Outside Influence: Despite big spending, vouchers remain banned in Tennessee - The Commercial Appeal

Outside Influence: Despite big spending, vouchers remain banned in Tennessee - The Commercial Appeal:

Outside Influence: Despite big spending, vouchers remain banned in Tennessee

 After years of lobbying, millions of dollars from in-state and out-of-state advocacy groups and the support of the governor and other legislative leaders, school vouchers are still banned in Tennessee.

Republican lawmakers and conservative groups are more likely to support what they call “opportunity scholarships,” public funds to offset the cost of private school education for some students. And with the GOP supermajority at the General Assembly, many issues backed by conservative groups have become law.

But not always in education. Apart from a limited program to allow vouchers for special-needs students passed this year, there have been just enough Republican lawmakers to join with Democrats in beating back vouchers. The bill to let parents choose to transform their school into a charter school — known as the parent trigger bill — also failed.

“Unfortunately, (the voucher) bill was stalled for a number of reasons. Lobbying groups representing district school boards, for instance, claimed budgetary concerns while groups like ours pointed to school choice having a positive educational impact for students,” said Ted Boyatt, spokesman for an organization calledStudentsFirst.

Outside spending

California-based StudentsFirst was created by former Washington, D.C., school chief Michelle Rhee, the former wife of polarizing Tennessee education head Kevin Huffman. The organization also goes locally by the name Tennessee Parents/Teachers Putting Students First, and has advocated for vouchers since the end of 2012.

It spent as much as $213,907 on lobbying in 2014, with its political action committee spending $573,917 during the two years leading up to the 2014 election, according to state finance records.

Washington, D.C.-based Tennessee Federation for Children, the state chapter of the American Federation for Children, spent as much as $150,000 on lobbying in 2014 and $606,345 during the 2014 campaign cycle, according to campaign finance records.

It didn’t work. One Democrat, former Rep. Gloria Johnson, was ousted, but other Democrat targets — including Nashville Reps.Darren Jernigan and Jason Powell — survived campaign onslaughts from outside groups.

Although Tommy Schultz, a spokesman for the Tennessee Federation for Children, argued the money helped elect “school choice” candidates, the voucher bill continues to die in a House finance subcommittee.

“Our public education system is the bedrock of our communities and their success and it is not for sale,” said Lyn Hoyt, a spokeswoman for Tennesseans Reclaiming Educational Excellence, a group advocating against vouchers. “Citizens see through a lot of this paid PR agenda to sway public opinion if they are experiencing the changes in the system. The changes have been so swift and painful, Outside Influence: Despite big spending, vouchers remain banned in Tennessee - The Commercial Appeal:

Play of the Day: Barack Obama Wants At Least One Child Left Behind - Oversight - GovExec.com

Play of the Day: Barack Obama Wants At Least One Child Left Behind - Oversight - GovExec.com:

Play of the Day: Barack Obama Wants At Least One Child Left Behind

 Late-night television hosts were still processing Vermont Senator Bernie Sandersentrance into the 2016 race over the weekend. Real Time's Bill Maher joked about Sanders' socialist affiliation and his unique biography, while The Tonight Show's Jimmy Fallon showed video of a particularly uplifting speech.

Last Week Tonight's main story Sunday covered the practice of standardized testing in American schools. Host John Oliver looked at the federal mandates placed on schools by George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind plan, including comparing the program's name to loving a puppy.

Speaking of education, President Barack Obama visited a DC school last week and was interviewed by a student. The student cut the president off, promoting both Saturday Night Live and Fallon to joke about the kid's educational prospects after insulting the American leader.

Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association: Justice Alito’s Invitation Accepted | ACS

Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association: Justice Alito’s Invitation Accepted | ACS:

Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association: Justice Alito’s Invitation Accepted

More Legal Attacks on Teachers

by Ann C. Hodges, Professor of Law, University of Richmond School of Law

In a blog post following the Supreme Court’s decision last term in Harris v. Quinn, I predicted that the constitutionality of union fair share fees would soon be back at the Court. It took little prescience to make such a prediction and indeed, the plaintiffs in Friederichs v. California Teachers’ Association worked mightily to get the case on the Court’s docket as quickly as possible. The Court will decide whether to grant cert in the near future.

