Rebuttal to US House Ed. Committee Talking Points on ESSA

Karen R. Efrem, MD - Executive Director
The House Education and Workforce Committee put out an infographic trying to convince their members that the 1061 page monstrosity released only about 48 hours before the final vote to rewrite No Child Left Behind is a Republican "win." They are trying to make their members feel okay about throwing our children to the Common Core beast and ignoring more than 200 parent groups in 46 states and instead listening to the Washington Cartel education elites and corporate raiders. Here are their claims followed by the truth. 1) CLAIM: Places new and unprecedented restrictions on the sec. of educationTRUTH: There is no enforcement mechanism for any of these restrictions and the sec. of education still has veto power over the state plans that still mandate standards and assessments similar to Common Core. (Details HERE) 2) CLAIM: Prohibits the sec. of education from forcing, coercing, or incentivizing states into adopting Common CoreTRUTH: ESSA heavily influences standards within the bill itself. This requirement to have the standards comply with 11 different unconstitutional federal statutes setting up standards similar to Common Core will be statutory a state must comply with it regardless of what the Secretary does or doesn't do. (Details HERE) 3) CLAIM: Ends the era of federally mandated high-stakes testsTRUTH: Tests are still federally mandated along with 95% participation with no opt-out clause as was present in the House bill. There are new mandates for the tests to be psychologically profiling "higher order thinking skills" and "strategies to improve students' skills outside the academic subject areas." This is combined with new evidence of lax student data protection. 4) CLAIM: Eliminates the federally mandated one-size-fits-all accountability systemTRUTH: While it is an improvement that AYP is gone, the mandates for what states must include in their accountability systems are still very Read more

Posted in Federal Education. Tagged as US House Education & Workforce Committee.

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