Principled Leadership in the ESSA Era

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warriors Against the Core! A call to action is before us. The question is, will we continue to see the CCSS (Common Core State Standards) Machine spew deceptive principles right before us OR we will expose them quickly, mightily, and with purpose?! With the ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) in full creation/implementation mode, the deceptions are flying at us a break neck speed. We can’t afford to miss them. For truth to win, we must be sharp!

The Deceptive Catch?! (Oh yes, there are several, in fact)

Profit. Your state or school district pays the money to access these supposed helpful resources. The supplier, in turn, sells more to other states and school districts. The supplier’s bottom line gets bigger and your freedom of choice gets smaller. Nice bait and switch, isn’t it?! However, the suppliers are not done with your state or school district yet…Besides profit, the others are: data (to be collected, sold, shared, and used against each other for more profit/gain), ESSA mandates in what is taught and how it is taught (not choices), workforce agenda (not true academics for students or teachers), entire community assessments (if your community doesn’t measure up, there will be more ‘helpful resources’ available..of course for a price!), and family interventions (The CCSS Machine’s agenda is NOT family togetherness)!

Warriors, in this age of cyber meetings, expect the following to continue to happen:
1) More deceptions disguised as helpful resources.
2) More data/technology systems will be out soon and available for purchase.
3) More and more webinars will be churned out in the name of adhering to the ESSA.
4) More meetings geared for school leaders to adhere to the ESSA.
5) We will continue to expose it all!!!

The Screenshot Above:

The graphic I made for you is a perfect illustration of the ‘happy to deceive you’ tactics so ripe and in use by the CCSS Machine. This one happens to be a recent webinar (3/23/16) slide hosted by the NASSP (National Association of Secondary School Principals)

The NASSP is no exception. How do I know? I have researched this group before. Sen. Lamar Alexander bragged on them, in fact, when he gloated after the ESSA passed AND Dr. King was confirmed. In fact, all those groups Alexander mentioned are busy churning out webinars, emails, tweets, and any other type of ESSA alignment hype. It is almost laughable how each one is saying THEIR information is the ‘most accurate’ about ESSA ‘really means’!

So, what did the NASSP have to spin eloquent about concerning the ESSA? Title One funding. However, the NASSP was not alone in this presentation. The Learning First Alliance (another pro CCSS group) had a guest speaker featured in the webinar. He also claimed to have great insight into all things Title One. (To access the Alliance: http://www.learningfirst.org/)

Here are some other need to know anti CCSS Warrior items from the webinar:

1) College and Career Readiness is purposefully inserted in the ESSA and contain 3 levels of achievement. The CCR will also mandatorily have to meet CTE (Career Technical Education) and post-secondary public college/university requirements.

2) The U.S. Dept. of Education has a new pilot program out for up to 7 states to become a part of. Stated as the ‘Innovative Assessment and Accountability Demo Project’. However, I did not find a project with this name on the U.S. Dept. of Education’s website. I did happen to find another pro CCSS media spin on the Project, “…the law also includes a pilot program that initially allows up to seven states to develop innovative assessment systems—such as competency-based assessments and instructionally embedded assessments—that provide valid, reliable, and comparable data on student achievement. States approved for this program can pilot these innovative assessment systems in a few districts before implementing them statewide.” (Source: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2016/01/29/130115/implementing-the-every-student-succeeds-act/)
What this means for us: those schools in the approved states will be experimental yet again for education reform purposes. Those presenting during the webinar said that many, many more states (besides the allotted 7) are lining up to participate. (*Related to this is what the U.S. Dept. of Ed has on file about assessments:
http://tech.ed.gov/netp/assessment-measure-what-matters/)

3) How much Title One funding our states will receive will be based on the past 3 years of student data. Funding will be doled out on two dates in 2016: July 1st, and October 1st. The states will receive money based on the child count per district as well as the poverty rate. These figures are taken from your county’s (or parish’s) data.

4) Gone will be the Yearly Annual Progress tracking and 100% graduation rates. Supposedly states will get to set all the parameters, at least according to the hosts. What is also being debated is which national assessment to used as the high school requirement…it will be either the SAT or the ACT (both, just happen to be aligned to CCSS!)

5) More high schools could get Title One funding, thanks to the ESSA. This change would allow more students to be included in all those supportive success activities and programs ESSA is full of. The Title One funding states get must go for development of school wide programs/services and can be used for dual enrolled or concurrently enrolled students.

6) According to the webinar, the ESSA will be updated in about 5 years and completely replaces NCLB, No Child Left Behind(funny, another pro CCSS webinar I attended and shared the results said NCLB was largely in place via the ESSA). I guess this happens when you deceive folks so much you get lost in the lies!

7) Because of possible shifts in Title One funding from ‘targeted assistance’ to ‘school wide’, you will need to see what school districts consider as capital purchases. The example given: laptops for each student (as long as they are $500.00 or less) qualify as capital purchases. The U.S. Dept. of Ed is ‘encouraging’ states to use ‘school wide services/programs’ to avoid the technicalities of ESSA.

 8) NASSP wants to be a top influencer in the ESSA changes we face. Expect this wish from all the others clamoring for our attention with ESSA changes.

9) States MUST submit Title One plans to the U.S. Dept. of Education in a timely manner. Meaningful consultative results MUST also be presented. The consultative process will involve all ‘stakeholders’ in education AND have to co-ordinate with all other educational programs the states use/plan to use. Since there is no set consulting process yet, this means we have an opportunity to become involved in defining what the process will look like!!

10)The NASSP shared that most State Boards of Education do not contain a full staff of professionals, it is important to get as many professional education-minded people in place. Another opportunity for us to get as many anti CCSS professionally minded education Warriors in place!

To access the entire Webinar slide set: 

Other Webinars we Warriors should make plans to attend:

NASSP’s Title Two (will target educator funding), April 27, 2016 and the Title 4 (Block grants for States and education) for 21st Century Community Schools, May 4, 2016. Both will be held Eastern Daylight Time (3:30 pm to 4:30 pm). You can sign up for these by using the same address included in the screen shot above.

Be sure to check EdWeek’s website. This Gates Foundation backed group is also busy churning out deceptions with the ESSA.

ASCD is featuring many pro ESSA resources right now in preparation for their upcoming conference. (ASCD is also backed by the Gates Foundation).

Not a webinar, but a date we can use to counter act the pro ESSA lies the NEA will be spinning: April 3rd, 2016. Look to your local NEA chapters for news on this.

Closing:

All this deception reminds me of some lyrics from a song I first heard last year. Sung by a British artist named Paloma Faith, the song is titled ‘Do You Want the Truth or Something Beautiful’?  While written as a love song, it is my opinion that those in the CCSS Machine live this out daily:

‘Do you want the truth or something beautiful?
Just close your eyes and make believe
Do you want the truth or something beautiful?
I am happy to deceive you’

So much for principled leadership, huh?