There’s a lively debate over Common Core these days but Jay Greene’s latest salvo at The Department of Education is pretty ridiculous. Leave aside that there is actually a big difference between incentives and mandates, what’s the evidence federal dollars are being spent on curriculum in violation of the law? In fact, like FERPA, it’s common knowledge that the letter of the law here is less constraining than the perception. As we saw on Race to the Top and the sorry debate there, just because you don’t like what the Department is doing does not make it illegal or even bad faith.
On the other hand, while you expect a lot of misinformation in this business it might inspire more confidence if the Department’s own top people understood how their policies actually work. Just because people keep saying NCLB creates accountability systems based on a single test doesn’t mean that’s what the law actually requires…
Also click over here: Some smart stuff up on the TitleIderland blog worth checking out.
Update: Justin Hamilton adds this:
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify any misinterpretation of my statement. During an online exchange with with teachers and others on twitter, a participant in the discussion said, “end high stakes testing! Should your worth be measured based on one day’s performance?”, which I interpreted as an incorrect assumption of what the Department’s policy proposals call for. I sought to clarify the issue by making clear that “we want to measure growth.”
You dismiss my post as ridiculous because you assert that there is no evidence that the Department is spending money on curriculum. If you read my post you would see a statement from a spokesperson at US DOE in which he says they are developing curriculum. In addition, the law prohibits the Dept from directing, controlling, or supervising the content of instructional materials. There is no question that they are doing that with the supplementary contracts to the two testing consortia.
I’m not simply saying this because I dislike what they are doing. I am saying it because they are in clear violation of the law. Why don’t you post the language of the law, as I did, and explain how they are not violating it.
For those who aren’t going by Jay’s blog: