: 

Holding Charter Schools Accountable

Risking Public Money: California Charter School Fraud | Center for Popular Democracy:

CURMUDGUCATION: Arne's New History of CCSS on MSNBC

CURMUDGUCATION: Arne's New History of CCSS on MSNBC:

Arne's New History of CCSS on MSNBC

 Arne Duncan sat down with Chris Hayes on MSNBC to explain why folks are just so all-fired fire-up about Common Core. Let's see what the current story is.


Hayes starts by saying that CCSS has trouble because it has been conflated with high stakes testing which was linked to all sorts of stuff because of NCLB. This skips past the Obama/Duncan administration's role in bolting high stakes testing to everything from school evaluation to teacher evaluation, but okay. We're only seven seconds in.

Hayes leads with a fun question-- what, if anything, has been achieved in the years since NCLB was signed by Bush?

Duncan: Fixing achievement gaps is the big achievement, but NCLB "has been broken for a while" (which raises the question-- was it ever not broken) and Congress also sucks. So the administration "partnered with states" to provide waivers which allowed them to part ways with the most onerous parts of the law. Which begs a huge question-- outside of the absurd 100% above average test scores requirement, was there any part of NCLB that wasn't given a huge shot of steroids under waivers? Sadly, Hayes is not going to ask that question.

Hayes: My reading of the data (and one of the problems is that there's so much data you can read anything) is that the testing gap (and I love him just a little for calling it a testing gap and not an achievement gap) hasn't really narrowed at all, "certainly not the narrowing that we were promised back in 2001."

Duncan: We have a long way to go. (Which is true in the same way that I have a long way to go to get to Chicago because I'm still sitting in my office at home.) Anyway, we've seen gains over the past twenty-thirty years, but it's not fast enough. So this law has to be about equity. So put politics aside (says the guy who's got no political juice left in his thermos). This law also has to be about early childhood education, because that will level the playing field. Also, we have to bring more dollars to disadvantaged communities. The children who need the most get the least, says the man whose administration likes to frame all aid and grant proposals as competitions. But he thinks maybe Congress can fix inequity.

Hayes: I want to talk about Common Core for a second. (And he smiles a little smile, like "let's do this silly thing, I'm going to ask a question, you're going to sling baloney, it'll be fun"). Are you surprised by how controversial Common Core (which he characterizes as "kind of an obscure issue in certain ways") has become?

Duncan: "It's actually very simple. The goal's to have high standards." So, kids, the whole national consistency issue, the whole being able to compare kids in Idaho and Maine, the whole keeping everyone on the same page so mobile students will never get lost-- that's no longer the point.

Duncan goes on to display how much he doesn't understand about how this works. He talks about how, under NCLB, too many states dummied down standards. He says this was "to make politicians look good." I'd be more inclined to say "to avoid punitive consequences for their schools." If Arne had reached my conclusion (and really, given that he was in charge of a large school district at the time, it's kind of amazing that he didn't reach my conclusion) then perhaps he wouldn't have figured that the solution was to make the consequences of high stakes testing even more punitive than before.

Insert story here of how schools lied to students about how ready they were for college. So brave governors decided to stop lying to children. "Let's have true college and career ready standards for every single child." As always I wonder why reaching that conclusion leads to a next step where one says, "Let's hire a couple of guys who have no real education experience, either pedagogical or developmental, and have them whip something up."

Hayes: When you say it like that, it sounds swell. But instead this is very polarizing. Arne looks dumbfounded like "I know, right, dude? What is up with these crazy people?" and Hayes continues to point out that Jeb Bush is going to have to spend a bunch of time in Iowa confronting people (unless his huge ad buy actually helps and....nahh).

Duncan: It's only polarizing to politicians. If you talk to parents, to real parents--

And Hayes cuts him off to say "I disagree. I strongly disagree" which is an appropriate response to Arne's deep-fried fluffernuttery. It's ironic. Duncan is all "let's keep politics out of this" and yet the whole "this is polticians raising a stink and real parents just love it" is, of course, pure political spin.

Duncan soldiers on. If you ask parents if they want their children to really be college and career ready, do you want them to be able to write well, think critically, have a real chance at life, parents think that's just swell.

Hayes: That's right. But if you go in and say Common Core-- and he cuts to specific examples all across the country of kids coming home with dumb crap or taking a terrible test and the source of their kid's anxiety is Common Core. Common Core has become the name for all testing related stress.

And I'm going to interrupt to say, yes, that's right, because at this point "Common Core" is a deeply meaningless term. Duncan's point is also deeply dumb, because it assumes the sale. Sure parents CURMUDGUCATION: Arne's New History of CCSS on MSNBC:

Why Populist Progressives Must Embrace the Education Spring | National Education Policy Center

Campaign for America’s Future: Why Populist Progressives Must Embrace the Education Spring | National Education Policy Center:

Campaign for America’s Future: Why Populist Progressives Must Embrace the Education Spring

Is there really “a populist energy building in America, and beginning to drive the debate in the Democratic Party,” as my colleague Robert Borosage recently wrote?

If your inclination is to answer that question, “Yes,” the evidence you’re most apt to cite is the popularity of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and her crusade against Wall Street dominance of public policy. And you’re apt to point to, as Borosage does, activism like the “Fight for 15” campaign, demanding a $15 an hour minimum wage and union representation in the workplace.

