David Coleman, widely acknowledged as the “architect” of the Common Core standards, was selected last year as CEO of the College Board. He announced recently that the SAT will be redesigned to reflect the Common Core.
Get to know David Coleman.
He is now the de facto controller of American education. He decided what your child in kindergarten should know and do. He decided what children in every grade should know and do. He has decided how they should be tested. Now he will decide what students need to know if they want to go to college. He had some help. But make no mistake: he is the driving force that is changing what and how your children and your students learn.
Coleman, whose mother is president of Bennington College, graduated from Yale and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar. He then worked for McKinsey.
He created the Grow Network, an assessment program that he sold to McGraw-Hill in 2005, reportedly for $14 million.
He left McGraw-Hill in 2007 and founded Student Achievement Partners, funded by the Gates Foundation and others, which led the writing of the Common Core standards.
He was chosen to lead the College Board in 2012. The NewSchools Venture Fund, a leading corporate reform group that supports the expansion of charter schools, named Coleman as one of its “Change Agents of the Year” in 2012.
He was a founding board member and treasurer of Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst, along with Jason Zimba, who led the writing of the Common Core math standards. The only other member of Rhee’s board was also a member of Coleman’s staff.
In the history of American education, there has never been anyone like David Coleman. He has fashioned the nation’s standards and curriculum. Others have tried and failed. Will his vision change the schools for the better? We will know more later.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Another non-educator to add to the list whose claim to fame is that he has a parent who is an educator. My father earned a business degree and was a self-employed businessman who made my sister and I work for him (for no pay), but I will be the first to acknowledge how little I know about running a business. The Ivy Leagues are coming up short on a lot these days, including teaching humility.
Sorry, hit enter before proofreading. Of course, that should have been, “my sister and me.” Wish WordPress allowed us to edit.
“He created the Grow Network, an assessment program that he sold to McGraw-Hill in 2005, reportedly for $14 million.”
Diane, who “reported” this figure? Do you have a source for it? I haven’t found one.
She previously indicated that info came from an inside source.
So told to Diane alone by an anonymous source. Ok.
So I bet we will find out eventually and if it was 10 vs. 12 vs. 14 or five bucks, what’s your point?
If it wasn’t for this one sale, he really is a great guy who cares about humanity and all the children of the world?
My point is I’d like to be able to verify what I read, that’s all.
I was given that figure by a high-level executive at McGraw-Hill. Others have told me that this was a low-ball figure.
Some interesting reading about the “Mandarin Class” recently: Seems to go with a discussion of Coleman.
The reference is the to imperial bureaucracy, the mandarins, who once governed imperial China.
The idea is that these groups of people (who’s big talents seem to be standardized test tanking, attending elite universities, and moving and shaking with the right kind of people) are the new Mandarins; the “journalists”, bureaucrats and scholars who define how and what we think. One of the issues is the distance that these folks have form the realities of the working class and even middle class that they seek to govern, influence, prescribe “solutions” for, etc.
Interesting reading.
Here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/21/america-s-new-mandarins.html
Also several post over at the Daily Howler:
http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2013/02/man-and-mandarin-mcardles-new-framework.html
http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2013/02/man-and-mandarin-pitiful-ballad-of-sam.html
I am not saying I subscribe to all of this, but it is very interesting.
Think of all our big voices in education “reform” these days… Rhee, Kopp, Coleman, etc.
I think that’s an apropos analogy!
When the elites become so insulated from those who are less fortunate and less powerful –people they know very little about, often disdain and usually delight in dictating policies to, they are bound to come up with edicts that make sense only in their little worlds, like “let them eat cake” and Kindergartners should “Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.”
Nobless oblige notwithstanding, out-of-touch non-educator elites like Coleman, Duncan, Rhee, Kopp, Gates etc. are not skilled in taking the pulse of humanity and should not be trusted to know what is best in education. Time to pull the power plug on such pie-in-the-sky gentry and give education back to educators in the real world, where folks do “give a sh%t” about what happens in people’s childhoods.
