Education Week - January 21, 2015 - 1

Education WEEk
Battle Lines Drawn on Annual Testing in ESEA Renewal
VOL. 34, NO. 18 * JANUARY 21, 2015
AMERICAN EDUCATION'S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD * © 2015 Editorial Projects in Education * $4
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Assessments
take spotlight in
opening salvo on
reauthorization
By Alyson Klein &
Lauren Camera
Thirteen years after mandating high-stakes testing,
Congress is kicking off its most serious attempt yet
to update the Elementary and Secondary Education
Act, with partisan wrangling over whether to ditch
the law's signature schedule of annual assessments.
But a closer look shows that, behind the scenes, the
politics aren't so cut-and-dried.
At center stage, it's largely been Democrats, especially
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan,
defending the yearly testing schedule in the current
law, the No Child Left Behind Act. And Republicans,
primarily Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the chairman
of the Senate education committee, are putting
other options on the table, including giving all authority
regarding testing to the states.
Beyond the principal players, however, there's
likely to be bipartisan support for backing away from
annual assessments in grades 3 through 8 and once
in high school and reducing the federal footprint in
education-both longtime priorities of education organizations,
including teachers' unions.
There are "plenty of votes" on both sides of
the aisle to dismantle the nclb law's testing
regime, said Vic Klatt, a former aide to Republicans
on the House education committee,
who is now a principal at Penn Hill Group, a
PAGE 22 >
W.Va. Undoes Rewrite
Of Climate Standards
By Liana Heitin
The West Virginia state board of education has
drawn national attention for rewriting parts of the
Next Generation Science Standards that mention climate
change-and then voting last week to undo those
edits after receiving pushback from scientists and
educators.
States' adoptions of the Next Generation standards have
been slow and steady since they were finalized nearly two
years ago. But in recent months, the standards' climatechange
language has fueled pockets of controversy-in
some ways echoing older debates over teaching evolutionary
theory.
In Wyoming, the legislature barred the standards' adoption
through a budget bill last spring, with the representative
who led that effort objecting to teaching global
warming as a fact. But a recently proposed bill could soon
PAGE 11 >
PROMISE TO PAY: Michele Baker-Lindsay, center, a mentor with tnAchieves, meets with high school seniors at Rhea County High School
in Evensville, Tenn. Tennessee's scholarship programs were a model for President Obama's community college proposal. PAGE 17
Educators Tend to Overlook
Student Grief, Experts Say
By Evie Blad
Doctors Enlisted in Early-Literacy Campaign
By Lillian Mongeau
Oakland, Calif.
Doctors are the newest group of proselytizers
to join the national Too Small to Fail
campaign encouraging parents to talk,
read, and sing to their infants and toddlers
as a key precursor to literacy.
The American Academy of Pediatrics
has long recognized the importance of
telling parents to talk to and read with
their children. But it has only recently
begun advising its doctors to deliver that
message for the first time at a child's
two-month checkup. What has been less
clear, and never studied systematically,
is how to deliver that information in a
way that sticks during the 12- to 18-minParents
Confront Obstacles
As School Choice Expands
By Arianna Prothero
In New Orleans, Denver, and the District of Columbia,
it's the season when families must choose schools for
next fall.
But in those cities and others where traditional school
boundaries are fluid and more charters and tuitionvoucher
programs have entered the mix of K-12 options,
ute visits physicians generally have with
families for well-baby checkups.
That's where Too Small to Fail comes
in. Working closely with doctors in
Oakland, Calif., and Tulsa, Okla., leaders
of the nonprofit effort hope to prove
that medical professionals can provide
parents with the tools and information
PAGE 14 >
A teenage boy who survived a high-profile shooting was
frequently missing school in the weeks after the incident.
School counselors had worked with him to address the
trauma associated with the shooting, in which two people
standing near him died, said David J. Schonfeld, the director
of the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement,
who later counseled the boy.
But the school hadn't addressed the student's grief. One
victim was a longtime friend, and he didn't want to go to
school without her.
Many schools fail to properly assist grieving students,
according to the Coalition to Support Grieving Students,
a group of education organizations. The group recently
PAGE 12 >
selecting a school is an increasingly complex endeavor.
Research shows that an abundance of school choice
doesn't guarantee access, and many parents in high-choice
cities struggle to find adequate information, transportation,
and, ultimately, the right school for their children.
"It was very hard, and very time-consuming," New
Orleans resident Carrie Fisher said of trying to find a
school for her daughter, who entered kindergarten last
fall. "I'm educated, I have a bachelor's degree, ... and I do
have time to read articles online and research things."
Part of the argument for school choice is based on the
idea that consumer demand for good schools will increase
PAGE 16 >
SHAPING STRONG
SCHOOL LEADERS
This special report on principals
examines how some states and school
districts are working to create and
sustain a strong corps of principals who
can be the kind of political, managerial,
and instructional leaders the profession
now demands.
See the pullout section opposite Page 16.
Shawn Poynter for Education Week

http://www.edweek.org

Education Week - January 21, 2015

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