Few people have been more enthusiastic about the Common Core as StateCommissioner John King.
King brooks no dissent.
When he held the first of his meetings with PTAs in upstate New York, he lectured for over an hour, then encountered a hostile reception from parents.
Why?
Read Anthony Cody’s account and watch the videos.
John King has canceled all other scheduled PTA meetings.
The public is not buying what he is selling.
Here is another video from the same meeting.
Mr. King forgets that parents know more and care more about their children than he does.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There were several town halls
scheduled to sell Common Core to
the parents of New York state
schoolchildren. N.Y. State Education
Commissioner was the presenter,
with the events organized and
presented by the N.Y. State PTA.
However, after yesterday’s first
such town hall, N.Y. State
Education Commissioner King
strong-armed the N.Y, State PTA
into cancelling the remaining town
halls with the following statement:
https://www.facebook.com/nyspta
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“While our goal was to provide
an opportunity to learn and share,
based on review of the initial
October 10 meeting, the
Commissioner concluded the
outcome was not constructive
for those taking the time to
attend.
“Please know that NYS PTA
will continue to work with all
education and child advocacy
partners to keep our members
updated andinformed on
education, health, safety and
welfare issues affecting children
and families.
“We apologize for any
inconvenience this may cause
and express our sincere
appreciation to those who have
given their time to assist with
organizing this initiative.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Well, you can “review” for yourself
the crucial final 20 minutes of
yesterday’s town hall here—
the colorfully titled YouTube video
“Commissioner King Gets Spanked”:
This meeting was a Rhee-like
farce where King spoke for 2
hours straight, and was scheduled
to to be followed by 1 hour of
public comments and questions.
Note that… ***was scheduled to
be followed…***
The best laid plans…
Indeed, 20 minutes in, neither
King nor the NYS PTA
moderator “could stand the
heat, so they got outta the kitchen.”
They were totally unprepared by
how well-informed and
onfrontational these parents were.
At about the 10 minute mark, one
parent brought up the fact that King
sends his own kids to a Montessori
School which has a curriculum that
is the antithesis of Common Core
as a Montessori school is…
(to quote its wikipedia entry)
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
“… characterized by an emphasis on
independence, freedom within limits,
and respect for a child’s natural
psychological, physical, and social
development….
“… and has these elements
as essential:[1][2]
” — Mixed age classrooms, with
classrooms for children aged
2½ or 3 to 6 years old by far the
most common
“— Student choice of activity
from within a prescribed range of
options
“— Uninterrupted blocks of work
time, ideally three hours
“— A Constructivist or ‘discovery’
model, where students learn
concepts from working with
materials, rather than by direct
instruction.
“Specialized educational materials
developed by Montessori and her
collaborators
“— Freedom of movement within
the classroom
” — A trained Montessori teacher
“In addition, many Montessori
schools design their programs
with reference to Montessori’s
model of human development
from her published works, and
use pedagogy, lessons, and
materials introduced in teacher
training derived from courses
presented by Montessori
during her lifetime… ”
– – – – – – – – – – – –
This disclosure and implied attack
on King pretty much ended things.
King made the dubious claim that
his Montessori school scrupulously
follows “Common Core”
“This totally enraged the audience
of parents as it was and is a
ludicrous and demonstrably false
claim that was rightly met with
skepticism and loud booing,
enraging the crowd… if for
no other reason that folks
don’t like to be lied to or have
their intelligences insulted.
The flustered moderator then
quickly wrapped it up, “We’re going
to allow two more people to speak.”
At which point people began
screaming even louder:
“WHAT HAPPENED TO ‘ONE
HOUR’ ?!!!”
This is absolutely riveting video.
Again, you can see that crucial
final 20 minutes at:
Chicken sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpNgah-e6v4
Or how about this classic from The Ozark Mountain Daredevils:
Check out the mouth harp! Or whatever it might be called.
Thanks for the tunes. An uplift after all the frustrating videos of democracy stomped out.
You’re welcome!
Sometimes ya just gotta go with a little “good humor”.
thanks for this vid, will be sending it on to colleagues and parents of students.
Cross-posting:
King’s lowest moment had to be when he demanded the floor back from the parents, to hide behind his own kids.
First, he pretended his children were somehow being attacked by parents’ discussing his educational choices for them. Of course he doesn’t subject his own children to the indifference and ignorance he’s imposing on other people’s children.
He claims that their developmentally appropriate Montessori experiences are equivalent to the Common Core because both supposedly teach higher order thinking. These parents just saw what his CC did to their children, though, and it was assault under color of authority. Let’s unpack what King really did to these people’s kids.
Susan Ohanian sent a new link that demonstrates how brutal the PARCC assault was. Please, take a minute to read Edutopia’s truly horrifying “Brain Based Learning” blog.
“Student Responses to Common Core Instruction and Assessment”
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-responses-ccss-instruction-assessment-judy-willis
Open that link and read the cold-blooded, dismissive descriptions of children’s “profound emotional reactions including anger, hostility, retribution (such as false accusations of teacher misconduct) and more subtle but equally disturbing behavioral changes of withdrawn participation and effort, depression, and more sick-day absences.”
Blogger Willis describes the havoc she and her Common Core colleagues work on children’s actual mental functioning, through their brave new “brain-based” theories. She nonetheless asserts, with no evidence, “The CCSS goals support cognitive actions that are the executive functions for a global economy.”
But the tests actually supported misery. Instead of creative engagement, teachers report that “previous high achievers are showing fight/flight/freeze stress responses when tested with single-response questions.” Willis is immediately certain this a loss of mental function in the real children forcibly subjected to her experimental neurological reordering regime must be due to previous defects in their education. She’s sure all high-achieving students’ previous academic success is only rote memorization and parroting.
There is no evidence WHATSOEVER that the Common Core’s intrusive attack on childhood itself will actually promote “building strong neural networks of executive functions.” The neural networks of human development are far beyond her crude “executive functioning” model.
King can stick a feather in his cap and call it Montessori, but that doesn’t make the Common Core creative, or critical, or “higher order”.
chemtchr: I just watched the video.
Your comments are much appreciated.
It is difficult to describe State Commissioner John King’s demeanor at the meeting as anything but “smug and condescending arrogance in action.”
I leave it to the owner of this blog to publicly debate the edubullies and edufrauds. In all honesty, I might not be able to keep my cool.
After all, what can one make of King’s description of Montessori school practices as being an exemplar of Common Core?
Yet don’t doubt his sincerity: “A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.” [Demosthenes]
The road to education hell is paved with the sincere intentions of the studiously uninformed and misinformed.
😦
Thanks, KrazyTA, Chiara, 2old2teach, and jcgrim for opening the link and joining the conversation. I just spent two hours reworking the comment on Cody’s blog to highlight the points you stressed, and I think it’s much clearer now.
This is important, as you all know. Kids only get this one shot at a human childhood, so it’s urgent to stop this now.
“Please, take a minute to read Edutopia’s truly horrifying “Brain Based Learning” blog.”
The most amusing part of it is that all of the people contributing to that blog have good jobs working for a wealthy person’s foundation and they probably consider themselves very creative and smart.
Yet all of them attended schools where none of their “brain-based” theories were used, and, yet, there they are, adults, creative and smart.
How’d they muddle through to adulthood (and working for George Lucas) without “brain based” learning in 1st grade? It’s a mystery, I guess.
The article In Edutopia was especially chilling. I cannot imagine that the author has ever spent much time in public schools. I resent the implication that schooling up to the introduction of CCSS has relied on rote memorization. If it wasn’t so painful, the assertion that the stress students are under is based on the high level of critical thinking now required by CCSS would be laughable. Brain based research in education is certainly in its infancy and highly theoretical/speculative in conclusions drawn.
There is no evidence that “Common Core” builds neural networks.
She might be able to show changes in PET scans when children perform different types of tasks (e.g., areas of the brain light up differ when a person is reading or doing math) but there is NO way to tie neural changes to Common Core. Executive functioning has no relationship to the global economy any more than test anxiety is due to children’s previous lack of choice & exploration.
I bet next week we’ll see an op-ed in the New York Times by Thomas Friedman connecting Common Corps to international economic growth and if we don’t adopt the Common Core we’ll end up like North Korea.
“. . . we’ll end up like North Korea.”
I’ve been saying for quite awhile that the Rheeject is a North Korean Spy Agency plant sent to destroy American public education so that the Supreme Leader can become the world’s top dog.
I was hoping that someone had
actual information about the Montessori
school where King sends his kids.