Please add Michael Bloomberg to your list of the new Mandarins (many in NYC already refer to him as the Pharaoh), He’s retiring soon and wants to use his money to influence politics on a national level after that. Given the iron grip this class of people has on policy making, constantly reinforced by their unique ability to make mega donations to politicians, you are right in saying the only solution is to maximize local control of education, however problematic that might be seen to be by some. We might have to accept a few Creationism curricula in public schools here and there as a price, for example. But that’s a hell of a lot better than having an education czar. Local control of curricula, hiring and firing of teachers, adoption of teaching materials and methods, etc. is the real way to strengthen our democracy.
To add to Jeff’s comment, note the $1 million that Bloomberg added to “Rheform” candidates in the Los Angeles Unified School District board race.
We had to have seen this coming.
depressing and dispiriting except for one thing– won’t it remove some of the competitive advantage enjoyed by private schools (their kids don’t have to mess with those annoying tests the public kids have to take)? This sounds really bad at first glance but maybe for once the powers that be will have a few unintended consequences of their own to deal with– wonder of that’s been factored in to the calculation . . .
The kids in private schools will still have big advantages: small classes, experienced AND respected teachers, superb facilities, and freedom from VAM and the meddling of the US Department of Education.
Don’t forget being able to choose a school whose philosophy fits the student’s needs.
DR:
agreed of course re inherent private school advantages, but it seems strange that the hallowed Be All End All SAT will be linked to the methodology and special ingredients of a new standards with which their kids are unfamiliar. And wasn’t the SAT always an aptitude as opposed to an achievement test anyway?
Meanwhile may this list only grow longer:
http://wapo.st/RjZUC1
Colleges that don’t require SAT or ACT: New survey
Posted by Valerie Strauss on November 28, 2012
Who died and made this guy king, anyway?
Democracy as we know it died…or is dying.
The ACT is better anyways because it measures science knowledge as well as math and verbal skills. Private east coast schools do not have a problem with students scoring 30 plus on the ACT even if they don’t take the SAT. Once Coleman has conquered the SAT, what will he do with AP exams?
Actually the SAT measures science skills, but it is incorporated into the reading and math sections. ACT just advertises the science section to make it appear that it is a more comprehensive assessment. However, the ACT science section measures reading and reasoning skills based on a given set of facts. SAT incorporates those same type questions in its reading and math sections. Moreover, it does it better, in my opinion.
Sounds like the neoliberals are trying to redefine what success is. Michelle Rhee should be happy, she will no longer need to fake test results.
The issue of private schools seems to me to challenge a principal rationale of the Common Core, the whole national security angle. If educational standards are crucial to our nation’s standing in the world, and a uniform national core curriculum affecting every child from kindergarten on is the way to ensure high standards, then how come it is possible to buy your way out of the Common Core? The federal government has many legitimate functions, like maintaining national security and ensuring fundamental liberties. But it is not there to tell us what to think. And for the children of citizens with enough money to send their kids to private schools, it is still parents and teachers who will decide matters of curriculum and teaching methods, not David Coleman.
With normal laws governing children, we don’t offer buyouts. Vaccination laws, requirements that children’s annual checkups be presented to schools, age of consent for sexual activity, issuing of learners permits and driver’s licenses — these things apply to all children or to none, do they not? And where education is concerned, the federal government has an obligation to step in to ensure basic civil rights — so, in the classic example, it was appropriate for federal law to trump local law when the latter compelled segregated schools. And now no school is permitted to exclude students because of race — whether public or private. And yet in the most important matter of all pertaining to schools, the question of what teachers teach and how they do it, I as a public school parent have vastly less ability to direct my child’s education than a private-school parent does — and this gross inequality is being mandated from Washington.
