A story in the New York Times says that the e-corporations are salivating over the Common Core State Standards.
They foresee the opening up of a multi-billion industry, with more tests, more online resources, more stuff to sell to schools complying with the Common Core.
The standards are indeed a boon for the edu-biz entrepreneurs.
It turns out that Joanne Weiss, chief of staff to Secretary Arne Duncan, was right when she predicted that the standards would open up vast new markets. She wrote:
The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.
I mean, truly, isn’t this why we actually have a federal Department of Education, to meet the needs of American industry and to open up public education as a prime marketplace where entrepreneurs can pursue new business opportunities and make money?
Remember that as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s vision when he signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965, authorizing the first major program of federal aid to schools? No? Well, how about when President Jimmy Carter pushed to create the Department in 1979-1980? Not then either? Hmm.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One gets the impression that the original purpose, whatever it was, has been subverted — that [fill in the blank] the Department of Education [/fill in the blank] has now been weaponized, like charter schools and so many other WellMeaningAtFirst ideas, to advance the war against public education and professional educators.
When the “corporate reformers” are done mining and destroying the public school system into oblivion and the pendulum begins to swing back toward common sense, I want to be ready. I have plans to build a schoolhouse on my property for my immediate neighborhood filled with great books of all genres. Ahhh … heaven!
I’m thinking the same thing, but why wait? If only they gave charters to teachers, like originally envisioned.
Interesting point …
Teacher-run charter neighborhood schoolhouses with a common sense curriculum … the next “wave”? Radical!! 🙂
I doubt that any of the e-corps will actually make any money unless they deliver quality products that serve a purpose. Generally, the products of the e-corps will be replacing products that have previously cost schools money; there’s not a lot of new money in school districts. It’s our, the public’s, responsibility to understand where and how our tax dollars are being spent. If a textbook publisher is being put out of business by an e-book publisher, the question is how much money is it costing or saving the school district, and is it improving the learning or not.
If computers are effectively replacing teachers then they should. All of us will need to pay more attention to what works in schools and what doesn’t. Life and learning is more complex than it was in days past.
You forget the role of advertizing and lobbying in fogging the gap between the package and the product.
I predict a bumper crap, er crop of Genetically Modified Teachers and chart-busting sales of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Teaching.
They’ll make money and the districts will find it if the sales pitch is presented in a way that says, here, we’ve got the answers. Everybody knows they hire the best of the best smooth-talking salespersons.
I heard the sales pitch last August 18 on c-span, which was filming Tom Vander Ark (Digital Learning Council) and former Gov. Wise of W. Virginia as they presented their opinions of e-learning at Georgetown U.
Vander Ark said, ‘Give me two more hours a day and two more weeks a year, and ou can subtract two teachers.’ That’s his sales pitch for “blended learning.” It will distribute the C C curriculum in reading and math via computer to kids sitting compliantly in large classes.
So, that’s what Tom Vander Ark would do; I would use the Common Core standards a bit differently. I’d expand on what I did a couple of years ago when I was in the classroom teaching with Moodle and Google.docs and a variety of devices. See- http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2010/09/writing-the-elephant-in-the-living-room.html where I wrote about it.
With the Common Core, I’d encourage the students to try to make sense of the wording in the CC and then to choose which ones they’d like to accomplish and let them decide how they would accomplish that learning. They could post their learning products in a Moodle Database and let their peers and their teachers comment. Anyone with appropriate access could also see the learning products and comment. Some of those products could be posted on district-wide learning product showcases. I think with a litttle effort all of the schools in the country could do a collective learning fair on the standards, ribbons optional. There would be all kinds of different examples of how students from around the country demonstrated their learning of each standard, or as many as they got to that year.
Schools and teachers can choose not to use the standardized tests that the big corporations sell; they’re free to build their own assessments and correlate them to the standards. I’m an advocate, too, of using technology like iPads and BYOT environments to do formative assessments; multiple choice questions can be great learning tools if used right. See – http://www.naiku.net/
Teachers and schools just need to stand up and speak up. The standards aren’t the problem. Claiming authority of teaching and learning is the issue. Teachers and schools need not abrogate authority to entitiies outside of their schools.
Perhaps they should combine the Department of Education with the Department of Commerce and save some time.
Why not just give it to the Chamber of Commerce?
Weather e-corps or other resources that align with CC many teachers are scrambling to find materials that are aligned with CC and having to pay for out of there pockets. Districts are supplying us with the CCSS and telling us to find our own resources. Which is costing us thousands of dollars.
It’s pretty clear that we can’t rely on edu-business entrepreneurs to re-think their goal of capturing the vast, untapped market of public education. Nor, sadly, can we look to the US Department of Ed to do what they’re supposed to do: protect and defend one of America’s best ideas: a free, high-quality, democratic, equitable education for every child.
I believe we will need to turn to educators to summon the courage to act on their own values, and stop sleeping with the enemy: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2012/08/sleeping_with_the_enemy.html
It’s pretty clear that we can\’t rely on edu-business entrepreneurs to re-think their goal of capturing the vast, untapped market of public education. Nor, sadly, can we look to the US Department of Ed to do what they\’re supposed to do: protect and defend one of America\’s best ideas: a free, high-quality, democratic, equitable education for every child.
I believe we will need to turn to educators to summon the courage to act on their own values, and stop sleeping with the enemy: http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2012/08/sleeping_with_the_enemy.html
short funny piece ie Common Core “Vultures” at School
http://goo.gl/9fKeX
Related, yet amusing
Will teachers be replaced by robots? http://goo.gl/0s9TQ #satire