So far, I’ve yet to find out exactly
what occurs during a typical
school day at that specific Montessori
school—schedule, curriculum,
activities, subjects taught, etc.
Thankfully, both Montessori’s
official site and its Wikipedia
page details what happens at
almost all Montessori
schools—i.e. the ones that are
functioning in a way consistent
with the Montessori educational
philosophy and methods. If
the Montessori to which King
sends his children does not
operate this way, they are an
exception, and not a true
Montessori school—sort of like
a restaurant purporting be a
McDonald’s and uses the name
McDonald’s, but instead that
sells hot dogs instead of
hamburgers.
However, I was able to discover
a blog post from Carol Burris
who DOES have information about
the Montessori school to which
King sends his kids. It’s at the
top of the COMMENTS section:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2013/06/when_the_ny_state_education_dept_complained_about_this_blog.html
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
CAROL BURRIS (regarding the
Montessori school where King
sends his kids):
“A friend whose employee attends
the Montessori School (and
therefore knows that the children
attend it) informed me that the
school does not give all of the
tests at all of the grade levels.
“Teachers are not evaluated by
the scores, nor is the school
evaluated by the scores.
“That has been confirmed.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
In the video, King described
his children’s Montessori school
being part of NY state’s
“community of schools”.
Apparently, not all of NYS’s
educational institutions
are in sync with the policies that
King demands that the public
schools follow—i.e. the
non-public school where he
sends his own children.
The article that this COMMENT
is responding to is pretty
incendiary as well. It’s from
the “BRIDGING DIFFERENCES”
blog written by elementary
school principal Peter DeWitt.
According to the webpage,
DeWitt “writes about students’
social and emotional health,
and how educators can help
young people find common
ground. He was selected as
the 2013 New York State
Outstanding Educator of the
Year by the School
Administrators Association
of New York State.”
The story is about how
officials from the N.Y. State
Education Dept. harassed
him at his school office in
response to comments he
wrote about… you guessed it…
the subject of King’s sending
his children to a Montessori
school.
The attempts to intimidate,
censor, and implicitly threaten
DeWitt are as creepy as
anything to do with the recent
Town Hall fiasco.
For example, Tom Dunn,
King’s Director of Communications,
volunteered to DeWitt…
“It’s not like I’m going to call your
superintendent … ”
… to complain about DeWitt,
should DeWitt refuse to cooperate
and do what he says—i.e. edit out
the stuff about King’s kids
attending a Montessori school.
That remark has a very mafioso-ish
type ring to it—along the lines of…
“It’s not like we’re going to
and harm your wife and kids if
you don’t play ball with us. We
wouldn’t want anything to happen
to them, now. Would we?”
If you’re not going to do
something, and you’re not
actually threatening to do so,
then why even bring it up?
These are the final paragraphs
of DeWitt’s article in their entirety:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
PETER DEWITT:
“(Ed. Commissioner King’s)
communications director should
spend less time trying to coerce
and intimidate educational
bloggers who are trying to get
out the truth, and spend more
time listening to the voices of
teachers, parents, students and
principals.
“Collectively, there were thousands
of them who converged on Albany,
NY yesterday for the June 8th Rally.
I hope some leaders from State
Ed were in the crowd because
one thing is for sure…our voices
won’t be stifled. ”
“My concern over the phone call
is ‘what’s next?’ One phone call
for an error. A second one
because I used strong language
or criticized the commissioner?
“What will be the next thing I
write that State Ed does not like?
If there is something untrue about
my blog, post a comment at the
end or send an e-mail like everyone
else.
“My secretary is too busy to take
calls about my blog, nor should
she have to. I don’t post blogs at
school, and my students and staff
are my first priority. We are trying
to meet the deadline of getting
through our End of the Year SLO’s.
“Unfortunately, Mr. Dunn’s phone
call seemed less about correcting
an error (which may or may not be
true) and more about flexing his
NY State Education muscles. We
have about as much time for State
Ed phone calls as they do for
ours.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Again, you can read the whole
thing at:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/finding_common_ground/2013/06/when_the_ny_state_education_dept_complained_about_this_blog.html
Whoops! Correction to that last post.
I got my ed blogs confused.