Although this issue will no doubt return repeatedly to the Court, it should decline to hear the case. The 1977 decision of the Court in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education correctly concluded that fair share fees are constitutional, and the decision should not be disturbed.Abood allows the union to charge for its mandated representational duties, but not for political expenditures. In this context, the objectors’ first amendment interests are reduced and the interests of the government employer that has entered into an agreement with the union enhanced. Justice Alito suggested in Harris, however, that all union activity in the government sector implicates the highest first amendment interests. This is at odds with the Court’s cases on the first amendment interests of public employees following Abood.

In recent years, the Court has held that the government has stronger interests in restraining speech when it acts as an employer. Accordingly, when employees speak pursuant to their job duties, their speech is unprotected. Additionally, when an employee’s speech is about an internal workplace grievance, it is similarly unprotected by the first amendment. It is precisely these grievances that the union is obliged to handle for all employees regardless of membership.  If speaking about the grievance is unprotected, why is compelling the unwilling employee to pay for this otherwise unprotected speech an interference with first amendment rights?  Further, Justice Alito’s Harris opinion suggests that when one employee asks for a raise, the speech is unprotected but when the union asks for a raise on behalf of all employees, it is high order political speech which the employee cannot be compelled to support.  As Justice Kagan pointed out in the Harris dissent, the fact that it takes more money to pay multiple employees does not transform the character of the speech when the substance, asking for a raise, is the same.

There are many other reasons for the Court to deny cert. Abood has been settled law for almost 40 years, Justice Alito’s efforts notwithstanding. As Justice Kagan ably pointed out inHarris, principles of stare decisis, including the reliance interests of thousands of employers and unions and millions of employees, counsel restraint. Moreover, as I have argued in earlier posts, fair share agreements are an essential pillar of the system of labor relations that has served our country well for 80 years.  And finally, as pointed out in the opposition to cert, the record in this case has not been developed, as the plaintiffs rushed to accept Justice Alito’s invitation for an opportunity to overrule Abood.

When one takes a step back from the details of the cases and looks at the big picture, it is clear that the issue of fair share fees is about power and politics. While some may philosophically object to the requirement to pay fees despite the union’s legal obligation to represent all employees, many are looking for a way to reduce union resources.

Whether the ultimate desire is to reduce the size of government, to elect more Republicans, or to implement more conservative policies, limiting the power of unions is one route to success.  And today, the more powerful unions are government unions, which represent more than one third of the government workforce, as compared to private sector unions with less than 7 percent representation. Despite the high representation rate in the public sector, however, the power of the unions is dwarfed by the opposition. 

The cases challenging union fees are not financed by employees, but by powerful conservative interest groups. In an ironic twist on the theme of attacking the fair share fee requirement, fee payers, represented by a powerful law firm that typically advocates for employers, recently filed a different kind of first amendment challenge. These plaintiffs complain that their speech rights are violated because they cannot obtain the benefits of union membership without paying full dues, which subsidize activities objectionable to them. The goal of all these challenges is not to enhance speech, but to reduce it.  Individual voices are far less powerful alone than when exercised collectively. If the vehicle for collective voice is silenced or diminished, the power of opposition groups is increased.

Despite efforts to portray the union fee cases as involving the special interests of powerful unions, those who value speech should be deeply concerned. Those who fear the consolidation of corporate power should be concerned as well.  We may be heartened by the Court’s failure to overrule Abood in Harris v. Quinn. It is clear that Justice Alito and others are itching to send Abood to the dustbin, but apparently did not have sufficient votes inHarris.  One hopes that the better part of wisdom will prevail and that it was not merely the vehicle that led to the result. The relentless attacks on union fees will continue to return to the Court, however, because of the powerful interests pushing them. Those concerned about preserving multiple voices in our society must be vigilant.

Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association

 Pending petition

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
14-915	9th Cir.	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD

Issue: (1) Whether Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed. should be overruled and public-sector “agency shop” arrangements invalidated under the First Amendment; and (2) whether it violates the First Amendment to require that public employees affirmatively object to subsidizing nonchargeable speech by public-sector unions, rather than requiring that employees affirmatively consent to subsidizing such speech.

