The first Common Core test produced a massive decline in test scores across the state. Charter schools fared even worse than public schools, with many dropping by 50 percentage points in their proficiency rates.
This reader read the handwriting on the wall:
“These test scores emphatically highlight the failure of vision that the corporate reformers bring to the table.
What scares me is the tremendous profit motive that drives and informs so much of what is happening in education. It’s as if capitalism, as a system, has its own needs and agendas that operate outside any kind of moral frame- work. Those who stand to gain, like hedge-fund managers, Rupert Murdoch styled billionaires, the industrial complex built up around curriculum and assessment, and the many charter chain operators are all aligned to push data driven, high stakes testing, and privatizing education with very little awareness or concern for the real implications that the free market has on public education.
I don’t think I’m overstating it when I say that they are dismantling a free public education system that is premised on equity, and established along with the founding of our democracy. They are replacing it with, well-connected, chain charters that don’t even address the needs of students and communities whose needs are highest. (These get counseled out, or lack the self efficacy to opt in in the first place.)
These “reformers” under-write politicians, thus gaining undemocratic access and influence. They own media outlets and know how to shape the national conversation. They tell us teachers suck, not poverty. They tell us teacher tenure undermines student achievement, not chronic underfunding of low-income school districts. They tell us that the labor movement and unions are a threat to our economy and to our way of life. When, in-fact, unions helped to establish and stabilize our middle class with the five day work week, the eight hour work day, a living wage, and more. They tell us public schools are failing when, in fact, every assessment, and decades of studies demonstrate that poverty is hurting children, not public schools. They tell us they know how to fix education, though they have been “fixing” it with charters and vouchers for over a decade, while sucking the life out of, low income, public schools with little to show for all their bluster.
They are still waiting for superman.”
Um, Rupert Murdoch? Really? Last time I checked it was 90% liberal billionaires [Bill Gates et al] pushing this crap.
Gates a liberal? That’s new one. Gates, Republicans, and the elite Democrats have only one motive – profit.
Gates doesn’t want more money for himself.
The problem is that he believes that the profit motive (the love of money) is the transformative element missing from public education. All innovation, he assumes, stems from the profit motive.
Rupert Murdoch announced in his op ed in the NY Times that he was working toward making America’s public schools the next huge opportunity for free market investments.
He own the date mining company InBloom in which he partners with Gates, and he has Joel Klein working for him. He is a major player in transforming our free education system to one for investment profit.
sorry for the typo…
Murdoch owns the DATA mining firm InBloom to collect all the personal info on every public school child from Pre K to the end of HS (and maybe higher ed too), which is now being sold to all comers. This includes not only school records including health, behaviors, and grades, but also home addresses and Social Security numbers. This is a done deal.
This Aussie/Brit who was under indictment in England owns so much of American industry, and yearns to own it all, that we should all watch his every move. He is bidding on the Chicago Tribune Corporation which owns the LA Times. Since he owns both the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times, where can the public go for an unbiased information????
No wonder that the public blames teachers for school failures when the only news they get is managed by Rupert Murdoch and his ilk. Where were our anti-Trust laws when this takeover was happening? Where was our D o J and our Prez as the banks became too big to fail? It is all part of the long range process these oligarchs set in play over the decades.
How do you like that much corporate power? How do you like that our own children and grandchildren can have this information sold to any thug who can pay for it? How do you like it that some school districts have already sold their souls to this arrogant profiteer?
It does not matter what political party these profiteers choose to claim. The two major U.S. political parties are full of liars and greed merchants, so as educators we must target each of the robber barons for their part in the theft of our great American school system.
“These test scores emphatically highlight the failure of vision that the corporate reformers bring to the table.”
One of the best opening lines I have read in a long time.
An excellent summary overall. Diane, thanks for posting this.
Thank you Mercedes.
I very much appreciate all the work and research you (and of course Diane) do to help inform my understanding of this apparent slow motion car crash called school reform.