DeWitt’s blog is called:
“FINDING COMMON GROUND”.
not “BRIDGING DIFFERENCES”
Thank you for posting this, Diane. As someone who has met King at a state-level training, I certainly can affirm the behavior he displayed in the Hudson Valley. When I met him, he seemed shocked and disturbed with our discussion that mere teachers (and their children) had received high quality education in public schools. He didn’t patronize us; I’d call it amused condescenion. After our discussion, he quickly left, much as he did in the video. Something is clearly wrong in NY when state Ed officials don’t know that parents are angry because they see the state’s lies; when the commissioner acts in such a petulant fashion because HIS children are not fair game for his schemes; that elected officials are intent on self-immolation by supporting RTTT; when testing is all that matters, and when King and his minions don’t know NYS history-that NYS regents (high school) exams have a long history of being written by NYS teachers. (They are all cheaters, those teachers, you know. Pearson and inBloom don’t cheat-love that stance – which of the ELA standards is that?). King’s dismissive attitude has been on display since day 1 of his job. It is time for elected officials to examine the “claims” of reformers and the counterclaims of the hoi polloi and experts (like Diane) regarding RTTT and Pearson contracts and inBloom and VAM. That would be a reasonable first step. Otherwise, King deserves to go the way of Cathie Black.
King and the masters of the universe are true believers in the Common Core dogma. They are convinced that parents and teachers are resistant to change and eventually we’ll all get used to their great and wonderful CC. After all, it was their idea! It must be right! He never once responded directly to a concern and treated the parents & teachers as if he was trying to sell them a car.
I’m surprised John King was merely booed.
A little humor to lighten things…
What occurred backstage with John
King and his advisors after King fled
the stage:
I think Mr. Jackson summed it up best when he said, “The coursework is geared towards the few kids in the class that would have done well in math regardless. The rest of the kids are being made to feel dumb and its abusive”
Leaving the over half the students lost and confused is not educational progress. This program is making education more inefficient, more costly, and getting worse results.
Increase rigor? as in, I see you don’t ski very well, let me push you down a steeper slope and I’m sure you’ll learn faster, or more likely tense up, flail and fall and learn absolutely nothing.
Love AC but let a New York resident explain why :
http://b-loedscene.blogspot.com/2013/10/lil-john-king-gets-standardized-testy.html
Amazing how parents and teachers are being completely ignored. If King won’t hold any more town halls the parents should do a sit in at Kings office.
John King keeps on saying that Montessori schools follow Common Core or that Common Core is a lot like a Montessori curriculum. It is not! Unlike the children of New York, his children are receiving an education that is developmentally appropriate which values the individual learning style and creativity of children and gives teachers the freedom to adapt to the interests and abilities of the child. It is time for the Montessori community to start speaking up against Common Core/testing and to start supporting all teachers and students.
Seconded. I attended a Montessori school from pre-school through third grade. I am now a teacher and am in a school following CCSS.
Montessori and Common Core ARE NOT the same!
The parents don’t seem very happy…Yes, people are seeing through all of this fake reform. The question is what they can do about it. My niece in New Jersey has multiple tests a week. She is in 1st grade. She stresses so much about these (almost daily) tests that she cries and doesn’t want to go to school. Makes you want to homeschool or go to a private school, any private school. That is the point isn’t it? I am not optimistic. Those in charge aren’t even pretending that people have a say anymore.
I think reformers have trouble at these events because one of the basic differences between public schools and private schools is, public school parents can object to a policy and feel perfectly justified in trying to change the policy. It is, after all, a PUBLIC school.
If Mr. King objects to the curriculum at his child’s private school, they will simply tell him to “choose” another school. I imagine it’s the same at a chain charter. If I object to the KIPP “system” for example, they have no duty to respond or change the system, like in a private school, I would be free to leave and choose another school.
Seems like a fundamental difference to me, and it may be why he’s having so much trouble with engaged parents who (rightly) feel they have a voice in what goes on in that school. He’s having trouble with “public”, really.
Rather than him telling them to “choose” another school if they object to the curriculum, as in a private (market) transaction, they’ll tell him to “choose” another job, because they aren’t going anywhere 🙂
“Kings are like stars–they rise and set.” –Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas
Thank-you for chicken sounds! Can you hear me laughing all the way from TN?
You’re welcome! I think you probably can hear some good chicken sounds in TN, especially if you’re in a rural area.
