Leaders in the philanthropic community, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, also have joined the common standards campaign, as have influential ...civil rights groups like the Education Trust and education policy voices on both the left (the Center for American Progress) and the right (the Thomas B. Fordham Foun- dation). ...its federal mandate for standards and testing nationwide dealt a strong psychological blow to the tradition of local educational control, particularly since the law was proposed by a conservative Republican president and approved by a Republican-controlled Congress - traditional opponents of centripetal forces in policy making. Frustrated by the states' (rational) response ("Stop low-balling expectations for our kids," Obama demanded during his first major address on education as president, to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce), many policy makers have turned to national standards as a solution. Even the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union and long an opponent of accountability has joined the national standards campaign, perhaps as a way to burnish public education's image.
The Obama administration is offering states a deal: Waiving their obligations under some of NCLB's more onerous (and impractical) demands in return for continuing to measure student achievement ...frequently, but with higher standards. They must continue to report the performance of different groups of students, eventually measuring schools on how much their students progress in a year rather than how many of them hit a state standard. And they must fix their worst schools while establishing meaningful awards for high-achievers. In effect, the administration has sought to preserve NCLB's core strengths while making it more workable. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
A dream deferred TOCH, THOMAS
Phi Delta Kappan,
03/2012, Letnik:
93, Številka:
6
Journal Article
NCLB was a necessary if insufficient step towards the high common education standards of advanced industrialized nations that we've sought to reach. The problem with NCLB isn't that it requires ...states and local school systems to set standards. The problem is that NCLB unintentionally encouraged states and districts to set low and, thus, not very meaningful standards. The new and more demanding Common Core State Standards and the development of new, voluntary national tests may help push the public education system towards the higher standards that the nation has sought for three decades. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
What's behind AFT President Randi Weingarten's recent moves? Is she leading the AFT and teachers away from collectivist policies that have long undergirded teacher unionism? Has she embraced a new ...role for teacher unions? Or is she maneuvering to minimize the depth and breadth of reforms in traditional industrial-style teacher unionism in the face of withering criticism of education unions in recent years? What Weingarten wants, it seems, is political cover from her allies. If reformers and labor-friendly political leaders were to publicly praise Weingarten for the reform measures she's already taken, they could find an ally who would help them move reforms further and faster. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
The Obama Administration supports education reformers who favor entrepreneurial strategies for improvement. These entrepreneurial reformers, financed by foundations, have risen to leadership ...positions in education. Many of Obama's own choices for education positions have come from these entrepreneurial reformers. In addition, advocacy groups and support programs have arisen to aid the entrepreneurial reformers and their projects. As a result, many entrepreneurial reformers have gained very influential positions in education. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
Policy makers and education reformers are calling for a change in the standardized tests used to measure achievement under NCLB to include more performance measures. Performance measures are better ...suited than multiple-choice questions for assessing students' ability to express points of view, marshal evidence, and display other advanced skills. But performance measures are more expensive, more challenging, and more time-consuming to create, administer, and score. However, advances in using performance measures by other countries and by the Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, and PISA programs show that such tests can be used economically and still have rigor and reliability. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
