AFT, NEA, and AFT promoters at NPE took the lead in supporting the latest ESEA reauthorization last year that came to be known as ESSA.
Even though ESSA continues annual testing with a mandated 95 percent participation rate requirement, thus killing any opt out option by parents, and even though ESSA guarantees huge new grants for more "no excuses" corporate charter schools that will replace the bottom 5 percent of low-scoring schools each year, and even though ESSA further weakens teacher education programs, and even though ESSA legitimizes "states rights" education policy, thus providing free rein for states, with ALEC's help, to devise any draconian accountability systems without federal oversight, even with all this, AFT, NEA, and NPE declared ESSA a grand success for children, parents, and teachers. "Better than I could have imagined," Ravitch croaked in 2015.
Now that ESEA is federal law, Weingarten and other Clintonites want to pretend that all the requirements in ESSA that they sold to teachers and parents last year do not exist. In fact, as reported below by Ed Week, which continues the meme that the Clinton platform is a departure from Obama ed policies, the platform totally ignores ESSA requirements related to test participation rates, test-based school labeling for charter conversion purposes, and the massive infusion of new grant monies for more "no excuses" charters.
From Ed Week:
Even though ESSA continues annual testing with a mandated 95 percent participation rate requirement, thus killing any opt out option by parents, and even though ESSA guarantees huge new grants for more "no excuses" corporate charter schools that will replace the bottom 5 percent of low-scoring schools each year, and even though ESSA further weakens teacher education programs, and even though ESSA legitimizes "states rights" education policy, thus providing free rein for states, with ALEC's help, to devise any draconian accountability systems without federal oversight, even with all this, AFT, NEA, and NPE declared ESSA a grand success for children, parents, and teachers. "Better than I could have imagined," Ravitch croaked in 2015.
Now that ESEA is federal law, Weingarten and other Clintonites want to pretend that all the requirements in ESSA that they sold to teachers and parents last year do not exist. In fact, as reported below by Ed Week, which continues the meme that the Clinton platform is a departure from Obama ed policies, the platform totally ignores ESSA requirements related to test participation rates, test-based school labeling for charter conversion purposes, and the massive infusion of new grant monies for more "no excuses" charters.
From Ed Week:
Parents should have a right to opt their children out of standardized tests, without penalties for their schools, according to excerpts from a revamped version of the Democratic Party platform released by the American Federation of Teachers.This is pure fiction, as is the basis of Valerie Strauss's breathless reporting on the new educational age being launched by a political platform document that carries no weight and that has been trumped last year by ESSA, which the Clintonite Dems celebrated at the time as a victory. It is a head-spinning kind of political bait and switch that carries the signature of the Dems' most infamous political schizophrenic, Randi Weingarten. Classic baffle-them-with-bullshit politics as usual.
What's more, test scores shouldn't be used to "falsely and unfairly label students of color, students with disabilities and English-language learners as failing," determine which schools are closed, or in teacher and principal evaluations.
That portion of the platform can be seen as an almost total rejection of the Obama administration's K-12 agenda, at least for the first six years of the administration.
Teachers in poorly performing schools in low achieving districts will maintain our diet of unadulterated manure while Weingarten whirls us around like dervishes.
ReplyDeleteAbigail Shure