My brother lives in Jackson. Need to get back down to TN sometime soon. Beautiful state! (although unfortunately currently under the edudeformers control).
In Syracuse, the Broad book club superintendent, Sharon Contreras, postponed her public chat with parents and community members:
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/10/todays_public_discussion_with_supt_contreras_is_postponed.html#incart_river
Chicken sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpNgah-e6v4
Common Core Standards are a Microsoft product packaged by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bill Gates signed an agreement in 2004 with UNESCO to create a world wide curriculum to disseminate the goals and agenda of UNESCO. Then he paid to have the CCSS developed and marketed. Sir Michael Barber is at the head of Pearson disseminating the CC world wide. Barber and Coleman worked at McKinsey & Company prior to their involvement with education “reform.” Nothing good ever comes out of McKinsey. Jeffrey Skilling of Enron fame came from there as well. It is just another corporate coup where the public gets duped and robbed and in this case our children get abused.
Before becoming Ed Commissioner, didn’t John King himself found a charter school? What on earth is a person like him doing as Commissioner of Education? These people want to destroy public education, not “reform” it. It is an international movement — going on in Italy and Britain as well. Very disturbing. A inaked power grab pure and simple — also deeply racist (nakedly so in Italy) and anti-democratic, — notwithstanding the fact that people like King are being used as front men.
First, from what I got from the video it was supposed to be one hour of King and one hour of comments. King spoke for 1:40 or so. Then public comment and I can guarantee being an expert on timing of speaking at board meetings with between 5-7 speaking as I do not have an exact count yet, of 12-14 minutes of the public and all else King. Remember, all the time he took up talking about his Montessori children of his? No way, would he stay later, just like Arne Duncan in Pico Rivera, to talk and be one with the parents whose children and futures are directly effected by this.
Just so you know, I am the oldest of 11 children. My Dad was a top engineer at Lockheed working for Kelly Johnson, I also worked for him on the SR-71 when it was top secret, since 1937 and for Jack Real, who was the only person Howard Hughes would talk to at Lockheed. My parents sent all of us to private school. My Mom did not have to work at that time in history. We lived the life you see in movies. Horse, Pool, private schools, race horses down the street and a movie star. Just what you see in the movies. Look what it has become. Now for the same salary you need 4 times what my dad made at the same job to live the way we did with also the cabin in the mountains and everyone but me skis. What do you think that would take today to reproduce. Don’t forget the egg ranch 1/21 block away and the Japanese truck farm a block away and the strawberry farms and Van Nuys Blvd for cruising and racing. We had the life along with the best schools and sports. What happened. If you wonder why I do what I do it is because I want them today to have at least some of what we were presented with by our parent and society. What happened? Are we sick? My Dad was 94.5 and my Mom 84 when they went away. My Mom had dementia, yet she comprehended. She was trapped in her brain. Want that? Her brain is now in the San Diego Brain Institute as UCSD with her sisters for the very rare genetic sisters studies. I got her brain donated less than 12 hours before she died. Our family is dedicated to stopping dementia and we are involved in testing for genetics and such. I know people in this field deeply and they also tell me this is groundbreaking. What is different in education? Sometimes it is hard to face, yet you must. The Buzzetti, Hahn and MimMack families are facing this head on for all. We all have to.
from:
http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2013/10/commissioner-john-king-throws-gasoline.html
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Commissioner John King Throws Gasoline Onto The Common Core/inBloom/Endless Testing Bonfire
The only thing worse that NYSED Commissioner John King could have done after his meltdown in Poughkeepsie the other night, where he threatened to take his microphone and lectern and go on home if the audience didn’t sit quietly and let him pontificate about the wonders of Common Core, Endless Testing and the inBloom data base, was to cancel the remaining meetings with parents across the state.
One major criticism King and NYSED, along with Merryl Tisch and the Board of Regents, have been taking over their education reform agenda is how they have rammed it down the throats of students, parents and teachers in the state without taking into consideration any of the cares or concerns of the other stakeholders.
By canceling the remaining PTA-sponsored town hall meetings with the public, King reinforces the meme that SED officials are out of touch and do not care one whit what anyone outside of their own offices or the Gates Foundation thinks about their education policies.
The smart move would have been to take the verbal beating in Poughkeepsie, take the verbal beatings elsewhere, acknowledge some of the concerns and say “Oh, we’ll conduct a study over that…” or something to that effect and just keep on keeping on like they’ve been doing.
But Commissioner King is not a smart man, certainly not politically at any rate, because he did the absolute worst thing possible in these circumstances – he took his microphone and lectern and went back to Albany in a huff, canceling the rest of the town hall meetings and underscoring in one feckless act how little he cares about what the public thinks and how little he can handle criticism or challenge.
As Leonie Haimson put it in this post:
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“These cancellations have provoked even more anger and resentment, with parents saying that while King won’t allow their schools or children to opt out of the Common Core, standardized testing or data sharing with vendors, he is opting out of an important dialogue with parents.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Leonie says there is one meeting that was not sponsored by the PTA that King is still slated to attend – October 15 in Oyster Bay, co-sponsored by Senator Marcellino.
If King was a smart man, an astute politician, he would attend that meeting and make believe he actually cared what the attendees were telling him there rather than act as he did in Poughkeepsie and get all defensive and snooty about things.
He can take some of the fuel off the Common Core/inBloom/Endless Testing Bonfire by acting like most politicians and making believe he cares what people think and feel about these issues rather than showing how little cares about what the public thinks or feels about them.
In other words, he would fake it.
Not that faking that he cares when he really doesn’t would put an end to the criticism and the fight SED and the Regents are going to takeover their education reform agenda.
It won’t – not with parents in the affluent suburbs up in arms over the agenda.
But it certainly would put a little bit of a damper on the tumult and fury King set off with his imperious act in Poughkeepsie the other night.
We’ll see if he even shows up to October 15 meeting and then, if he does, how he handles criticism.
As of now, King is making things worse for himself and his compatriots in reform at SED and the Board of Regents.
“The only thing worse that NYSED Commissioner John King could have done . . . was to cancel the remaining meetings with parents across the state.”
Chicken sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpNgah-e6v4
Sorry for repeating the same message but it just seems so appropriate.
The October 15 meeting has been cancelled at the Commissioner’s request. The whole series is cancelled.
My 9th grade debaters have learned to “fake it till you make it.” Sounds like he needs to take my debate class!!!!!
All together now, kids:
“When danger reared it’s ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled…”
I’m glad I read it this morning.
Mr. King is simply one of many pawns on a chessboard in which a game is being played out. The game is called monopoly, and here is how it works:
Suppose that you were named, say, Gill Bates, and that you had made billions by creating the part of a technological system that everyone had to use. In other words, you had figured out how
a. to get a little bit of money from just about everyone
b. to ensure that anyone using that technological system would have to use your essential part of it.
Suppose, then, that you wanted to apply the same model to, say, capturing the education market.
First, some background: Suppose that you you were in the business of selling computers and computer software. Suppose that you thought it inevitable that education would move onto computers. Suppose that you also thought it inevitable that a particular model of computer instruction would be adopted–the “computer adaptive curriculum model.” Here’s how that works: You have a list of stuff that students are supposed to learn (call this list “standards” or “objectives” or whatever you like. And you have a bunch of teaching module, a couple for each objective or standard. Now when little Yolanda sits down to use this computer curriculum, she takes a test. The test tells what objectives little Yolanda hasn’t yet “mastered” and serves up just the lessons that she”needs.”
Here’s how you might proceed: You would create a single national database of student test scores and responses to which all curriculum providers would have to be connected if they wanted to have their products be adaptive to a set of national standards. You might call your product something like inFlower. The idea is that every school district in the country would pay a few bucks per kid for the privilege of using your database of student responses. This would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars per year. But that would be just the beginning. Because there could only be ONE such national database, curriculum developers would have to come to you and pay you to hook their programs up to this database so that they could serve up adaptive curricula. But that’s not all, through your foundation, you could put out an RFP calling for edu-entrepreneurs to create (guess what?) computer adaptive software keyed to standards–software that you, yourself, could hook to your database and sell.
You would end up with the equivalent of what the operating system is in the personal computer business–the piece of the whole that everyone has to use and pay for. You would
a) get a little bit of money from almost everyone (a few dollars per kid, amounting to hundreds of millions per year, and
b) you would have the part of the system that everyone else would have to go through or connect to and, importantly, PAY FOR–a monopoly position that you could leverage
Heck, you could probably even get state departments of education to mandate that people start using computer adaptive curricula. No other vendor could replicate what you were doing–there would be only ONE such national database, so you would have a secure monopoly position to leverage.
