Skip to content Skip to footer
|

Education Reforms Unveiled by Duncan, Democratic Senators

Washington – U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and a group of Democratic senators this morning embraced a slate of education reforms that move away from rigid testing and toward flexibility for local school districts. The recommendations come as Congress prepares to reconsider the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, known as ESEA, which offers a slate of regulations and funding for K-12 education. Part of the push is to re-vamp No Child Left Behind, the landmark Bush-era legislation that focused on closing the achievement gap for minority children, but also has been lambasted by parents and educators as too narrowly focused on testing.

Washington – U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and a group of Democratic senators this morning embraced a slate of education reforms that move away from rigid testing and toward flexibility for local school districts.

The recommendations come as Congress prepares to reconsider the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, known as ESEA, which offers a slate of regulations and funding for K-12 education.

Part of the push is to re-vamp No Child Left Behind, the landmark Bush-era legislation that focused on closing the achievement gap for minority children, but also has been lambasted by parents and educators as too narrowly focused on testing.

“I’ve heard for years from principals and teachers that this does not work,” said U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, a North Carolina Democrat who, along with U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, helped lead the effort to develop the principles. “The stale arguments of yesterday are impeding change, and the same-old, same-old is too late.”

Hagan said new legislation must encourage all progress – recognizing, for example, when a teacher helps a 5th grader, for example, move up from a 3rd-grade reading level to a 4th-grade reading level.

Now, testing focuses primarily on whether children are at or below grade level.

“You’ve got to have a high standard, and there has to be accountability and measures in place,” Hagan said in an interview. “We’ve got to take standardized tests but also recognize gains. We’ve got to recognize that not every child learns the same way.”

Duncan and the senators unveiled their proposal this morning at a press conference at an elementary school in Washington, D.C. Among the senators’ and administration’s goals in education reform:

– Designing a testing structure that recognizes gains and is tailored to individual schools’ specific situations – what the senators called “a more nuanced approach.”

– Focusing dollars and attention on turning around especially troubled schools in the bottom five percent of each state. According to the senators, 13 percent of high schools produce 51 percent of the nation’s dropouts.

– Holding teacher preparation programs accountable in how well they train teachers. Nearly 50 percent of new teachers drop out of the profession within their first five years of teaching.

– Encouraging more innovation through programs such as President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top grant program. Last year, several states competed for millions of dollars in grant money. The rewards were based largely on how well states encouraged flexibility and innovation, including the encouragement of charter schools.

– Closing a loophole in requirements for a school to receive Title I funding, which is supposed to be steered toward schools with high percentages of low-income students. The senators want a school-by-school accountability system, rather than just at the district level.

Today’s push comes as Obama prepares to travel to Florida and then Massachusetts to talk about education. Along with Hagan, several senators have spent more than six months shaping the principles they want to see in K-12 education reform.

They include U.S. Sens. Herb Kohl, Mary Landrieu, Thomas Carper, Mark Warner, Mark Begich, Joe Manchin, Chris Coons and Joseph Lieberman. Lieberman is an Independent; the other senators are Democrats.

Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn

Dear Truthout Community,

If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.

We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.

Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.

There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.

Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?

It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.

We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.

We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.

Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.

We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.

With love, rage, and solidarity,

Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy