Think of it: the richest man in the world poured over $2 billion into the creation of national standards, and he is out on the media-power trail, fighting for their survival. Gates is worried about the pushback against the standards and the testing in a score of states. In some states, the very term “Common Core” has become so toxic that they are called something else, rebranded.
And don’t forget that Gates said not long ago that it would take at least ten years to know whether “this stuff” works. Some people wonder if it is a good idea to turn the nation’s schools upside down while we wait those ten years.
Susan Ohanian here tracks his efforts to save his foundering pet project of the moment. She notes his numerous media appearances and joins it with a speech in which he raised doubts about raising the minimum wage. Why raise the minimum wage when we could have CCSS to solve all problems? Why, once everyone is on the same page, thanks to Bill Gates, everyone will learn the same things at the same rate, and the achievement gap will close. And think of the savings when everyone takes the same tests, online of course, and teachers’ evaluations are firmly anchored to student test scores. That is when schools can fire the weakest teachers, raise the salaries of those that remain, increase class sizes, repeat again next year and every year, and watch for wondrous improvements.
Imagine that: having bought off the U.S. Department of Education, having given millions to almost every “think tank” and advocacy group in DC, he is now on the defensive about his big bet. Why? Because he didn’t buy everyone. He can’t understand why the nation is not singing his praises. Certainly the media fights for his time and presence. And on March 13, he dined with 80 of 100 Senators. Is there anyone other than a head of state who would get this reception? Certainly not a Nobel-prize winner or a celebrated poet.
Gates can’t understand why parents and locals are not fawning over him like everyone else. Why the pushback? He and Arne think it must be the Tea Party. They can’t understand why people like Anthony Cody, Carol Burris, Stephen Krashen, and Susan Ohanian are not on board. He ignores them.
Gates knows he can count on Arne and the President. He knows he can count on Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Mike Pence, Rick Scott, and the other hard-right governors. They are on his side. He can count on the media to repeat his claim that only the Tea Party opposes CCSS, without wondering why so many hard-right governors are fighting for them. He can count on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. Who knew these corporate titans cared so much about children when they have outsourced so many of their parents’ jobs overseas. Oh, yes, they want the children to be global competitors. Can they really be global competitors with countries that pay workers $5 a day? $20 a day?
Maybe the pushback comes from people who don’t understand that the Common Core is like a standardized electric plug, as Bill Gates told the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards last week. Maybe those parents (they are not billionaires, why does anyone listen to them?) don’t see their children as “human capital” that must be standardized and upgraded. Maybe the opposition comes from people who don’t understand how the federal government took charge of state and local education, thanks to Bush and Obama. Maybe it comes from teachers who think that fiction is no less valuable than informational text. Maybe from kindergarten teachers who think children need play more than math.
Whatever.
Susan Ohanian thinks he is running scared. He is. This is still a democracy. Gates can buy the governors. He can buy organizations. He can buy the Beltway crowd. But he can’t buy the people.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Scott Walker is not on his side…WI Republicans tried to repeal CCSS (tea party movement), and were denied by 100’s of educators and administrators. Walker wanted to essentially create a board to create the standards, of which he would appoint the majority, and if they couldn’t agree the politicians would take control of the standards. Many felt CCSS was the best alternative.
Thanks, I will correct that. He must be the only red state governor not following Jeb Bush’s lead.
Is it possible that education “reformers” likes Gates and his ilk may finally awaken the public to the developing plutocracy that threatens to make a mockery of our democracy?
michael: they are DEFORMERS not reformers. reformer is positive. these guys are just evil and malicious and greedy!
Yes, that’s why I put reformers in quotes….meaning their frauds.
Reblogged this on Professor Olsen @ Large and commented:
Why should Bill Gates be deciding how your kids are taught? a) He is one of the richest men on Earth. b) He never made it through college? c) He can make more money this way.
Your reference to Gates’ metaphor of the standardized electric plug brought to mind this aphorism: “If the only tool you have is a hammer every problem you encounter looks like a nail”. Bill Gates and his fellow “reformers” value efficiency and, alas, democracy is not nearly as efficient as a corporation because our governance system for public education is not designed for efficiency: it’s designed for democracy. In a democracy, the local school board might choose to spend a few dollars more to keep a local fuel delivery company in business; or to make sure the local stationary store and/or book store get an opportunity to sell products to the school; or maybe even favor a local State college graduate over some lower cost TFA graduate from a “blue chip” school. But here’s where the rubber is hitting the road: local school boards are starting to get pushback from local property taxpayers who have no where to express their chagrin about the economy except at the local budget vote… At the national level our democratically elected President, Senators, and House members have all bought the “efficiency” line and they are now promoting “efficient privatization” to States and local governments through things like Race To The Top. Here’s the disturbing news: I read recently that ALEC is trickling into LOCAL politics— which is a frightening proposition given the low turnout in local elections… I am not confident that we’ve seen the last of the efficiency minded reformers…
I hope this is true, but I have trouble seeing it. How did they get so much control of the media? Our local (Cincinnati) paper has had editorial after editorial singing the praises (and cliches) of the Common Core (though with a little less enthusiasm recently)…just like it did for NCLB. With NCLB, it turned out that columnists were paid by the W Administration to write glowingly about NCLB. Has that happened with the Common Core? Or is the financial incentive more indirect?
Newspapers are owned by the same folks, ie the plutocracy, who are plotting to get rich(er) off of CCSS and the privatization of America’s schools. The papers just further their owners’ causes. ‘Newspaper’ is a misnomer- they should be called propagandapapers!
Education is more than a giant logic system to be solved. Let’s not leave out creativity and the right side of the brain half of education. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/22/top-authors-including-maya-angelou-urge-obama-to-curb-standardized-testing/
It’s definitely true that opposition to the Common Core comes from all parts of the political spectrum but in NH, at least, the troops on the ground – the legislators introducing bills, the people organizing town hall forums, filling the hearing rooms in support of anti-CCSS legislation, running for school boards as anti-CCSS candidates – are exclusively tea party.
They don’t (so far) have much opinion about high-stakes testing. In fact, it will put them in an awkward position in the end because anti-high stakes testing is part of their anti-CCSS rhetoric now but they are fundamentally anti-public employee and anti-union as well. These are the privatization folks who are also on the school choice and voucher barricades.
You, Diane, and folks like those you’ve listed, do broaden the spectrum of people who are potentially willing to challenge the standards so, yes, there are non-tea people who oppose the standards, but they don’t testify or run for school board. It may well be different in NY and other states that have made such a high-stakes mess of the standards, but that’s my report from the boondocks.
Just sayin’…
Are people in favor of national standards developed by a group of highly qualified educators? Do other countries have national standards?
I know some people are critical because the CCSS weren’t developed by qualified individuals and there are some who are against national standards as a general philosophy.
I think people should acknowledge that there is a contingent of far right wingers who are very vocal in their criticism against the the CCSS and it is not because they feel the standards are developmentally inappropriate. They say the standards are pushing an anti-American agenda and they also seem to think any book with s-e-x in it should not be read by high school students. I don’t believe they will be content with “offensive” content once the CCSS are eliminated. I fear censorship more than I fear the CCSS.
I see almost daily math worksheets on-line that are supposed to convince me that children are being led astray, but what I see is that people are not open to other ways of learning math. I admit I was one of the skeptics, but I have found that my child is actually being taught multiple ways to figure out a math problem and all the approaches make sense once you take the time to learn the method.
It is somewhat amusing that some of the people who hate these standards want to allow people to get a voucher so they can attend a school that teaches the Earth is 6,000 years old and that humans and dinosaurs coexisted.
CM, from reading your posts, it seems like you’re fortunate to have a child (or children) capable of handling the standards. I teach at a highly rated suburban high school, and the CC standards are merely a speed bump for our best (maybe top 25-40%) students. For the average (or below that) math student at our school, the questions stemming from the standards (without the questions, it’s generally extremely difficult to decipher what the standards are actually looking for) are often confusing to the point of causing students to learn nothing. So long as your student is able to maintain the pace, CCSS is not a problem (I do question the suggestion that CCSS is any significant improvement on what we’ve already been doing for our best students). But if your student(s) aren’t at the appropriate level — and there is incredible diversity of ability among students at all ages…even within the same class — the system really breaks down. I hope your child continues to have success, but keep in mind that this curriculum is not just about your child. A lot of students are being left behind. A lot of teachers are being “exposed” as ineffectively getting less able students (typically students who were behind to begin with) to the demanded level. The unintended consequences are potentially massive and — though predictable — are only just now being revealed to many.
I teach at a highly rated suburban high school, and the CC standards are merely a speed bump for our best (maybe top 25-40%) students.
Speed bump or sink hole?
Yes they are successful but what good is it if they are succeeding at math activities that involve convoluted word problems of the type littered throughout CCSS. This will make math less than meaningless to them. It will distort the true applications of math and misdirect their understanding of math as a fantastically important analytical tool and the all important use as a predictor.
One reasonably good test of CCSS math instruction will be to poll the HS chemistry and physics teachers a few years down the line. Don’t be surprised when they tell you that CCSS math has done more harm than good.
Excellent point, Ohio teacher. My son, who has a non-verbal learning disability, is floundering in CC math. While my husband and I, both teachers, push the right people and ask the right questions, I feel really bad for students and parents who don’t know what the right questions are. I have watched a lot of my students falling into the CCSS chasm. The special education coordinator in my district told me last summer that the referrals to special education have skyrocketed since we started CC last year. When something is so bad that is needlessly labels a bunch of kids, then we have a huge problem.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I think having a set of national standards is OK only if it is a living document, continually updated, and an advisory one– states may modify, schools may adapt as they see fit. I do not see a mandated, enforced document as a way to deal with people who want their children taught unscientific, religious-centered or -derived curriculum. Others have addressed math standards in this thread; personally I very much dislike the ELA emphasis on “close reading of text”, which is derived from one particular mid-20thc. lit-crit fad, and serves to narrow rather than deepen the previous standards in NJ. The problems with tying standards into mandatory nationalized high-stakes tests are many. But just in terms of their lack of adaptability to students on the ground, many have noted issues with children who start from a lower level. I’ll add that children who start from an advanced level (like those in my district) have challenging classtime reduced by a couple of months due to all the test-prep & testing time required by annual standardized assessments and VAM SGO testing.
Ohio teacher,
I understand it isn’t just about my child and that is why I asked if people would be in favor of national standard that were written by highly qualified educators.
It seems there are groups that are against national standards of any kind and this same group seems to want to control content. If the standards go back to the local or state level, I hope these folks don’t think they have the right to decide what a high school teacher assigns for reading. My fear is the right wingers used the CC to push their own agenda.
I agree that I may have trouble ahead, my child is only in 2nd grade so maybe that is why he hasn’t experienced any issues. His teacher is teaching him several different ways to add and subtract (including the old school columns with borrowing and carrying #s – I think they call it redistribution – the only way I learned) and the word problems he gets aren’t difficult. I think it also depends on the school, my child’s school is very good about not giving excessive homework.
I still believe some people are having fits over math problems that just allow children to approach equations in a way that is different than how they learned. (ie – using different symbols for hundreds, tens and ones). I was guilty of that initially.
When I was in HS, I never made it to calculus (I took algebra I in 8th grade, but I had to repeat it in 9th grade). I was still able to go to a technical school and get an engineering degree. I fear that students interested in engineering will not have a chance unless they take calculus in HS and I do question why everyone is in such a rush with math. I am very grateful I had a wonderful geometry teacher in 10th grade, (we took geometry for a full year and working through those problems helped develop a logical thought process that is valuable beyond geometry problems. I worry that the changes in HS math mean too much is covered rather than letting students take their time.
II would like to thank you for teaching HS math. I learned to love math because of my wonderful teachers in HS.
Gates said:
“If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn’t be available and would be very expensive,” he said. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumer.”
Here’s what that means: Gates believes that a single set of national standards is needed because it provides the necessary infrastructure for the ed tech revolution as he envisions it.
As I have been arguing for a couple years now on this blog, Gates paid to have the Common Core created because he believes that educational technology needs a single set of standards to correlate to.
That’s the whole idea. This whole thing is a BUSINESS PLAN first–a plan for the changeover from traditional education to computerized education–and an education policy second. And key to that plan is the Common Core–one ring to rule them all.
Gates paid for the Common Core because he wanted to create national markets for one-size-fits-all educational technology products of the kind that he envisions. The idea was to make it possible, as Arne Duncan’s Chief of Staff said, to bring such products “to scale.”
You will love the Common Core if the following appeals to you:
1. the Microsofting and Walmarting of educational materials;
2. MANDATING IDEAS;
3. making all teachers, curriculum coordinators, curriculum developers, and education scholars and researchers align any ideas they might come up with to the severe constrains of a previously existing bullet list and preventing them from coming up with ideas that do not so align;
4. putting every child, despite his or her individual abilities and propensities and goals for the future, on an identical track that varies only with regard to where the child is placed on it;
5. using crude, invariant, national standardized tests, and school and teacher evaluation systems to ensure that everyone is on that identical track;
6. dramatically reducing the size of the teacher force by replacing teachers with computer-adaptive software correlated to the bullet list;
7. using the Internet primarily as a PUSH medium for prepackaged, invariant, national curriculum products preloaded on tablets sold by a couple of big providers.
You will reject that vision of the future of U.S. education if you think, instead, that educational technology COULD allow us to create or provide
1. universal and extraordinarily varied access to knowledge;
2. individualized program alternatives that schools and districts could not, otherwise, afford to offer;
3. collaborative learning communities, 24/7 homework help, and vehicles for student publishing of portfolio materials, embedded feedback so that kids on unique tracks can do self checking;
4. crowd sourcing and sharing of best practices for the benefit of independent, autonomous teachers and administrators so that they can make their own decisions about learning progressions, outcomes to be measured, and evaluation techniques to be employed from among the competing ideas;
5. means by which independent, competing curriculum developers, scholars, and researchers can reach markets and minds with their new ideas.
What we have, here, are two dramatically differing visions of the future, of what the ed tech revolution might mean. The former vision–Gates’s vision–depends upon adoption of top-down, invariant, national standards. The latter does not. The latter can be realized ONLY if we reject the national standards. The former can be realized ONLY if we adopt the national standards. Gates knows that. Thus the push for the standards.
Standardization and centralization serves the interests of monopolist providers of educational materials but not the interests of kids and teachers. So, Gates finds himself in the position of trying to make the BIZARRE case that the way to bring about a creative revolution in education is via standardization and centralization and the empowerment of distant, centralized bureaucracies instead of kids, parents, teachers, and administrators.
I have said this many times. The Common Core is the sine qua non of education deform. That Orwellian future of top-down control, of PUSH technology instead of PULL technology, REQUIRES the Common Core or some other such national standardization because the monopolists are best positioned to operate at the scale thus created. Kill the Common Core and replace it with competing, voluntary guidelines, and you kill education deform, and make it impossible for the Orwellian future to be created. Keep the Common Core and you go a long way toward ensuring that the Orwellian future will become a reality.
Ecologies are healthier than are monocultures. Reject the national “standards” in favor of voluntary, competing, general guidelines that provide the degrees of freedom within which REAL INNOVATION can occur.
Yikes. Sorry. That post was written too quickly. Here is a corrected version of the opening:
Gates said:
“If you have 50 different plug types, appliances wouldn’t be available and would be very expensive. But once an electric outlet becomes standardized, many companies can design appliances and competition ensues, creating variety and better prices for consumer.”
Here’s what that means: Gates believes that a single set of national standards is needed because it provides the necessary infrastructure for the ed tech revolution as he envisions it.
Gates is a fraud…Gate stole from Apple the idea of the graphics interface and that is how he became rich in life – he did not invent or do anything – the windows platform was stolen from Apple computer and I believe everyone knows that – with that being said – who the hell is bill gates?? just because this bozo has money that he made from theft makes him a genius now?? the same guy who dropped out of college? one of gates great ideas was to co locate small schools inside large schools – ask educators in nyc how that brilliant idea is working out – bottom line is bill gates is nothing but a toilet going human being like the rest of us who happens to have huge amounts of money made through microsoft which stole its primary business software from apple – gates is nothing special people and surely he knows nothing NA DA about education
Gates so called ideas on education indicate that he thinks humanity would be much better off if we all were converted to beings like the Borg of Star Trek.
Then he could “Live long and prosper.”
http://www.futuretimeline.net/22ndcentury/2100-2149.htm#minduploading
Or Dr Spock!
Yikes!
Gates gives the impression that he might actually be a Vulcan!
Resistance is futile…
You guys are confusing the Borg and the Vulcans, here.
Live long and prosper.
Bob, my thoughts exactly. The irony is that what you describe represents collaborative competition whereby the various local efforts (which should be “open source”) can inform and improve each other unlike the copyrighted and inflexible CC$$. This will move the quality of education ahead faster and farther than Gates Stack Ranking atrocity that stifles improvement by making ones survival dependent on individual and institutional balkanization.
amen
His idea of dictating education happened without the public realizing it, when he began his plot by first “donating” computers to schools in the 80s. This got his foot in the door and everyone thought he was a saint.
Bob:
What “necessary infrastructure” and what “ed tech revolution”?
Most European countries have national curricula of one sort or another. Most have some kind of national matriculation exam system that is tied to that national curriculum and more or less controls access to tertiary education. I see no problem with the notion of a core curriculum or anything nefarious on the part of those who argue for a national curriculum. It seems to me that what is problematic is not the notion of CCSS or its equivalent but how much flexibility there is in its implementation across communities. There are obvious elements that are weak or misguided in the current CCSS, but the bigger question is should we have a National focus or a State by State focus. The bits and pieces that are wrong in the CCSS surely can be refined, amended and changed over-time. If standardized tests are not helpful, then what alternative mechanism for gauging effectiveness would work?
My preference is for the latter but I see no easy way of determining where and how the Federal Government should act. What role should the Federal Government play? Can States choose to let local school boards define their own curricula? Why should there be any Federal Mandates with regards to Education? Why should there be Federal Education funding?
In addition, if you say K-12 curriculum should be set at the State level, why shouldn’t States set their health insurance policies rather than the Federal Government?
Bernie, you ask, “What necessary infrastructure?”
Here’s the answer: Decades ago, Bill Gates articulated a vision for education. It was to use computer-adaptive technology (what we used to call “programmed learning”–technology that continually tests for mastery and feeds students the lessons that they need. That has been his vision for a long, long time, and it still is. But to make that work, he has to have a single set of objectives to correlate the products to. But ed tech should be a LOT MORE ADAPTIVE than that. It shouldn’t simply place a student down in some place in a predetermined learning progression, like a rat in a maze. That’s too small, too narrow a vision. It’s should provide many alternative progressions, and the way to get those developed is to encourage small entrepreneurs to do their competitive magic, not to set up conditions for monopolization, which is what the national “standards” do.