But to make all this happen, you would FIRST you would need
a) national standards because you need one set of objectives for that new curriculum portal to track
b) national tests based on those standards because those would provide the justification for signing up for the national database (i.e., to keep track of all that test data)
So, you would need to buy those FIRST. In order to implement your plan, you would have to purchase national standards and tests. Who knows, perhaps you could even convince a lot of boneheaded people that it’s somehow better to have a single set of national standards than it is to have voluntary, competing standards (which would lead to a lot of innovation). Perhaps you could even get a lot of BUSINESS PEOPLE, who HATE centralized authorities and regulation to buy into the idea of centralized regulation of national education standards.
And then you could get your wind-up toy Secretary of Education to issue a technology Blueprint calling for (guess what):
a) the new national tests based on the new national standards,
b) a computer for every child so that every child could take those tests,
c) a nationwide database of student test scores and responses, and
d) computer adaptive curricula attached to that national database of student responses
And, all along, you could have everyone thinking that what you were actually doing was running a crusade to improve U.S. education.
Does all this sound just too creepy, too diabolical, too unbelievable? Too bad Ayn Rand is gone. I could sell the story idea to her. Maybe Stephen King would be interested. After all, the story is REALLY horrifying.
Arne Duncan’s Chief of Staff recently said that the purpose of the new standards was to create “national markets” for “products that can be brought to scale.”
That’s a pretty good summary of the story that I just told you, isn’t it?
Hum.
Gates is a thrice convicted monopolist. He understands perfectly the importance of government contracts, monopolies and copyrights when it comes to “bringing a product to scale.” All of those elements make the implementation of the CC the perfect storm for Billy.
And maybe you think that it’s win-win. Maybe you believe that curricula OUGHT to be a bunch of bullet-pointed slides on a screen in modules for each “standard” to be learned. Maybe you are a true believer in the Powerpointing of U.S. education.
Hum again.
I very much wish that people would think more about the inherent danger of creating national standards and tests–about creating what is to be, in effect, a centralized authority. Such an authority invites further consolidation of monopolistic control in the hands of a few providers of educational materials. It creates those “national markets” for “products that can be brought to scale,” as Arne Duncan’s office puts it. If you like big-box education–if you like the idea of Microsofting and Walmarting U.S. education–then you should LOVE having a single set of national standards and a single set of tests based on those, and you should love having a single national database of student responses and test scores, because those ENABLE THAT RESULT.
National standards and tests are the necessary prelude to the creation of a single gateway/portal through which curricula passes–A Common Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth.
If that doesn’t scare you, then you are not thinking.
The alternatives are voluntary, competing standards and local decision making about what will be taught, when, and to whom. That’s how you get real innovation–from that sort of competition among ideas.
Professional educators are not business people. They typically don’t think of the business consequences of their actions.
For decades, educational officials in state departments around the country created adoption criteria for textbooks that piled on, year after year, additional requirements for components that textbook programs would have to have.
And then, a few years later, those education officials found that a formerly robust, competitive market for educational materials in which there were MANY players–MANY COMPETING COMPANIES–had been reduced to one in which there were a few large educational publishing monopolies. And the education officials still don’t realize that THEY CREATED THAT MONSTER by ensuring that only the largest players could survive via basal adoption requirements that small publishers could not meet.
And now a lot of education officials are backing national standards and national tests, which will have EXACTLY THE SAME RESULT–that will make it easy for a few players in the education business to maintain or develop monopoly positions by taking advantage of the economies of scale that only very, very large educational publishers can take advantage of.
If you LOVE the idea of big box education–of the Microsofting and Walmarting of U.S. education–then you should be a big supporter of national standards and national tests because the one leads, inevitably, to the other.
It all comes down to unit cost. If you have a NATIONAL market based on NATIONAL standards, then you can create one uniform product for the entire nation. You can print the print product in enormous quantities at very low unit cost. You can have one expense for developing one marketing and advertising program. A new, smaller entrant to the education market cannot possibly compete with you.
Citizens of New York, arise and sign the petition to terminate John King.