Other issues that often make the checklist for progressive activism are debt-free higher education, Social Security expansion, clean-energy, and affordable healthcare.

Does all this grassroots activism matter at the ballot box?

Borosage contends it does, and points to, among other evidence, the recent Chicago mayoral election where Democratic incumbent Rahm Emanuel, “tagged as the mayor of the 1 percent,” went from an “expected coronation” to “an unprecedented runoff against a populist challenger.”

Borosage is not the only person making this argument.

David Sirota, writing for Salon, argues that Emanuel’s surprisingly contentious reelection is evidence that “the old corporate Democratic assumption” is being challenged by “a massive grassroots organizing campaign” opposing Wall Street.

The fact Emanuel won doesn’t refute the argument. As another of my colleagues, Richard Eskow, observes, “The fact that Emanuel was forced into Chicago’s first mayoral runoff is itself a sign of vulnerability for corporate-friendly politicians.”

So, Eskow asks, “Why was a powerful mayor forced into a runoff in a city known for patronage and machine politics, despite the backing of wealthy interests and national party leaders?”

Why indeed.

Eskow cites a number of reasons for Emanuel’s vulnerability, including “privatization of many government functions” and his ties to Wall Street “investors and other financial interests.”

But if you want to get more specific, what likely animated voters’ desire to oust Emanuel was his attacks on public schools and school teachers. That’s the argument John Nichols, writing for The Nation, makes. “The fact that there is a race at all,” he contends, “owes everything to the evolving debate over education policy.”

Nichols argues, “Emanuel would not have faced serious competition had he not ordered the closing of dozens of neighborhood schools, as part of an ongoing fight with public-education advocates and the Chicago Teachers Union.”

In fact, the leader of the teachers’ union, Karen Lewis, was considered to be a formidable opponent for Emanuel until she was sidelined for health reasons.

Although Nichols praises Emanuel’s eventual opponent, Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, for being “an outspoken champion of teachers and neighborhood schools,” Garcia was likely not outspoken enough to press his advantage on the education issue.

That’s the conclusion that Black Agenda Report’s Bruce Dixon makes. In an interview with the senior editor for The Real News, Paul Jay, Dixon argues, Garcia likely fell short of victory because “he couldn’t denounce the mayor’s educational policies” with the fervor and authenticity that Karen Lewis would have done.

Anger at the mayor’s public education policies was at its height in 2012, when public school teachers went on strike to defy the mayor’s agenda of cutting school budgets, expanding class sizes, increasing the number of charter schools while closing neighborhood schools, and requiring teachers to work longer hours for the same pay.

As I observed in 2013, the Chicago teachers’ strike became a symbol, as well as a catalyst for other actions, for a national movement – an Education Spring – that has since swept the country and now defines the political debate in education policy.

That national movement continues to coalesce around four common grievances voters have with public school policy, which include: resource deprivation, inequity of funding, public disempowerment in the system, and the widespread perception that governing policies are driven by corruption.

Dixon’s contention is that Garcia didn’t fare as well with African-American voters – a significant part of the Chicago electorate– because he failed to connect his candidacy to that national movement and its anger with “federal education policy that’s Campaign for America’s Future: Why Populist Progressives Must Embrace the Education Spring | National Education Policy Center:

Students Can’t Hide From Common Core No Matter What School they Attend:

Students Can’t Hide From Common Core No Matter What School they Attend

APRIL 13, 2015 BY NANCY BAILEY LEAVE A COMMENT

The more I read about Common Core and education reform, the more I am convinced that one of the most important issues is that all students will have to be instructed with these standards if they choose to attend college.

A misconception exists about students in private or parochial schools being lucky that they won’t have to mess with the Common Core. But this is a myth, unless these schools will be willing to take criticism when their seniors wind up not answering correctly on the SAT/ACT tests to get into their dream colleges.

I’m not saying students will be better prepared for college, but they will have to learn what is on the test in order to get there.

Still, many are under the assumption that the Common Core State Standards are only found in  public schools!

Even Nancie Atwell, who recently won an award for teaching, and whose book In The Middle is seen as a great reading resource for teachers, implied that teachers should only go into teaching if they go into the private sector. She said, Public school teachers are so constrained right now by the Common Core Standards and the tests that are developed to monitor what teachers are doing with them. It’s a movement that’s turned teachers into technicians, not reflective practitioners. She rightly criticized the Common Core.

But as much as Nancie, and anyone else running a private or parochial school, might dislike the Common Core, they will also be hamstrung to teach to the standards! Homeschooled students are not exempt either if they want to attend college.

The tie that binds all schools together is the SAT/ACT tests which are aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The Advanced Placement (AP) tests and even the General Education Development (GED) tests are aligned to Common Core too!

David Coleman who helped write the English/Language Arts part of the Common Core, is now in President of the College Board. He is aligning SAT HERE.  The ACT is also aligned HERE. 

Here is a side-by-side description from the College Board comparing the SAT and Common Core.

Here are the comments by Dr. Sandra Stotsky who was on the Common Core Validation Committee but who now argues against it, said:Students Can’t Hide From Common Core No Matter What School they Attend: