Truth in American Education

Fighting to stop the Common Core State Standards, their Assessments and Student Data Mining.

  • Home
  • About Us
    • TAE Advocates
    • Network Participants
    • Related Websites
  • Common Core State Standards
    • National Education Standards
    • Gates Foundation & NCEE Influence
    • State Costs for Adopting and Implementing the Common Core State Standards
    • National Curriculum
    • Common Core State Standards Content
      • Standard Algorithms in the Common Core State Standards
    • Myths Versus Facts
    • States Fighting Back Map
    • Closing the Door on Innovation
    • CCSSI Development Teams
  • Common Core Assessments
    • Opt Out Info
  • Race To The Top
    • District-Level Race to the Top–Race to the Top IV
  • Resources
    • Legislative Bills Against CCSS
    • Pioneer Institute White Papers
    • Model Resolutions
    • Parents’ & Educators’ Executive Order
    • CC = Conditions + Coercion + Conflict of Interest
  • Audio & Video
  • Privacy Issues and State Longitudinal Data Systems
    • Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems
  • ESEA/NCLB
    • Statements and Proposed Plans
    • Every Child Achieves Act July 2015
    • Student Success Act
    • Every Child Ready for College or Career Act
    • No Child Left Behind Waivers
    • ESEA Blueprint, Briefing Book, and Position Paper
  • Home School/Private School
  • Action Center
    • Parent and Community Action Plan
    • Stop CCSSI ToolKit
    • Sign Up or Contact TAE

The Education Legacy Obama Is Not Talking About

October 24, 2016 By Shane Vander Hart

President Barack Obama signs S. 1177, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), during a bill a signing ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building South Court Auditorium, Dec. 10, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Amanda Lucidon)

President Barack Obama signs S. 1177, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), during a bill a signing ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building South Court Auditorium, Dec. 10, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Amanda Lucidon)

Valarie Strauss at The Washington Post before the weekend reported on a speech that President Barack Obama gave at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School in Washington, DC noting that the President did not really put a spotlight on his actual education legacy.

He did not mention by name the Common Core State Standards initiative, another big priority for the administration during Duncan’s seven-year tenure running the Education Department, during which he wielded more power than any previous education secretary while also attracting more opposition than his predecessors.

Adopting common standards was also on Race to the Top’s list of preferred reforms Duncan sought from applying states, and the administration spent some $360 million for two multi-state consortia to develop new Core-related standardized tests. Duncan himself promised that the new tests would be “an absolute game-changer” in public education.

It didn’t work out that way. The tests were nowhere as sophisticated as originally promoted. The rush to get them into schools led to computer troubles in some states, some of them severe. One of the tests, known as PARCC, was abandoned by most of the states that had agreed to use it, and the overall idea behind the standards and aligned testing — that test results would be comparable across states — has not been accomplished.

The Education Department’s ties to the Gates Foundation, which funded the creation and implementation of the Core, also sparked criticism that the administration was too close to wealthy philanthropists who were intent on driving their own personal vision of school reform.

He also isn’t talking about his feeding education reformer’s standardized testing obsession.

The administration’s obsession with standardized tests led to a rebellion by parents, students, teachers, principals and even superintendents. Many spoke out against testing policies — and many parents refused to allow their students to take exams mandated by states for federal accountability purposes. In New York, with the most active movement, 22 percent of students “opted out” of at least one test, and opt-outs were reported in numerous other states. It was only after the “opt out” movement began to grow that the administration conceded that kids were being tested too much.

The New York State commissioner of education who pushed the test-based teacher accountability system — which has been crashing and burning for years — was John King Jr., who left the job early after 3 1/2 years, essentially getting a public shove by Gov. Andrew Cuomo not only for the teacher evaluation fiasco but for a botched implementation of Common Core. The reason this is worth mentioning is that King — who has an inspirational personal story — is now Obama’s second education secretary.

Read the whole thing.

Filed Under: Common Core State Standards Tagged With: Arne Duncan, Benjamin Banneker Academic High School, Common Core, John King, standardized testing, U.S. Department of Education

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Phone
  • Twitter

States Fighting Back

https://app.box.com/s/10nl1409mkaf00zzzuyf

CCSS Opt-Out Form

  • Click here to download the CCSS Opt-Out Form

Campbell’s Law

"The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor."

- Donald Campbell

Copyright © 2021 Truth in American Education · Developed & Hosted by 4:15 Communications, LLC.