Opinions differed on the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, as they do with just about any piece of important legislation. But one thing that all sides agreed on was that the bill clearly signified a shift of control away from the federal government and toward the states. Some commentators celebrated the move away from distant, centralized power, while others fretted about the consequences for accountability—but the gist was pretty much the same. Now that we’ve entered the implementation phase, however, some are calling for a takeback. A coalition of over fifty civil rights organizations has signed a letter to Acting Secretary of Education John King urging his department to provide clear direction to the states for carrying out the law. The group—which includes the ACLU, the NAACP, the Human Rights Campaign, and Teach For America—recommends strong steps to guarantee equitable educational opportunities for English language learners, foster children, disabled students, and other disadvantaged populations. Whether they prevail will probably hinge on the amount of federal oversight states (and Republicans on Capitol Hill) are willing to tolerate after fifteen years of the No Child Left Behind precedent. History suggests that it won’t be much.
That’s not the only open letter Acting Secretary King will have on his mind this week. While the Senate education committee met today to approve his nomination for education secretary, members have received a written plea from liberal activists to torpedo his candidacy. The letter was reportedly drafted by author Nikhil Goyal (a person who is twenty years old), though “with the help of” eager chaperone and Common Core foe Carol Burris; signatories include waning campus eccentric Noam Chomsky and luminaries like the Badass Teachers Association. The text reproduces most of the brochure boilerplate associated with the opt-out movement, pillorying King for being a tool of nasty-wasty testing corporations. After the committee heeds their warning and votes King down, they’ll be free to formally eliminate homework and establish the Department of Joyful Illiteracy.
Years of experience have taught us that it’s not enough to just get kids to college; we’ve got to push them through as well. That’s because there’s no worse scenario than being saddled with loans intended to pay for a degree that was never fully attained. But educators in California are now arguing that we should look at things differently. A recent study of the state’s community college system, which closely tracked students who left without any kind of credential, seems to indicate that not all non-completers should be viewed as evidence of institutional failure. Researchers claim that many students intentionally attend just one or two CTE-centric courses, mostly in disciplines like IT and child development, as a means of acquiring professional aptitude and winning promotions. They dub these folks “skills builders,” and even though there’s something a little fishy about slapping a euphemistic name on the category (“He’s not an arsonist, he’s a bonfire enthusiast!”), the data paint a happy picture. According to information from California’s Employment Development Department, skills builders ended up earning a median wage bump of 13.6 percent—or nearly $5,000—after completing at least one CTE course. That’s impressive, and certainly something to think about as states consider holding colleges (and high schools) accountable for college completion.
Ah, to be seventeen again. What wouldn’t you give to roam the halls of your high school as a callow, idealistic youth? You could hang in with the JV cross country team, take a shot at your long-ago homeroom crush, and loudly tell off the class bully. And by God, you could take the watered-down SAT that today’s lucky kids are given, at last earning the perfect score you’ve always deserved! The ritually loathed test, bane of generations of slacker twerps, was subject to some radical changes this year: The vocabulary section was swept aside, the essay portion made optional, and the math problems updated to better reflect college-level expectations. According to Kaplan’s poll of students who’d recently sat for the exam, 72 percent said that it either “somewhat” or “very much” reflected the material they’d learned in class, while 70 percent said that it was either as difficult as they’d expected or somewhat less so. And no wonder! They’re no longer responsible for knowing the definition of the word “mollycoddled.”