Our educational system is the foundation of our democracy, and it should be governed democratically. That means all aspects of education should be determined at the most local practicable level. Parents and teachers must retain real authority over curriculum and teaching methods in private AND public schools. We should be moving towards greater, not lesser, local control. There should not be a single parent in the United States who feels, as millions of us now do, that she has no voice in the content and pedagogical approach of her school. Our politicians pay lip service to this concept, but our nation’s laws are now wildly out of synch with it.
Diane was absolutely right in stressing that the process matters. Debates about the merits of the Common Core are totally irrelevant. If it’s so great, let it be offered as part of a wide range of materials ideas that local school boards can choose to purchase and implement if they feel inspired to do so. Not only should David Coleman not have the influence he now has on our educational system — no central agency should have that kind of power. It is time to repeal No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, to decouple the Common Core from all federal funding decisions, and for states to restore the untold millions — rather billions — they are now slated to spend on Common-Core-related matters to local school districts to spend as they see fit.
“And yet in the most important matter of all pertaining to schools, the question of what teachers teach and how they do it, I as a public school parent have vastly less ability to direct my child’s education than a private-school parent does — and this gross inequality is being mandated from Washington.”
You make an excellent point, Jeff. I believe this angle will get traction soon enough. Most of the general public still do not understand the implications of Common Core.
First, they attacked K-12. Now, they have momentum and they are going after Special Education. Next, Early Childhood Education and Higher Education are on the agenda.
The elites are standardizing the lives of those whom they see as common to the core. They are deciding what is to be learned from cradle to career and they will be testing our babies, our toddlers, our youngsters, our adolescents and our college students. This is not because education is broken and needs to be fixed, not because learning and assessment absolutely must be aligned, not because national security depends on it, This is happening merely because there is more wealth and power to be had by those who can never get enough wealth and power.
As teachers, you are the stewards of our Earth’s most valuable progeny. You must continue to do what you came here to do. The elites have aimed to usurp your positions and you have been letting them wrangle your roles from you, You must not allow that any longer. You cannot remain inert.
“…here there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.” R.M. Rilke
All of the comments (and the original article itself) demonize, to some degree, an individual and, by extension, associates and types from a handful of cherry-picked facts. I got to talk with Mr. Coleman at his first conference as College Board president. His first moderated discussion was about enhancing the textual complexity of subject area instruction for English language learners (non-native students). It was a gutsy choice and a candid discussion during which more than once Mr. Coleman displayed remarkable ability not only to understand the intricacies of the failure of the current paradigm but also to revise his understanding when provided new perspective from the members of the panel. I am a high school teacher, and the current social and political climate for educational reform, polluted with the ideologies of reactionaries on both extremes of the spectrum, often leads me to despair over the future of my career and passion. Ideologies are for people whose brains are barren of ideas. Mr. Coleman has ideas. Do not misinterpret my comment as a panegyric for Mr. Coleman. It is just refreshing to consider someone interested in sweeping away some the artificial complexity of a monolithic dinosaur like the SAT in an attempt to align it more with the real complexity of the problems facing our youth and the world today. If you made it to the end of this comment, you should more fully satisfy your curiosity about Mr. Coleman and his vision by reading the text of his first official address to the members of the College Board archived at the press room of the College Board website from late October, 2012. Judge the man then, not solely from the comments in this article and after it.
Really? The linked from which most of the information was drawn was the College Board’s official bio for David Coleman. And yes, he and his colleagues were the only members if Rhee’s board. Please tell me anything that was untrue or true but unfair in the post.
