Federal law, under No Child Left Behind, requires 95 percent of students in a state to take the annual standardized tests in reading and math from grades 3-8. It is a requirement which until now has never needed enforcement or consideration.
With as many as 184,000 students in New York choosing to opt out, the 95 percent threshold will not only be in jeopardy, it will be an easily missed mark.
When asked what would happen in states with such a high opt out rate, whether they would have to force consequences upon schools, parents, and students, Duncan responded “We think most states will do that.”
He added, “If states don’t do that, then we have an obligation to step in.”
Via the Daily Caller:
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said at a Q&A in Chicago Tuesday that widespread student boycotts of standardized tests are not acceptable, and if state governments don’t stop them, the federal government will.
…
Duncan didn’t elaborate on what the federal intervention might look like. It could, however, involve labeling districts with too many opt-outs as “failing,” a status that places restrictions on how schools use federal money. This would in turn pressure state government and school districts to roll back parental opt-out rights.
Duncan maintained the Obama Administration’s position that standardized tests are crucial for both tracking students’ progress and keeping tabs on the achievement gaps between certain groups.
Worse, Duncan wasn’t simply threatening parents who choose to opt out their children in general, but rather, a specific group of parents. A group he has maligned before. White parents.
The Secretary of Education, you see, played the race card once again, insinuating that opposition to Common Core testing is somehow racially motivated.
Via Ed Week:
What’s more, the goal of testing is really about ensuring about equity of opportunity. In the past, English Language Learners, students in special education, and racial minorities were “swept under the rug,” Duncan said. “Folks in the civil rights community, folks in the disability community, they want their kids being assessed. They want to know if they are making progress or growth.”
You heard that right – Opposition to Common Core means we’re trying to continue an alleged pattern of sweeping racial minorities under the rug. Minorities want their children taking these Common Core tests.
Duncan has played the card before, as he once famously quipped that opposition to New York’s Common Core testing was mostly from “white suburban moms” who were finding out that their kid wasn’t as “brilliant” as they thought.
In reality, during the first year of Common Core testing, it was minority groups who suffered the most according to a Washington Post report.
Read more Rusty Weiss at The Mental Recession
16 comments:
The parade of nitwit dipshits in the Obama Admin never stops. The effing clown car is overflowing
Classic example of the third rate intellectuals in the Obama administration. Appears he has corralled all of them.
And why dies Duncan threaten punishment to states rather than directly to parents? Because he knows the sanctity of parental rights and that he can't control parents taking their legal responsibility to provide for the welfate of their children. Classic case of big boy bullying.
Homo
The tragedy is that many Civil Rights and disability groups have been co-opted or somehow actually believe that standardized testing is the path to a quality education for traditionally underserved students. Students who are struggling need engaging curricula and teachers who are flexible enough to challenge them from where they are, not hold them to an arbitrary standard that many privileged students have difficulty meeting. To watch a child suffer emotional pain from participating in an inappropriate and convoluted test such as the PARCC should be clear evidence that the testing is misguided. It is astounding to me that officials such as Duncan and those in state departments of education can be so arrogant and so vindictive as to further punish those who have been beaten down by more than a decade of test and punish tactics. The amount of time, energy, passion, compassion, and pedagogic legitimacy that the Opt Out movement has provided over the past few years is tremendously admirable. To reduce the Opt Out movement to a racially motivated attempt to deny a quality education to traditionally underserved groups is shameful in the extreme. Fire Arne Duncan!
Common Core isnt education is Brainwashing/Indoctrination by Obama and this scum ball More reasons to abolish the Dept of Indoctrination(Education)and push for Home School that the leftists NEA opposes
Your headline isn't misleading. It's a straight up lie.
It is high time they get there "common core" stuffed up their back sides, sideways! Let them try to "step in" and see if they dont end up "stepped on" before it's over...
LIKE!
So what would hapens if the kid goes in and deliberately blows the test?
The federal Department of Education is unconstitutional and contrary to principles of liberty. It should be abolished, as the Republicans promised thirty five years ago.
He thinks he's above the law and our constitutional rights. It's ok, he'll answer to the Lord one day and then he will pay adore price when he's cast into hell along with Satan and other evil doers. He's a delusional fool!
So...President Obama is a racist. Got it.
Last commenter: Obama is a racialist who accuses those who disagree with him of racism.
Pity you're too dense to understand that.
But not unexpected for a big government drone.
I am a parent of a special needs child. I definitely don't want my son doing standardized tests. It would be terrible for him. He would do terribly, act out in frustration, and not accurately measure his progress. Arne Duncan is clearly clueless. My son's teachers and I know his progress and what he needs. We don't need the federal government (or even the state government) involved in his education.
The parents always have the option of instructing their child to leave the test blank, thus averaging a zero into the school's test score. Enough of those and the schools will be much less interested in coercing resistant parents into allowing their children to "take" the test.
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