The post, which is, indeed, spot-on, causes me to remember the Nicholas Hobbs book. “The Futures of Children”. What are the the futures of our children in this seemingly hegemonic, dystopian vision of education? The capitulation of federal, state and city governments to the voracious hunger of the corporate world for workers fitting into 21st century, world class level skill slots is, unfortunately, predictable and horrific. .
The only exit from the blitzkrieg of ‘Educational Reform’ will be continuing development of a coordinated parent, teacher, community resistance, fed by research and reporting by allies in higher education.
Who thought public education would find itself at such risk, so quickly?
“These “reformers” under-write politicians, thus gaining undemocratic access and influence.” Amen, sister. A group of parents in TN found this to be what seems to be a pattern. Tony Bennett & now, new info on TN’s Kevin Huffman and political donations:
https://www.facebook.com/RemoveKevinHuffman?hc_location=timeline
The statements of this educator are right on the mark.
Huffman and his ex wife, the scary Michelle Rhee, are the exemplars of where TFA went wrong. They are the essence of free market instigators for wealth built on the backs of America’s children. It is incumbent upon us all to refute them at every turn. Rhee made a fortune, and now with her current husband, has closed at least 23 schools in Sacramento. What does her ball player husband (who was caught in bed with a minor) know about education? Does she have some exotic gene that creates her men into plutocrats yearning to kill public education and transform it to big corporate business, by their intimate osmosis?
Just wondering.
I still don’t understand the constant qualifier of “hedge-fund managers” in the anti-reform dialogue. Does it matter that there are hedge-fund managers as opposed to other type of fund managers? Once something is open for investing, does it matter who invests?
I really do want to know (I am not being a troll). That said, if the term is being used as demagoging, I think that should be acknowledged and maybe curtailed. Afterall much of this mess is the result of terms like “tenure” being used in a demagogue fashion.
It’s not demagoging. It’s a fact hedge fund managers are involved in education “reform.” Hedge fund managers have been intimately involved in the economic downturn from which this country has yet to recover.
“Democrats for Education Reform” is an outfit run by hedge fund crooks. I don’t call them “managers”–they are crooks.
By and large, hedge funds do nothing of value for society but function only to bet against the prevailing stock market choices. They gamble on failure of the economy, not of the health of the economy. Thus, they are lambasted, which does seem appropriate.
I think this is a little harsh. Hedge funds can provide liquidity to markets which is valuable. Hedge funds might take a position because the managment believes that the market price is the result of a too pessimistic outlook on the economy, so they would only gain if the economy succeeds.mi do agree, however, that the financial sector is inefficiently large.
Oh, so borrowing money at zero interest to magnify bets on stocks, many of which held for only minutes and sometimes just seconds (so much for “investment”) is providing “liquidity.”
What a nice euphemism. Silly me, I thought they were just gambling in a casino subsidized with my tax dollars.
But is there a disproportionate number of hedge funds involved as opposed to other types of investors?
Or does the notion of “hedge fund” just conjure up super-wealthy and therefore is being used for emotional impact?
In discussing this issue with business people who are pro-public education it has been suggested to me that the term being tossed around might be the same wrong as throwing around the term “tenure” like reformers do.
Joanna, the term “hedge fund manager” is not tossed around as a metaphor or simile for “business person.” Look at the board of Democrats for Education Reform, which is committed to the proliferation of charters; or the board of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy. Or better yet, read this story in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/fashion/06charter.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Thank you for answering, and for the link. I will study up.
Everyone needs to read this and learn about these people and their practices. I knew about charter schools, vouchers and tax credits and agreed that NCLB and its AYP was insane but I was not aware of the destruction of public schools to the extent that I am now since I started reading this blog. Other people I I’ve started sharing this with–teachers included– think I’m crazy until I show them this blog and other websites I’ve learned about. We MUST share our knowledge with each other and EVERYONE must learn and get involved in order to STOP this insanity.
There has been scarce commentary on Common Core’s Effect in the Early Years http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/29/a-tough-critique-of-common-core-on-early-childhood-education/