Maybe Mr. Coleman will do a fine job revamping the SAT, but to use your phrase, in whatever shape or form it takes, it will still be a “monolithic dinosaur.” The U.S.A. is too big and too diverse to be subject to a single national curriculum, and if David Coleman were as bright as you claim, he would disassociate himself from the mind-numbing test-based curricula that prevail already in thousands of struggling schools because of NCLB and RTTT, and which so far the implementation of the Common Core is only exacerbating. I wonder what would he have to say for example to this teacher: http://www.upworthy.com/see-the-teacher-s-resignation-video-that-280-000-people-have-already-watched
Diane is right on. We have got to watch this guy. Speaking of watching him, check out what he had to say about student writing at a New York State Education Department meeting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pu6lin88YXU
So, it is entirely appropriate to respond to this Rhodes scholar, in his own words, when he tells us what he thinks about education: “The world doesn’t give a shit what you think.”
He seems very very smart like many of my Advanced Placement students over the years. I think however he is of the age of Stand and Deliver movie and thinks that kids ought to take 9 or more Advanced Placement courses. I think there is a danger in the kids who do take too many courses like that and think that 5s are the only meaningful score in the only meaningful classes called AP.
Thanks for calling me on that. Your article is not factually inaccurate. Perhaps I am inferring a tone of disapproval when none was intended. The anaphora of “he decided” led me to assume that you disapproved of his role in the development and implementation of the Common Core. It sounds ominous put the way you put it. Upon reflection, could it seem ominous that a person should have that much influence? In a free society, I suppose it could. If that was your intent, I get it now. Thank you for inviting me to reconsider your original intent.
Many of us do disapprove of Coleman’s role in the development of the Common Core. This is because he is not a trained educator; he has no experience teaching K-12; he has no understanding of children and developmentally appropriate practice; and because people who do have that expertise were not included on his team.
Just because Coleman may be a scholar in English does not mean he is an expert in K-12 ELA education. Thus, he gave us a pushed-down curriculum which a lot of children are not prepared to handle, including many 5 year olds in their first formal year of schooling who are not ready to “Read emergent-reader texts with purpose and understanding.” A lot of Kindergartens are half day, 2 hour programs. Apparently, Coleman knows nothing about the non-cognitive needs of young children, as those two hours have always been valued as important for acclimating children to being in school/group care and socialization, often for the first time in their lives. Experts in Early Childhood Education should have been included in creating the standards, as they typically are when standards are developed by states.
This is tyrannical in nature and is very much undemocratic. Our children and communities who are not truly valued but marginalized are being killed softly. This is very dangerous of one person having the authority and power to direct the educational future of our society. Actually, it’s oppressive.
Interesting story about his mom, speaking of “tyrannical in nature”.
http://thefire.org/article/5854.html
He is ruining education!!!
Extremely interesting cronyism afoot in how Coleman chose his good buddy from Oxford, Jason R. Zimba to join him at StudentsFirst and as the lead math author of the Common Core State Standards:
What is the paramount connection between David Coleman and Jason R. Zimba? They were both among the 32 U.S. Rhodes Scholars at Oxford in 1991. Incidentally, there were a mere 7 women among the 32. The U.S. awardee size has remained around 32 since the 1940s. (Appendix, p.389, in Thomas J. Schaeper, Kathleen Schaepe, “Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite,” New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2011.) Zimba holds the rarified position of Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Bennington College, where David’s mother, Elizabeth Coleman is president. I use “rarified” because in 1994 Elizabeth Coleman eliminated tenure at the college and immediately purged one-third of the professors. So, one might consider Zimba very comfortable as a full professor.
Hi, I’m Diana (our names are quite similar) and I just wanted to complement your timely article, but also to request an article on North Carolina’s education system or any updates to changes here. It’s the state in which I am currently an undergraduate student at UNC-Chapel Hill, a public elite university and powerhouse. I am a National Merit Scholar and I was hoping you could shed insight on the state of changes to education in our state? Anything from Pat McCrory’s pending cuts to programs for liberal arts majors, or NC (having the lowest, some statistics report) education salaries compared to other states. I noticed you have covered educational powerhouses such as Connecticut but I’d like to express concern for education inNorth Carolina.
Thanks!
Diana,
I have written many posts about the tragic decisions of the extremist Governor and Legislature in NC. I will write more.