See this great presentation, on the problems with the adaptive tech vision, by Norma and Vivienne Ming:
http://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/superb-presentation-on-educational-technology-by-norma-and-vivienne-ming/
I want to see, Bernie, the innovation that occurs when developers are free to work outside the constraints of predetermined objectives and learning progressions. I would be very pleased to see the federal mandates and the federal funding go away entirely–to return the money and the decision making to the state level, with this proviso–that the states be required to offer free and equitable education for all. So, I see the feds playing a watchdog role there. I believe in the power of competing ideas and of individual agents working autonomously. I don’t like centralized mandates, and I especially don’t like centralized mandating of ideas.
With regard to health, same thing: Let’s have the decision making and the money at the state level and the feds playing watchdog, saying, you have to provide universal access to decent healthcare. How you get there is up to you. Be creative.
Let a million million flowers bloom.
And, Bernie, I want to address your superb question about gauging effectiveness.
I would like to see us move away from summative testing in favor of embedded feedback–of testing that DISAPPEARS INTO instruction. So, completion of the instruction becomes, itself, proof of mastery.
I would also like to see lots of alternative assessments developed, so that students and teachers have a range of choices whereby students can demonstrate proficiency. Such alternatives would recognize that people differ, and help students to identify, work with, and build upon their strengths.
I would also like to see a lot more finely grained diagnostic assessments developed. As it is, we don’t know enough. The average seventh-grade math teacher has in a given class 30 kids, each of whom has DIFFERENT issues, and we need diagnostics finely grained enough to identify those. Smaller class sizes would also really help here. There’s no substitute for one-on-one.
With regard to teacher evaluation, I am a big believer in peer evaluation. I think that when you give people autonomy and responsibility, they take both seriously. We need to work toward development of systems in which people see evaluation as a learning experience, and in which it is embedded and continuous and WELCOMED. We’re not going to get there by treating evaluation as external punishment and reward. Lesson Study is one way to do that. Teachers get together on a weekly basis and spend a LOT of time going over what worked and didn’t work, asking for advice from their colleagues and giving advice in turn, sharing their plans for the coming week, etc. In other words, you make CONTINUAL EVALUATION part of the teachers’ job description, and you create the time for them to do that. In such a situation, in which there is a true collaborative community among teachers, they rapidly recognize who’s weak and who isn’t, and they help those people to improve. I’ve seen that work astonishingly well.
In short, you create a system that contains continual, built-in evaluation, not summative, after-the-fact evaluation.
motivation 101:
Great comments, Robert. At best, I think Gates assumed that he’d be given the leeway to do a beta roll-out. Ironically, he may have cooked his own goose on this one. “Users” have become wise to how difficult it is to remove bugs and structural problems from a system. In addition, his “fix” isn’t particularly innovative; it’s best selling point is that it is a standardized system. So, there are fewer reasons to accept the bugs which we all know will become legacy. Add in the reactive hatred for anything having to do with Obama in some quarters and it should be hardly surprising that the common core rollout is facing its current challenges.
/Users/robertrude/Desktop/Bill Gates Plugs.jpg
In regard to Bill Gates electric plug metaphor….
(I hope this photo transfers into this blog)
Evidently my photo of five different electrical plugs failed to upload to this comments section. Pitty. I guess Mr. Bill has never traveled to other parts of the world. By my count, there are five different plug adapters you must use, depending upon what country you are in. Of course, Mr. Bill only lives in LaLa Land.
reading prof: Click on the picture so that only that is on your screen. Then, copy the entire URL from your address bar into the box for your post.
We are, indeed, at a cusp, a crossroads. The ed tech revolution WILL occur in education. The question is, will that revolution empower people and liberate them, or will it empower monopolists and make for centralization and regimentation. The CC$$ is the engine that drives the latter.
If that is the case, then why do the billionaires send their children to Waldorf schools, where the prevailing theory is that machines damage the souls of children and are not allowed inside the buildings? Perhaps they know something we plebs do not?
Jasmine, my expectations, there, are due to a number of factors:
1. Pixels are much cheaper than paper is.
2. Editing, revising, and updating of online materials can be done continually and immediately; one doesn’t have to wait until the next printing to make a correction or an update.
3. A much greater variety of resources can be made available online than can be done otherwise. Instead of using a school library that contains four thousand books, a student can access an online library that contains four million.
4. Even though the educational materials monopolists are doing their best to keep this from happening, an open source revolution is going to occur. Over time, the number of extremely high quality, extremely low cost or free materials, will grow, and it will be difficult for the monopolists to compete with these.
5. The instances in which technologies are developed by humans and NOT EMPLOYED are few. We’re an opportunistic species and will exploit the possibilities open to us.
6. Due in large part to a program run by the USDE, almost all schools in the U.S. now have decent internet access and networking.
7. The costs of ed tech will continue to decline precipitously, while capabilities, ease of use, and ubiquity will increase.
8. Innovations in ed tech design will continue to be made, and at an ever-increasing rate; this is true of other technologies; there is no reason to think that ed tech is an exception.
9. Educational technologies have enormous promise, and a lot of that promise hasn’t even been conceived of yet (brain-computer interfaces, haptics, remote presence, augmented intelligence–there are many, many potentials now in their infancy that are going to be realized in breathtaking ways). Ed tech has the potential for creating learning communities; creating equity in the availability of knowledge and training; providing the means by which students can publish/find audiences for their work; enabling personalized, self-directed learning; allowing teachers to do demonstration and illustration of kinds that are impossible in the real world; making highly specialized, exotic, otherwise prohibitively expensive resources available to all, and much, much more.
The educational publishers haven’t recognized this yet, but they are in a business that doesn’t have a long-term future. A certain typewriter company put the phrase “On the eighth day, God created Smith Corona” on its web page just before its typewriter business entirely tanked due to the arrival of computers. The ed book companies will attempt to staunch the bleeding–they will try to lock in school districts, for example, by getting them to invest in expensive platforms containing proprietary software; but soon enough, people will recognize that don’t have to pay $145 for an Algebra II textbook or $12 per student per year for a subscription to a standards-aligned, computer-adaptive equivalent to that textbook when really great alternatives are available online FOR FREE. A lot of education deform is an attempt, on the part of the educational materials monopolists, to keep this from happening. They want national standards, for example, so that they can lock districts into standards-aligned ed tech from them before the open source textbook revolution gets off the ground. But, inevitably, that will fail. And, corporate governance is such that people don’t think long term. They think about the earnings this quarter or this year, and, at any rate, the old guys at the C level in these companies figure that they won’t be around when things really hit the fan for their companies.