At Change.org: PETITION TO TERMINATE THE EMPLOYMENT OF NYS EDUCATION COMMISSIONER, JOHN KING
The petition carries 19 charges, which are substantiated with references at http://www.coalitionforjusticeineducation.com
The petition:
http://www.change.org/petitions/new-york-state-board-of-regents-terminate-the-employment-of-state-education-commissioner-john-king
I very much wish that people would think more about the inherent danger of creating national standards and tests–about creating what is to be, in effect, a centralized authority. Such an authority invites further consolidation of monopolistic control in the hands of a few providers of educational materials. It creates those “national markets” for “products that can be brought to scale,” as Arne Duncan’s office puts it.
If you like big-box education–if you like the idea of Microsofting and Walmarting U.S. education–then you should LOVE having a single set of national standards and a single set of tests based on those, and you should love having a single national database of student responses and test scores, because those ENABLE THAT RESULT.
National standards and tests are the necessary prelude to the creation of a single gateway/portal through which curricula passes–A Common Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth.
If that doesn’t scare you, then you are not thinking.
What are the alterantives to national standards and testing? The alternatives are
voluntary, competing standards and
local decision making about what will be taught, when, and to whom and
diagnostic and formative testing instead of high-stakes standardized testing.
By those means you get real innovation–from competition among competing ideas and from the exercise of liberty by individual communities.
Professional educators are not business people. They typically don’t think of the business consequences of their actions. And many do not understand, yet, the consequences of creating a single set of national standards and high stakes tests.
For decades, educational officials in state departments around the country created adoption criteria for textbooks that piled on, year after year, additional requirements for components that textbook programs would have to have.
And then, a few years later, those education officials found that a formerly robust, competitive market for educational materials in which there were MANY players–MANY COMPETING COMPANIES–had been reduced to one in which there were a few large educational publishing monopolies. And the education officials still don’t realize that THEY CREATED THAT MONSTER by ensuring that only the largest players could survive via basal adoption requirements that small publishers could not meet.
And now a lot of education officials are backing national standards and national tests, which will have EXACTLY THE SAME RESULT–that will make it easy for a few players in the education business to maintain or develop monopoly positions by taking advantage of the economies of scale that only very, very large educational publishers can take advantage of.
If you LOVE the idea of big box education–of the Microsofting and Walmarting of U.S. education–then you should be a big supporter of national standards and national tests because the one leads, inevitably, to the other.
It all comes down to unit cost. If you have a NATIONAL market based on NATIONAL standards, then a big-box publisher can create one uniform product for the entire nation. It can can manufacture the print product in enormous quantities at very low unit cost. It can have one expense for developing one marketing and advertising program for its print and online products. A new, smaller entrant to the education market cannot possibly compete with this.
The new national standards are the engine that runs the corporate reform juggernaut that is rolling over our kids.
If those remain in place, then the rest of the anti-deform movement is moot. So, people need to stand against the amateurish standards being forced upon them, and they need to stand against the tests. And civil disobedience is a good way to do that, as the events in Seattle and Poughkeepsie have shown.
On a humorous note, I just found
this over at STUDENTS LAST:
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THE KING’S DICTIONARY:
New York – The reigning Commissioner of Education for the State of New York, John King, has released the following dictionary of terms that he would like distributed at any other town hall meetings he deigns to attend.
accountability — fireability, what the King is above
child — learning unit available for sale to corporations (notable exceptions include: King’s child(ren))
critical voices — that to which the King is deaf
democracy — a form of government in which people choose their leaders and their leaders choose not to listen to them because it is time-consuming and inconvenient
dissent — that to which the King is impervious
education — marketplace
educators — pawns
experience — overblown requirement for teaching
evidence — that which does not exist to support the use of Common Core Standards
knowledge — facts, information and skills not necessarily required before implementing state-wide learning standards
money — short cut around democratic process
parent — easily manipulated adult unit in charge of child (see above)
Ravitch — she who must not be named
respect — what silent acquiescence shows
rigor — developmentally inappropriate
schooled — what the King got on October 10, 2013 in Poughkeepsie, NY
special interests — those who disagree with the King’s policies
Town Hall meeting — gathering at which the King speaks and you listen
——————————————–
This is at:
http://studentslast.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-kings-dictionary.html
NYSPTA says “At no time has NYS PTA governance or its president asked for members to be silenced regarding their concerns about the CCI or its implementation.” What happened on October 10th? http://nysptapresident.blogspot.com/