SCOTUSblog Coverage

• Petition of the day

Date	Proceedings and Orders
Jan 26 2015	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 2, 2015)
Feb 19 2015	Order extending time to file response to petition to and including April 1, 2015, for all respondents.
Feb 24 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Pacific Legal Foundation filed.
Feb 27 2015	Brief amicus curiae of National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund filed.
Feb 27 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Mackinac Center for Public Policy filed.
Feb 27 2015	Brief amicus curiae of Goldwater Institute filed.
Feb 27 2015	Brief amici curiae of Consitutional Law Professors, et al. filed.
Feb 27 2015	Waiver of right of respondent Elliott Duchon to respond filed.
Mar 2 2015	Brief amici curiae of Former California Governor Pete Wilson, et al. filed.
Mar 2 2015	Brief amici curiae of Kaneland, Illinois Unified School District #302 Administrative Support Staff filed.
Mar 2 2015	Brief amicus curiae of The Cato Institute filed.
Mar 2 2015	Brief amici curiae of Michigan and Eight Other States filed.
Mar 30 2015	Waiver of right of respondent Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General of California to respond filed.
Apr 1 2015	Brief of respondents California Teachers Association, et al. in opposition filed.
Apr 14 2015	Reply of petitioners Rebecca Friedrichs, et al. filed.
Apr 15 2015	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of May 1, 2015.
Apr 27 2015	Response Requested . (Due May 27, 2015)

Update The Buzz on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Standardized Testing (HBO)

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Standardized Testing (HBO)

American students face a ridiculous amount of testing. John Oliver explains how standardized tests impact school funding, the achievement gap, how often kids are expected to throw up.

John Oliver Explains Why Standardized Tests Are Bullsh*t http://uproxx.it/1bWAkhM

John Oliver Rips Education Process Every Student Experiences: ‘Fastest Way to Terrorize Any Child’ http://bit.ly/1bWxTvF

Watch John Oliver Give Failing Marks to Standardized Testing | TIME http://ti.me/1bWy8H7

John Oliver Explains Everything That's Wrong With Standardized Testing http://huff.to/1GVbFI6

John Oliver Rips Standardized Testing With Help From a Dancing Monkey on ‘Last Week Tonight’ - Speakeasy - WSJ http://on.wsj.com/1bWyIEG

John Oliver perfectly sums up everything that’s wrong with standardized testing - Salon.com http://bit.ly/1bWzcL7

Palm Beach County student’s words send John Oliver on testing rant | Extra Credit http://pbpo.st/1bWziCy

John Oliver Puts Standardized Testing To The Test On 'Last Week Tonight' And It Fails Miserably : T-Lounge : Tech T... http://bit.ly/1bWzrG7

John Oliver Rips Education Process Every Student Experiences: ‘Fastest Way to Terrorize Any Child’ http://bit.ly/1bWxTvF

Let John Oliver Explain How Standardized Testing Makes Kids Anxious and Vomit Under Pressure | Mother Jones http://bit.ly/1bWAaXL

John Oliver jumps in the fight against standardized-testing mania http://bit.ly/1bWAsxH

Fraud, Waste, and Lies: Charter Schools Cheating Communities Out of Millions of Dollars | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

Fraud, Waste, and Lies: Charter Schools Cheating Communities Out of Millions of Dollars | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

Fraud, Waste, and Lies: Charter Schools Cheating Communities Out of Millions of Dollars

New report warns that, due to lack of oversight, 'vast majority of the fraud perpetrated by charter officials will go undetected'

 Accepting and soliciting bribes. Diverting public funds for personal profit. Lying about the number of students. These are just a few examples of the fraud and malfeasance committed by charter school officials—cheating communities out of millions dollars that were supposed to go to education, a new report finds.

The Tip of the Iceberg: Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud, and Abuse (pdf) was released Tuesday by the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) and the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD).

It concludes that, in 15 states alone—a third of states with charter schools—such waste cost more than $200 million.

This number is significantly higher than estimates released last year by CPD, which identified at least $136 million lost to fraud and waste. The revised figure of $203 million includes "all of the cases from the 2014 report, $23 million in new cases, and $44 million in additional cases not included in  the 2014 report," the study states.

