Lots of people are weighing in on the implications of Tuesday’s election results.
- Eduwonk Rotherham has a good piece in Time magazine lamenting Tony Bennett’s loss (my thoughts on that here), celebrating the wins for charter schools, and noting the continued strength of teachers unions when they are tested.
- Mike comes to many of the same conclusions. Tom Luna’s losses get his attention, as do a number of results from the Midwest.
- Stergios also highlights the charter wins and the fallout from Bennett’s undoing (particularly regarding Common Core) and adds accountability and ESEA reauthorization to the list of affected subjects.
- Naturally, the prolific Rick Hess has a series of posts on the subject, declaring the night a split decision for reformers. He emphasizes the union wins and the subtle split in the reform community between conservatives and progressives. See here for his take on Bennett’s loss and its implications for Common Core.
- The WSJ’s Stephanie Branchero also concludes that voters are divided. Branchero discusses Luna’s losses, the charter win in WA, and CA’s decision to spend more on schools.
- Politics K-12 is already looking ahead, surfacing the five big issues facing Secretary Duncan during the second term.
One final thought from yours truly: Lots of reformers, especially those in the ed-tech camp, continue to think that Common Core is just about the best thing produced in eons. So there’s a good deal of cheerleading going on, and most reform practitioners assume CC is a done deal; they spend their time thinking about how to capitalize on its changes to the system.
But more and more, I’m of a mind that trouble is on the horizon. There are the backlashes from the right, the massive challenges associated with implementation that have been all but ignored, and a brewing unease about the testing consortia.
I’m not predicting anything dire. Yet.
But there’s more reason to worry about the future of CC now than at any time in the last three years.