Education Next – Max Eden
“Last week, Senator Lamar Alexander fired a shot across the bow of the U.S. Department of Education, suggesting that acting assistant secretary for elementary & secondary education Jason Botel “hasn’t read [The Every Student Succeeds Act] carefully.” Alexander apparently decided to keep his powder dry a month ago after the Department released the “Feedback That Shook The World,” telling Delaware that its plan to use student performance on Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate exams as a metric for college readiness was out of line, and declaring that the state’s goals for boosting proficiency rates were not “ambitious enough” to merit approval. AEI’s Rick Hess likened the Botel letter to an exercise in Soviet bureaucracy, and Fordham’s Mike Petrilli called it “mind boggling” given Secretary DeVos’s insistence that she’d allow states significant flexibility.”(more)