Strange bedfellows, coming right up!

Politico notice that the incoming GOP (federal) majority shares something with the teachers' unions: a wish to rollback the overdependence on standardized testing.
On a related note: I'm thrilled that I'll be  going down to the National School Boards Advocacy Institute in DC in February; it looks as though there may even be federal motion on education in the legislative arm to watch.

UPDATE: And hat tip to Stephen Krashen for catching the extremely ignorant comment from an unnamed federal DoE official:

An "unnamed Education Department official" said these stupid and outrageous things: ”We’re responsible for student learning every single day and every single year … If you’re waiting every three years to measure student learning, then what happens when a student has been falling behind? … Do you wait until that third year to figure out what their interventions ought to be?” IN OTHER WORDS, THE ONLY WAY OF KNOWING HOW CHILDREN ARE PROGRESSING AND THE OTHER WAY TO HELP CHILDREN IS THROUGH FREQUENT STANDARDIZED TESTING. TEACHER EVALUATION MEANS NOTHING. If you accept this, it means we should give standardized tests "every single day."

Please get this person away from education.