As you can see, I believe in the future of ed tech. I think that it’s going to be incredibly liberating–that totalitarians will try to use it for command and control but that the liberation that comes from access to knowledge will swamp them, in time.
And, people will recognize that there is no substitute for human interaction. Consider the Facebook phenomenon. People are moving away from the social media sites in droves. At the same time, Meetup is becoming huge. People want to use online resource to connect with others and then to extend those connections offline.
When the first President Bush floated the idea of NATIONAL standards and tests, he was universally shouted down by people left, right, and center.
There’s a boiled frog phenomenon occurring here. People have become used to the idea of centralization of power and control over IDEAS.
But a lot of people are awakening. We may well turn out to be smarter than frogs after all.
Actually, I think frogs are smarter than us. The slow-boiled frog thing is a myth – frogs will hop out in plenty of time. We sheeple, however? Not so much? In fact, we argue passionately for our right to stay in the boiling water.
It’s time to take action on a viable alternative. Ask your colleagues, your parents, the kids an all who have a point of view and then take action http://savingstudents-caplee.blogspot.com/2014/01/a-call-to-action.html
Nicely said. You sound like Ma Joad: “Rich fellas come up an’ they die, an’ their kids ain’t no good an’ they die out. But we keep a’comin’. We’re the people that live. They can’t wipe us out; they can’t lick us. We’ll go on forever, Pa, ’cause we’re the people.”
Bob Shepherd- I wish you would edit your original comment and correction into a single statement and repost and that Diane could republish it as a separate blog. It needs to be shared widely, and that would be the easiest way.
Let’s have independent thinkers and practitioners put forward their ideas, including frameworks, standards, pedagogical strategies, curricular materials, lesson templates, reading lists, sample lessons, and recommended learning progressions. Let’s have an exchange for such ideas. Let’s give local teachers control over their own classrooms, again, and give them the time in their schedules to review competing ideas and submit their own practice to critique. Let’s put them in charge of evaluation of their own students and of themselves. Let’s crowd source. Let’s do away with mandates that favor large, monopolistic providers of educational materials and encourage innovation among small, independent providers. Let’s encourage academics to collaborate with one another to provide free, open source educational materials. Let’s do PD that deals with subject matter for a change and make it a vehicle for learning about possibilities rather than hearing the latest mandates. Let’s open students’ devices so that they can have access to the universal library that is the Internet. Let’s throw away the textbook. Let’s return autonomy and control to schools, parents, and teachers. Let’s flatten those education management hierarchies. Let’s develop the means by which kids can discover their intellectual and creative passions and pursue them. Let’s have an IEP for every student. Let’s have teachers and academics work together to design those programs that teach the entire K-12 mathematics curriculum through alternative lenses of graphic design, of computer science, of wood and metal shop. Let’s use technology to let a hundred million flowers bloom.
Or, let’s turn it all over to Pearson and Gates.
Option 1 had a lot of good stuff in it. On the other hand, I do like to turn things over to other people. . . .
lol
It has always puzzled me why Bill Gates, of all people, who, in his childhood and beyond, was a contrarian and would have chafed at having to succumb to the narrow confines of these standards, now wants to impose them on everyone else. Even Harvard was too constrictive for him.
How much do you want to bet that Gates has estimated it will take 10 years in order to begin to ring in solid profits?
That’s how he is going to determine if it is a success or not–$$$!
@2old2teach.. no that 10 yearis how long it will take Gates to turn enough profit and get enough adrenaline kick from the power it bestows so that he can bail out of “ed reform” and turn to the next endeavor!
I think we are agreeing that he will determine whether his grand scheme is working or not by the amount of moolah it generates. We can only hope that he decides to grace some other problem with his beneficence.
As far as I can tell, the Common Core political campaign is wholly directed to Tea Party voters and that’s to protect GOP lawmakers at the state and federal level in the upcoming midterms.
I’m rooting for injuries in the battle between politicians + billionaires + pundits versus the Tea Party, truth be told. Whichever side “wins” it’s a disaster for public schools, because none of these people support public schools. I get people who don’t support public schools PLUS the Common Core or people who don’t support public schools MINUS the Common Core.
Pick one! I pick…neither.
I think they’ve left actual, existing public school kids so far behind with “ed reform” my fifth grader is the last thing they’re worried about. Why should I worry about them?
“As far as I can tell, the Common Core political campaign is wholly directed to Tea Party voters and that’s to protect GOP lawmakers at the state and federal level in the upcoming midterms.”
Bingo. They call it “communist core.” Glen Beck says the “progressives” are to blame for this federal takeover of American education. The whole thing is so bizarre to me because all of the “liberals” I know despise what is happening in public education and are fleeing from it if they can.
I think the bottom line is that Americans of all stripes have a huge problem with far-away bureaucrats telling them what to do with their money and how to raise their children. Why this was not expected from the beginning…I have no idea. What freedoms do we have if we do not have significant control over how we live our family lives and raise our children?
The Tea Party don’t know when to call it a win. They got nearly everything they wanted.
Public education funding is gutted, public schools are the very favorite punching bag of the rich and famous, both political parties are enthusiastically privatizing every public entity that isn’t tied down, tax rates are at a historic low, unions are crippled and bleeding and states are rushing so fast to the bottom I can’t even track the progress anymore.
They won. They never supported public schools. Seems to me like the Common Core is a small price for them to pay to get everything else they wanted.
Milton Friedman would think he died and went to heaven if he saw modern “ed reform”. I’d be popping champagne corks if I were them.
“I think the bottom line is that Americans of all stripes have a huge problem with far-away bureaucrats telling them what to do with their money and how to raise their children. Why this was not expected from the beginning…I have no idea.”
I think it’s one of the huge, glaring contradictions of ed reform. They sold this on “choice” and conservatives bought that. I didn’t, but I’m not a free marketeer. I support public entities.
But then they introduced Common Core, and now they’re promoting charter chains and federal legislation on national charter “authorizers” and they’re modeling every city school system after New Orleans.
This is about as “local” and “creative” as McDonalds. The whole freaking premise is baloney. It doesn’t hang together.
Joshua Starr @mcpssuper 15m
Big business takes on tea party on Common Core http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/big-business-takes-on-tea-party-over-common-core-104662.html#.Uyi0WlnJq-0.twitter … via @POLITICO
He’s got it exactly right. This fight has absolutely nothing to do with 99% of people.
Don’t the Common Core tests start today? Where they’re having the kids test the product?
How’s that going? Anyone know? Who cares, right? 🙂
This quote struck me.. “Gates can buy the governors. He can buy organizations. He can buy the Beltway crowd. But he can’t buy the people…”
So true that Gates cannot buy the people. It is therefore IMPERATIVE that this nation overhaul CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM. Because… until we do… We the people” is a dying breed… The mega-millionaires select the politicians vying for office by using their money to drown out those not in their favor. They buy politicians and tell “the People” their “mega-millionaire” will by buying endless air time for their chosen candidates, openly funding politicians via PAC money etc… With the few mega-millionairs in the 1 percent controlling most of the money in this nation, the “Bill Gates” types are buying democracy and tragically throwing it away! Fortunately there have been glimmers of hope … ie. where a school board member here and there (who did not have great funds) went up against corporate reformers won. Let’s hope David wins the fight with Goliath… but how do we get there?
You’d really have to amend the US Constitution, given Justice Robert’s interpretation.
But I agree capture and corruption would be a great campaign issue. Well, not so great for politicians and wealthy people, maybe.
We’d probably have to um, push that to the forefront past them 🙂
David must learn to recognize Goliath and band with all the other David’s.
Campaign finance reform is crucial so billionaires can’t buy elections, as they do now.
You mean like Rauner bought the Republican primary in Illinois for governor?
What choice will we have in November between Rauner and the democratic incumbent Quinn and PAUL VALLAS!?
2old2teach:
When I saw Vallas’s name there, I couldn’t bring myself to vote for Quinn. I’ll vote Green if they field a candidate. I voted for Jill Stein in 2012 instead of President Obama.
“Federal prosecutors in New Jersey subpoenaed records last week relating to potential conflicts of interest involving the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey chairman, David Samson, focusing on two bridge contracts worth $2.8 billion that he voted to award to construction companies represented by his law firm, according to people briefed on the matter.”
God, I hope the US attorneys aren’t captured too.
Wouldn’t it be great if the 2014 and 2016 elections could be about corruption and influence and how our politicians are completely and utterly captured by monied interests?
Forget public school teachers. They’re the least of our problems.
Rampant, systemic rot and a complete ethical collapse at the highest levels is the real issue threatening the country.
“Wouldn’t it be great if the 2014 and 2016 elections could be about corruption and influence and how our politicians are completely and utterly captured by monied interests? ”
Yes!!
Bill Gates Plugs.jpg
Bill Gates and Standardization
EXCELLENT 🙂
http://content.newsbound.com/public/newsbound/gates_core/index.html#s_4
That’s one of the Gates’ ads for common core. But if you watch it, it is not actually how Gates himself sells Common Core. When he sells it, he says that the 50 different state standards make it impossible to introduce tech products in a national market, because obviously they need Tennessee to be a lot more like Toledo or they can’t produce these things and sell them.
Why not just say that in the ad? I think he’s sincere that this nationalized market should be a goal. I don’t agree with his goals for my fifth grader, but I get that he thinks tech products will “revolutionize” learning (and also be wildly profitable).
Put it in the ad. At least do that.
They also say this:
“Teachers helped create the standards and overwhelmingly support them.”
So much for the merits of using one’s quantitative reasoning skills when evaluating “informational” texts.
LOL
That kind of thing is why I call the deformers’ “data-driven decision making” a variety of numerology.
It’s often said that it’s easy to lie with statistics. That’s not exactly true, as you know, Emmy. It’s easy to lie with bad statistics.
But they’re taking all of the fun out of lying with statistics!!!! “Overwhelmingly”? Is that like 51% or what? At least give me a number. And, again, if I’m supposed to use my quantitative reasoning with informative texts (such that it is given that I am the product of post Nation at Risk but pre-common core public schooling) where is the evidence for their claim? Aren’t I supposed to look at the primary source material? Sheesh!
Having a single national market for products sold “at scale” (think Microsoft and Walmart) is, indeed, the reason for the push for the Common Core, but Gates is going to SAY THAT DIRECTLY. He’s going to talk about how the CC$$ will “unleash innovation,” meaning, provide a national market for monopolists. But here’s the news flash: ed tech makes it possible for small competitors to create small products that are BETTER than the crap from the big publishers. They have to have centralized command and control if they are going to hold onto the market, and they know that. That’s why they are trying so desperately to create a national Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth. It will serve as a gateway that they can control.
cx: but Gates is NOT going to SAY THAT DIRECTLY
Susan Ohanian put a petition up at whitehouse.gov asking congress to remove standardized testing mandates. It’s only been up a few days, and it would be great if more people would sign it! It’s just getting started.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/direct-department-education-congress-remove-annual-standardized-testing-mandates-nclb-and-rttt/1lSSvnYK
signed
It’s a bit of a pain to do. One has to create an account. Go to one’s email. Confirm the account. And then go back and sign.
However, I encourage others to take the time to do this. And thanks, Monica, for posting this.
Let’s put Gates “success” in its proper context. Imagine if someone else got credit for the light bulb even though Edison created it.
Gates may be well-meaning and care deeply about American education but he refuses to be open minded if other opinions
are not in concert with his.
I am glad enough people refuse to fawn over Gates, his celebrity OR his checkbook.
Teachers and parents see the problem first hand and are working hard to stop Common Core for the right reasons,
it is not the panacea proponents want us to believe it is.
The Tea Party proudly call its members patriots. Well, this name is fitting for those who refuse to accept Common Core. It is rare when citizens work so hard to defeat any Federal program.
We are fortunate the millions of individual citizens from coast to coast are doing this.
I choked when I read this portion of your post: “Gates may be well-meaning and care deeply about American education but he refuses to be open minded if other opinions are not in concert with his.”
Let’s get one thing straight. Bill Gates has done tremendous damage to the U.S. and the rest of the world. Everything he touches or finances ends up either physically, mentally or emotionally harming people. He has also ruined our environment. He owns 900,000 shares of Monsanto stock. Monsanto produces extremely toxic chemicals like the glyphosate in Round Up herbicide. Because Gates has invested so heavily in the proliferation of genetically modified crops that rely on Round Up chemical applications to succeed, we now have glyphosate showing up in newborn babies and causing breast cancer world wide.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/07/30/glyphosate-toxicity.aspx
Roundup and Glyphosate Toxicity Have Been Grossly Underestimated
“This was immediately followed by tests showing that people in 18 countries across Europe have glyphosate in their bodies, while yet another study revealed that the chemical has estrogenic properties and drives breast cancer proliferation in the parts-per-trillion range.
This finding might help explain why rats fed Monsanto’s maize developed massive breast tumors in the first-ever lifetime feeding study published last year. Other recently published studies demonstrate glyphosate’s toxicity to cell lines, aquatic life, food animals, and humans.”
Gates gives grants to every university on the planet and along with the money comes the strings…..thou shalt not do research which may demonstrate that genetically modified foods are harmful and should not be allowed for human or animal consumption. He has stifled so much research with his money.
He does however give grants for research on how to induce infertility and vaccines that can prevent pregnancy. He is a eugenicist. He hates people. He thinks there are too many of us around. He hangs out with the eugenics crowd….Ted Turner, Michael Bloomberg, Prince Charles, Queen Beatrix.
This idea that Bill Gates is a nice guy with genuine care for children and education is really laughable to anyone who has studied what he actually says, what he actually does and what he actually spends his money on.
I’m not going to vouch for Bill Gates or Monsanto, but FYI, Bill Gates (assuming you mean the Gates Foundation Trust) does not own 900,000 shares of Monsanto.
In June 2010, the Trust owned 500,000 shares for around $23 million, but it subsequently sold that position.
Today (i.e. as of 12/31/2013), the Vanguard Group owns 30 million shares of Monsanto, worth $3.4 billion.
Goldman Sachs owns about 2 million shares, worth $220 million.
CALPERS owns 1.6 million shares, worth $190 million.
The NY State Teachers Retirement System owns 1.1 million shares, worth $120 million.
Etc.
Thanks for the update. All of the institutions invested in Monsanto are culpable including my teacher’s union. We are also invested in WalMart although I personally boycott. Shame.
Back to Gates. Even if you remove him from the Monsanto debacle, there are plenty of other examples of his devotion to eugenics. Any one who is as determined to reduce the population in a myriad of ways as Bill Gates is should not be allowed near children, education, food, agriculture or 80 senators.
The Gates Foundation may have sold its stock in Monsanto, but it is still working closely with the company to introduce GMO seeds – i.e. a privatized agricultural gene pool – in Africa.
As usual I’m in awe of Diane’s pithy writing style. If this is one of her off-the-cuff drafts, I wonder how hard her editor had to work on the final manuscript of Reign of Error! The Susan Ohanian article is worth reading in full and loaded with valuable links.
I just ran across this terrific piece about the Seattle teachers’ resistance to inappropriate testing and the nationwide outcry against both testing and the Common Core. Lots of quotes from credible sources… http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-uprising/pencils-down
I entirely concur. Diane has a great gift with the language. And, of course, she has something to say worth attending to. So, it’s always a delight to read her posts.
The Tea Party takes a lot of grief here, and I understand why it does. There are a lot of extremely uneducated people in the Tea Party–ones who espouse backward, sexist, homophobic views, for example. However, consider this: The initial impetus for the Tea Party came from the Rove wing of the Republican Party. It was a way to rally grassroots support for Republican causes. But it’s gotten away from the folks who started it. Many of those uneducated Tea Partiers are Joe and Jill Sixpack sorts who are deeply uncomfortable with what they see as a steady erosion of liberty–with the venality and corruption of politicians who serve only the oligarchs and only to advance their own careers. I have long thought that the Tea Party and the Occupy Movement have a lot more IN COMMON than they think. They both see that we’re becoming an oligarchy, and neither likes that, at all. These are different manifestations, vastly different ones, of a growing awareness that the fix is in at the top.
But freedom is alive in us. And that is a very, very beautiful thing.
A fascinating study of the consequences of wealth inequality:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/03/18/the-utter-collapse-of-human-civilization-will-be-difficult-to-avoid-nasa-funded-study-says/
I can only hope that he’s on the run and that this entire fiasco will backfire and go away. Not PART of it. All of it.
Last night I was listening to NPR. Talking with my wife I hear, “….Common Core State Standards…” and our ears perk up.
It was the complete (and I mean complete) party line about the standards and upcoming tests, delivered by two “experts”. No mention, whatsoever, of dissent except at the end to give a nod to the teachers asking for more time to study these tomes of knowledge, recently brought down from the mountain.
“Low test scores, internationally”. “Way past time to give the same rigorous standards to all states”. “Standards, not curriculum. Schools can choose what curriculum they like”. “Not the math problems your mother was used to”. “Competitive with the new world market”. Etc.
When the love fest was over, my wife said that “…they sounded so knowledgable, nice and reassuring. It all sounds like it’s for the public good and makes perfect sense. If I didn’t know about it from your side, it would be a no-brainer”.
I’m so fed up with this. Gates wining and dining 70 senators? How could this have gone so far? This is so, so, so wrong.
80 Senators.
One hasn’t really arrived as an oligarch until one has a nice collection of state and federal judicial, legislative, and executive political wind-up toys. Gates’s collection is unrivaled.
No one more so than Gates.
cx: that would be “a nice collection of state and federal judicial, legislative, and executive political wind-up toys and action figures.”
Prime example of the “glass ceiling”. We can see what’s going on, upstairs, but they figure we can’t get up there, so they just go about their business.
I think Gates fears pushback may reach a threshold that can snowball.
Michael Brocoun, the pushback is snowballing. That’s why Gates and the US Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable and the editorial boards are all running scared. They can’t control the public.
Don’t understand the editorial boards slavish support of the “reformers”. Money trail?
I know that there are a LOT of angry people (parents, teachers, admins) who are completely over this intrusion in the NYC area.
I’m sorry Diane and others, but Bill Gates is not running scared.
Just read a recent interview with him in Rolling Stone and smell the hubris.
He is worth $77 billion in personal fortune alone, has substantial emotional and social skills limitations, and can buy his way through policies because those who take his money and who do not have social skill issues, are just as corrupt and narcissistic as him, only in different ways.
That’s not to say that Billy boy is the worst and most evil person in the world. He’s not.
But with regard to his ability to forge social policy without having requisite and critical experience and knowledge in the fields he wants to “improve”, well, it renders him one of the most dangerous-to-democracy people in the United States.
He is indeed Louis XVI who has been cut off and severely isolated from the peasantry yet has enormous power and influence over the system that is supposed to represent the average peasant.
He is a mad, mad, scientist.
Forgive the sardonic tone.
But I agree wth you that Gates (and his vicious wife. . . . she’s no angel) cannot buy the public.
But this will continue to be true long as the public chooses not to be bought by him . . . . .
Buyer beware.
Agree completely with Robert…Gates is far from mad. The Louis XVI analogy is far more descriptive…and his wife is his clone who, by osmosis, parrots his perspective with a far more strident voice. Would that they could see the real world from the mountain top castle.
The takeaway from all of this is simply that the “owners”, like Gates, have control of the reins and the politicians are doing their bidding. This is nothing new, you might even consider this an American tradition.
Another point here is that those who think supporting Democrats is a worthwhile political act, in order to defend against the depredations of the more bellicose Republicans, are deluding themselves. The Democrats are the more effective evil as we are seeing with the Obama administration. The likes of Reagan and Bush would only be able to be green with envy at the shrewd manipulations of Obama as his administration makes inroads into public education, for the express purposes of big business unlike anything we’ve seen before,
More importantly it’s essential to understand the system as an integrated whole with education policy, circa 2014, as a perfect illustration of how big business runs the show. Playing D’s and R’s is all Kabuki. None of these people have our interests in mind.
The current situation surrounding CC and RttT must be seen in the context of the privatization of everything. Resources are dwindling (being stolen) for municipalities in all areas and those funds are being shifted to private interests. The politicians at all levels- Team Donkey and the Elephants- are merely overseeing and rubber stamping the policies that sanction this theft.
Public education, like all else, is being replaced with a market-based, non-unionized privately managed system. Common Core is merely the latest marketing concept used to manage public opinion and sell the idea that schools need radical restructuring that can only be done by corporate ideology- and investment. It has the convenient (and purposeful) benefit for those who have initiated it of ignoring the unsightly fact that the very same interests and methodologies that are being proposed to “fix” our “broken” schools are the same ones that have been and are destroying our schools at breakneck speed. And all of this is by design.
CC has never been an educational process it is a political process driven by business interests.
=====================
Here’s my comment from last week which I posted at Mercedes Schneider’s blog:
Just this last Thursday we had a rainmaker (“expert educator” and CEO) come to our town, Willard Daggett, who was brought here by our award-winning (NY State) superintendent, Luvelle Brown to speak to the “benefits” of Common Core and other areas of “college preparedness.”
In his hours of bloviating what you got from this was essentially that the “industry” is fast forward on technology at all costs. All of the new “techno-learning tools” were being lauded and at least w/Willard Common Core was scarcely mentioned and when done so he backed off his full-on support of CC. That I think in large part due to the firestorm surrounding it.
I believe we will at the least see a restructuring of CC and a re-packaging of it and a greater emphasis on shoving technology down the throats of every district. That certainly seems to be where the money is going at the moment. And from the capitalists point of view it makes sense as the schools will increase their debt burdens through the years w/this technological imperative meaning a constant revenue stream for all sorts of suppliers (Gates being only the obvious and largest financier) and the shutdown of even more schools who can’t keep up with the debt which of course then means even more transfer of public funds to private institutions.
Have you seen any specific expose’s on how funds for these technologies are connected to Race to the Top funds and how the contracts operate as they obligate schools to certain purchases? And of course who profits from those purchases (e.g. Microsoft and InBloom for Gats?).
In Florida, this is the headline this week:
—–Florida Education Department gives nonprofit $220 million contract to replace the FCAT—–
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/florida-education-department-selects-new-state-tests/2170571
Yes, there is a catch. According to Bob Sikes at Scathing Purple Musings, this nonprofit is fed by $36 million in grants from Bill Gates.
http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/floridas-new-testing-non-profit-has-received-36-million-in-grants-from-gates-foundation/
Bob also notes:
——Florida’s New Tests to Be Field Tested….in Utah——
http://bobsidlethoughtsandmusings.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/floridas-new-tests-to-be-field-tested-in-utah/
And from the Tampa Tribune:
—–Editorial: Politics intrudes on education standards—–
http://tbo.com/list/news-opinion-editorials/editorial-politics-intrudes-on-education-standards-20140319/
This is today’s Florida headline:
—–Under fire, proposed voucher expansion advances (in Republican-controlled Legislature)—–
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/under-fire-proposed-voucher-expansion-advances/2170799
It all boils down to this unassailable fact:
We have Jeb “His Way or the Highway” Bush to hold accountable for this focused assault on Florida’s public education. He’s been out of office since January 2007, but still steamrolls the Legislature and Governor’s office to carry out his agenda of raking in the cash for himself and his corporate cronies, masquerading as “The Education Governor”, with cruel and catastrophic consequences in his wake.
And he fancies himself as President.
I know that a LOT of parents are mad, here in the NYC area. No small number. I sure hope it snowballs.
Jeff Goodell, 3/13/2014: Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview
The richest man in the world explains how to save the planet
Bill says, in this interview, “Technology arms the bad guys with orders of magnitude more [power].”
Indeed, it does.
As an educator for 23 years, I chose to retire rather than continue the farce charade of presenting Comon Core to my students. It flies in the face of developmental education, and does a disservice to both students, and parents. It is anti-Constitution in that it invades the privacy of every child. Their personal,
and private information are input into a computer that tracks them into becoming cogs in the machine of global industry for wealthy CEO’s, and elites. Education is now geared toward producing products, without focus on the “process” of learning. Turning students into cloned robots is a developmental teacher’s worst nightmare. Each child is an invididual who grasps cognitive concepts when developmentally ready. Pushing students to achieve benchmarks at the same time, and then passing standardized tests on the same date, is preposterous. Common Core initiated, “Race To The Top,” wherein Governors are awarded funds when a school district signs on to Common Core. The incentatives are difficult to turn down! The biggest winners in all this are the big printing companies. How many are Gate’s cronies?