"Charter schools act like they have a 'get out of accountability free' card," Jonathan Stith, spokesperson for AROS, said in a press statement. "Two-hundred-million dollars that was supposed to go to schools and classrooms is just gone. And that's likely to be the tip of the iceberg, given the lack of transparency or standards applied to charter schools."

However, the report warns, "The number of instances of serious fraud uncovered by whistleblowers, reporters, and investigations suggests that the fraud problem extends well beyond the cases we know about. According to standard forensic auditing methodologies, the deficiencies in charter oversight throughout the country suggest that federal, state, and local governments stand to lose more than $1.4 billion in 2015."

"The vast majority of the fraud perpetrated by charter officials will go undetected because the federal government, the states, and local charter authorizers lack the oversight necessary to detect the fraud," the report adds.

 The report cited numerous examples of such transgressions in charter schools from California to Ohio, including the case of a Washington, D.C. institution, highlighted in asummary of the findings:

The DC Public Charter School Board unanimously revoked the charter of Dorothy I. Height Community Academy Public Charter School—which enrolled 1,600 students across three campuses and an online academy—after the school’s founder, Kent Amos, was accused of diverting funds from the school for his personal profit. Despite evidence that Amos—who is currently being sued by the 

Fraud, Waste, and Lies: Charter Schools Cheating Communities Out of Millions of Dollars | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community:

Charter school dissolves amid charges of nepotism, fiscal mismanagement, enrollment fraud - News - recordnet.com - Stockton, CA

Charter school dissolves amid charges of nepotism, fiscal mismanagement, enrollment fraud - News - recordnet.com - Stockton, CA:

Charter school dissolves amid charges of nepotism, fiscal mismanagement, enrollment fraud

STOCKTON — Renew Virtual Academies, a charter school in the New Jerusalem School District, has been dissolved and its roughly 80 students absorbed into other sites amid allegations of fiscal mismanagement, nepotism and enrollment fraud against the school's founder.

Among the charges were that CEO Ellen Ringer hired her son, Deputy Executive Director of Business Services Christopher Walenta, at an annual salary of nearly $100,000 and paid other relatives without disclosing the relationships, New Jerusalem School District officials confirmed.

Ringer and Walenta were forced by trustees of the Renew Virtual Academies board to resign earlier this year after district officials discovered budget discrepancies late last year and looked further into the charter school’s management, New Jerusalem Superintendent David Thoming said. Criminal charges potentially could follow.

“By the first week in January, we realized that they were over-reporting the amount of students they had in order to make their budget work,” he said, adding that Ringer reported enrollment to determine state Average Daily Attendance funding “roughly double” the actual number of about 80 students. The school’s original charter petition projected 200 students in the 2014-15 school year; her son’s director position was not included in the proposal.

“At that point we questioned why she still had on her payroll a chief financial officer who was making a pretty decent amount of money, and we received an email back from her telling us how great this individual was and how indispensable to the organization he has been to start, and the last sentence in the email said, ‘and this has nothing to do with the fact that this is my son,’ ” Thoming said. “And at the point we realized that we had a much bigger problem.”

Ringer, of Rocklin, declined an interview request, responding to questions submitted by email.

“Neither myself nor any of the leadership of RVA did anything illegal or immoral," she said in an email Thursday.

Ringer approached New Jerusalem in 2013 about granting a charter targeting “those students who are really kind of the forgotten students in our community, the teenage mothers, the students that drop out in their senior year, the students that get forgotten by the traditional system,” Thorning said.

In a letter and job offer to Walenta dated March 1, 2014, Ringer wrote that he had been working as an independent contractor for the school and earning $7,500 per month since January 2014, and offered him an annual compensation of $96,000 plus executive-level benefits as well as permission to telecommute for two weeks of each month from his Lone Tree, Colorado, home.

Chase Bank statements listed under the Renew Virtual Academy name, the same account where grant funds were deposited, show charges for airplane tickets, hotels, restaurants and other expenses that Ringer declined to explain when contacted.

In an email Wednesday, Ringer said her son’s salary was “approved independently by RVA's Board of Directors and determined by an outside agency … (that) based his salary on his qualifications and experience.” Walenta’s résumé lists no educational experience, but it does list “guest relations” and “customer service” management positions at the Elephant Bar and Chili’s and a supervisorial position at Sprint for the DeVry University graduate.

