You have until Monday, August 1st to submit public comment on the proposed regulations and rule-making put out by U.S. Secretary of Education John King on May 29th. After that, no more public comment will be accepted. You need to go to the Federal Register website, which can be found here. Read through the regulations. It is in-depth and monstrous. But the future of the children of America is at stake here. If you have been a big fan of the high-stakes testing anti-parental rights shame and label schools, teachers, and students era of education, then sit at home and watch the future of America crumble before your very eyes. If you want to prevent John King from furthering the bad policies and agendas, first laid out by No Child Left Behind and then magnified a hundred fold under Race To The Top, then please leave public comment.
This was my public comment:
I do not agree with most of these proposed regulations. It is a further attempt to exert federal control over state decisions. Furthermore, many of those in power at the state level have eroded local control to the point of absurdity. It is a parent’s fundamental and constitutional right to opt their child out of the state assessment. Any regulation proposing to punish schools for a parent’s decision is illegal. The ESEA regulations state that all schools must make sure children take the assessment, not that all students MUST participate in the state assessment. That regulation has been perverted over the years to take away parental rights. No state should have to follow regulations formed to serve testing companies and their profits more than the rights of parents, students, teachers, and schools. Education has become a for-profit center at the expense of children and those who truly serve them.
Since the advent of charter schools, the rate of high-stakes associated with testing has increased dramatically. Charter schools have led to more discrimination and segregation of at-risk children while our government has mostly turned a blind eye to these practices while allowing to flourish, multiply, and take away necessary funding from traditional public schools. Too many states have tampered with existing law and regulations so charter schools benefit, whether through artificial n#s leaving out many charter students from accountability rankings, or shifting funding to charter schools without giving those same funds to traditional school districts.
As a result of all of this federal intrusion, students with disabilities have lost. They have lost instruction, time, and accommodations in the name of the almighty state assessment. Common Core IS a curriculum and it has become so embedded into state education structure that getting it out will be a mammoth task. Common Core does not work, will not work, and never has worked.
In states like my own, Delaware, we have a corrupt Governor who has made it his mission to demean teachers and punish schools all in the guise of students becoming “college and career ready”. It is a complete farce and a lie. It is for companies to profit, not students. I will make it my mission in life to overturn every single regulation that this heavily lobbied Department makes under the illusion of “student success” that benefits others over children. I will fight competency-based education through digital personalized learning that sends data out to “research” companies like American Institutes for Research who benefit immensely as the essential creators of the Smarter Balanced Assessment and also serve as the vendor for the very same test in Delaware and others.
We have sold out our children to companies, and these proposed regulations will only further solidify the stranglehold they have on our students, teachers, and schools. Say NO to these regulations and give our children the capability to receive the true education they deserve, not this bastardized corporate version of education. Let’s let students with disabilities get the rights they deserve. Let’s let minority students not be subject to rigor in an attempt to “close the achievement gaps” that were created by corporations with tests designed for the upper-class. Let’s let parents decide (and they already do) if their child should or should not take the state assessment.
How dare this Department try to impose into law, with haste and desperation, the same type of regulatory schemes the Every Student Succeeds Act was supposed to get rid of before the lobbyists twisted the original intent of the law and Congress passed, very quickly I might add, a completely different law in a matter of weeks with little to no room for public comment or oversight. I expect our the United States of America government to immediately halt these regulations and to strip away the power of U.S. Secretary of Education John King so I no longer have to write comments like this in a Federal Register, as well as any future U.S. Secretary of Education.
Thank you.
The Season Of Myths 