Three of the four members of the charter school’s board were appointed by Ringer, state documents show, including a co-founder of the company run by Ringer. A fourth, Delta Charter Schools Superintendent Jeff Tilton, who served as authorizing representative and ran for San Joaquin County superintendent of schools last year, said he never was informed of the relationship between Ringer and her son or other family members and resigned immediately when he found out.

In addition, Walenta’s wife, Corey, was approved for $10,000 for independent contractor work in January 2014 from funds received from the federal Public Charter School Grant Program, a contract agreement shows.

“We found out not only had she hired her son, she had also hired her daughter-in-law, her sister, and there are some payments that we can’t quite figure out to the father of her son — the level of nepotism there is astounding,” Thoming said.  

In addition to state funding of $926,435, Ringer reported in 2014-15 documents filed with the state, Renew Virtual Academy was awarded a $375,000 Public Charter Schools Grant Program Planning and Implementation Grant in September 2013, the California Department of Education reported, and an additional $250,000 loan from the Charter School Revolving Loan Fund Program in 2013-14. Coming in at more than $1.5 million, that’s nearly $20,000 per student, roughly twice what the school should have received for 80 students.

In light of their discoveries, New Jerusalem officials asked the San Joaquin County Office of Education to investigate; the county office has requested an audit from the state’s Fiscal Crisis Management Assessment Team, a quasi-governmental agency created by the Legislature.

“If (that team) suspects illegal activity when they’re done, they’ll refer findings to the D.A.’s Office,” said Zachary K. Johnson, a spokesman for the county office. “When a school closes midyear, it is a disruptive thing,” not just to the students but to their families and teachers."

New Jerusalem tried to keep the school open but realized its finances were “too far upside Charter school dissolves amid charges of nepotism, fiscal mismanagement, enrollment fraud - News - recordnet.com - Stockton, CA:

WANTED: Teachers — Education’s revolutionary uprising | The Underdog's Advocate

WANTED: Teachers — Education’s revolutionary uprising | The Underdog's Advocate:

WANTED: Teachers — Education’s revolutionary uprising

 by Ryan B. Jackson, Ed.D

If April showers bring May flowers then what, in turn, do these undeniable symbols of spring really bring? For the answer, look no further than your community school, job fair or university graduation ceremony: New Teachers.

Spring sets the stage or plants the seeds (to keep the analogy going) for fall’s new teaching recruits to embark on an age-old journey, where self-interest and financial fortune are abandoned and replaced with a commitment to one of the most noble yet unsung professions the world has ever known. Understandably, after reading that last line, skeptics just rolled their eyes and scoffed at the word “noble” and I cannot blame them. In fact, as an educator in-love with the profession and passionate about its indelible impact on society, I, too, often wonder why anyone in their right mind would willingly dive into a hurricane-infested profession that supplies no life preserver, vague swimming lessons, and reluctant lifeguards. Yet as a second-year administrator, I am astonished and admittedly proud to report that there are still those courageous enough to try their hand at teaching, all the while our nation’s educational landscape seems inevitably destined for civil war.

The question still remains, however: Why would any sane, self-respecting adult commit to a profession that has systematically been underpaid, devalued, even outright ostracized by society at large?

To even begin to answer this head-scratching riddle, I had to reflect on my own pursuits of the profession. In 2007 I simply wanted to teach kids how to write better. Working as a copywriter in the marketing department of a local business, I began tutoring a pair of brothers whose mother had sincere concerns about their ability to articulate thoughts into compelling sentences and paragraphs. And, like most teachers can attest, it only took one tutoring session before I was hooked. The mental connections, the synapse firings, the rush of reading a well-written essay — I knew instantly teaching was for me.

Unfortunately, teaching in the heart of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) era slapped a rude awakening on my dreams of Socratic seminars centered around the art and science of great writing. Immediately, I was inundated with an accountability-based standardized testing doctrine that was undeniably pressuring teachers to trim the proverbial creative fat from teaching and learning for a leaner, test-prep cut of education. Undaunted, I searched for meaningful, impactful approaches to a test-centered education paradigm. My teaching mentor Ryan Murphey (@ryanomurphey) became Butch Cassidy to my Sundance Kid, as we fashioned ourselves as teaching outlaws committed to thought-provoking teaching styles with universal themes as our ammunition. In those days, I primarily taught junior-level English, and our big focus was the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) writing assessment, as well as the ACT (although the ACT had yet to really solidify itself as the go-to measure for college readiness — at least in the urban school I served). Laughingly, we thought the stakes were high then! In WANTED: Teachers — Education’s revolutionary uprising | The Underdog's Advocate:

My Position on the Senate ESEA Reauthorization Draft | deutsch29

My Position on the Senate ESEA Reauthorization Draft | deutsch29:

My Position on the Senate ESEA Reauthorization Draft

I have read (and reread certain sections of) the entire 601-page Senate reauthorization draft of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), written by Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray and named the Every Child Achieves  Act of 2015.

I have also read the 29 amendments that were added to the Act as it gained approval from the Senate Ed Committee on April 16, 2015.

In an effort to offer my readers a digest of the massive Senate ESEA draft, I wrote a series of six posts that can be accessed here. I also did the same for the 29 amendments, which resulted in a series of three posts that can be accessed here.

During this massive undertaking, I have had individuals asking about my position on the Senate ESEA draft. Even though some of my posts include glimpses into my thoughts about the Alexander-Murray draft (and now, its included 29 amendments), I have not yet offered a summative word regarding my opinion of this proposed ESEA reauthorization.

I will do so now.

Until something happens, whether that “something” is a new version of ESEA or killing ESEA, school districts across America are stuck with George W. Bush’s infamously ridiculous and punitive version of ESEA known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In short, NCLB told America that there would be “100 percent proficiency in reading and math by 2014″ or else teachers, administrators, schools, school districts, and states would pay. The premise of NCLB is that teachers and administrators could be scared into producing a never-before-known (in any country) level of test-centered “proficiency.” And states were set up to “prove” they were on the road to this perfection by setting up their own “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) toward this perfect goal, which was perched precariously on the test scores of at least 95 percent of a state’s students. Not achieving AYP could result in dire consequences, including the firing teachers and administration as part of school “restructuring.” (For an excellent summary of NCLB consequences, see Diane Ravitch’s Death and Life of the Great American School System, pgs. 97-98.)

As one might expect in such a ridiculous high-stakes situation, in an effort to avoid NCLB consequences, states gamed the system to create AYP goals that they could achieve.

An entire nation of school districts boasting “100 percent proficiency in reading and math by 2014″ was not to be, and any individual with a sliver of common sense knew it.

So, 2014 has come and gone, and states remain under NCLB until ESEA is either completely done away with or redrafted and reauthorized. And by “under NCLB,” that means states are subject to the likes of US Secretary Arne Duncan’s NCLB “waivers,” in which he has decided to leverage control over both state standards and teacher evaluation. Otherwise, without one of his “on my terms” NCLB waivers, Duncan can declare any state as having failed to meet that unrealistic NCLB goal of “100 percent proficiency in reading and math.”

Stupid, I know. But that is where we are (and where we remain) until something happens to dismiss or replace the ESEA version known as NCLB.

Now, I mentioned that one option is to completely do away with ESEA. That is my preferred position, one that I wrote about on February 1, 2015. That post included an email I wrote to Alexander in which I suggested that ESEA be sunsetted in favor of separate block grants.

The reality is that ESEA will not be laid to rest. It will continue, and either Congress will fail in its efforts to reauthorize it and default for another seven years to NCLB (which means NCLB “waivers”)–or– Congress will reauthorize a new version of ESEA.

There are two versions currently in the running, one originating in the House (Kline’sHR 5, the Student Success Act) and the Senate (Alexander and Murray’s Every Child Achieves Act of 2015). Both bills propose to retain the mandatory annual state testing in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school in both English language arts (ELA) and math. Both bills encourage charter school growth and expansion. Both include language forbidding the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) as a federal mandate. HR 5 includes language to make Title I money “follow the student,” which would be an accounting and budgeting nightmare.

I think the Senate draft is the better of the two bills. It appears to be a true, Republican-Democratic negotiation that could garner the votes needed to rid America of NCLB (and Duncan’s waivers), and it does not include portability of Title I funding.

As for the charter love in the Senate ESEA draft, I do not support the encouragement My Position on the Senate ESEA Reauthorization Draft | deutsch29: