Andy Hargreaves, Pasi Sahlberg, and Dennis Shirley are noted for their scholarly, articulate, and outspoken opposition to the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM), which is spreading like a virus.
Now, one of the chief exponents of GERM–(Sir) Michael Barber–has delivered a report to Boston informing the business community that the schools are mediocre and need a strong infusion of privatization and (of course) more testing. (Sir) Michael Barber previously worked for McKinsey, and he is now the thought leader of that esteemed pusher of testing, Pearson.
Hargreaves, Sahlberg, and Shirley write here about why (Sir) Michael Barber is wrong. (Sir) Michael Barber made his reputation as a creator of the UK’s system of standards and assessments; because of his love of “targets,” he is known as Mr. Deliverology when he is not known as (Sir) Michael Barber. However, the authors point out that there has been no educational renaissance in England and that Massachusetts scores higher on the targets than the nation that last took (Sir) Michael Barber’s advice.
They write:
What’s wrong with the report? First, its grudging acknowledgement of positive educational outcomes in Massachusetts and grim portrait of the state’s shortfalls have little to do with the facts. Massachusetts is the leading state in the United States on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It is the only state in the United States with an “A” grade in the highly regarded Quality Counts 2014 State Report Card. It is also one of the world’s top-performing systems on a number of international assessments. Its rate of recent progress may be slower than some countries, but they’ve started from farther behind — Massachusetts literally has less room for improvement. To view the state’s school system as suffering from “complacency,” as the report claims, confounds all the findings of United States and international research on school achievement.
Moreover, the report draws many of its recommendation from the United Kingdom, where its lead author, Michael Barber, once worked as an advisor on education to former Prime Minister Tony Blair. England has made massive investments in “academies,” similar to government-supported charter schools here. It has explored various ways to prepare new teachers outside of a university setting. There have been targets and tests galore. Yet, results from the 2012 Program of International Assessment put England merely at the international average, 499, compared to Massachusetts students’ score of 524. For Bay State policymakers to follow England’s lead in education would be like the Red Sox taking coaching tips from the lowly Kansas City Royals.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Fortunately, for those of us who lived in Scotland, the ‘UK’ educational system you refer to doesn’t apply there. Just being pedantic, particularly since after September’s referendum there’ll be no confusion over UK and England/Scotland/etc 😉
The baseball metaphor says it all!!!
Go Sox! Go Massachusetts!
Go (home) Sir Michael Barber!
Hi Diane, Some say that Gates entered into an agreement with UNESCO in 2004 to create a “teacher syllabus” and methods to improve global ed. Some say the “teacher syllabus” is Common Core. Of course, data would be used. Some say the data would come from CC tests. Here is an article:
http://townhall.com/columnists/phyllisschlafly/2005/11/28/microsoft_founder_bill_gates_teams_up_with_unesco
Do you know if this has merit?
Here is the UNESCO document signed by Gates. Clearly, a reporter would need to determine whether this is the actual document.
Click to access 137509e.pdf
Also, I understand Gates helped organize and pay for the Governor’s meeting that brought us Common Core.
Would love your thoughts.
Sarah, Gates paid for everything associated with the Common Core, from the beginning to now.
Thank you, Diane. There are some very courageous House legislators that stood-up against Fed. pressure and wouldn’t allow teacher evaluations/ test scores to be mandated despite fed. dollars. Thus, putting the waiver at risk. I will be sure to pass this information along. I am confident they will be interested. Stay tuned!
Sarah, is the dollars included in the waiver?
Hi Jon,
Yes, $38M . Here is an article:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/03/13/3095595/teacher-evaluation-change-to-keep.html
In reality, I’m not confident the Feds are standing on solid ground.
For use on Twitter: Just copy, paste and ReTweet often. The short link was created using Bitly and leads back to this post.
The danger of listening to Pied Piper of GERM’s lies
The VIRUS of testing only public schools
(Sir) Michael Barber
http://bit.ly/1jjO0mQ
Just an English teacher quibble: why the snarky (Sir)? If he has a knighthood, it’s a title.
What American respects the title “sir”?? What American would listen to a “sir” from GB to tell Mass. how to run their schools. What a joke.
Click the video link below, coach. You’ll be at a loss for any title snarky enough for this pompous, self-important fool. What we’re all missing is how ridiculous and pitifully incompetent our dread foes are.
Unfortunately, Kentucky is following this “deliverology” and schools are given delivery targets they are to meet and every year.
Check any report card and find the tab that says “delivery targets.” It’s the new NCLB 😦
http://applications.education.ky.gov/SRC/
Good to hear from Kentucky. As the very first state to implement the CCSS, the experience in Kentucky is perhaps the most relevant in discussion of those standards.
The “report card” there gives information about “…each school and district, including test performance, teacher qualifications, student safety, awards, parent involvement and much more.” There does seem to be a great deal of information available about the schools.
Before I say anything else, you have to watch this New England Cable News blithering endorsement of the whole “report”. Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester embraced it, and in fact presented it, saying,
“”And what employers are telling us very clearly in this report is that there’s a gap between the preparation of our students in K-12 and the needs of employers,” said Chester. “STEM is a very important part of that.”
http://www.necn.com/03/24/14/Report-says-Mass-schools-are-not-prepari/landing_business.html?blockID=864205
Diane, I’m afraid the scholars you’re promoting here aren’t really independent, because this is a whitewash. Chester and the Boston Globe are trying to walk back the disastrous rollout of this comically inept “report”. Are we going to help them rescue their toxic agenda from the wreckage, after I spent hours online demolishing them?
Here’s what they promulgated:
“the highly regarded Quality Counts 2014 State Report Card”
“Which is not to say the report is altogether wrong…”
“some of the turnaround schools in London, which we have studied, have been spectacular. This has been due, in no small part, to Barber’s inspirational promotion of schools working with other schools to take collective responsibility for results.”
Barber’s “inspirational promotion” of collective accountability sounds like a five-district corporate governance and oversight plan emerging now in Massachusetts, by the way. It’s ugly and stealthy, and it is NOT Finland.
I’m going to see if the player link embeds.
http://www.necn.com/pages/video?PID=6mXy8EKFY3YujbsgAbG7EJWma8LjaJu1
The problem is, this “report” is a whole legislative agenda, which was funded by grants from the Barr Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Nellie Mae Education Foundation. We can’t let them hoodwink us into endorsing any part of it.
Here’s another source, Radio station WBUR, from March 24:
“The legislative push will be built on a study released today by the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. About 100 business and education leaders, including State Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester, attended a report on the study at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center.”
http://learninglab.wbur.org/2014/03/24/business-community-calls-for-new-era-of-ed-reform/
They got this comment back (from guess who)
Please get this clueless and arrogant “business community” out of our public schools, already! We real teachers are fed up with them legislating revenue-sucking boondoggles at us from the austere heights of the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center. They aren’t promoting jobs at all for our students (who rank at the top of the nation, by the way). Instead, they look at our schools and salivate at potential new data-driven profit centers.
These are the same clowns who somehow legislated the disastrous education “reform” act of January 2010. That’s the real threat to our public education system, and its time for our legislators to stand up to them. Children, parents and teachers are fed up with their interference, and we vote.
I’ve been teaching chemistry in this state for the past 20 years, and am honored to teach in our public schools. Who are you going to believe, our actual educators, and our students who are the pride of the nation, or the “MassINC Polling Group”?
What would Paul Revere say?
For all the hype Massachusetts’ dying industrial cities have the same miseries of all the other underfunded neglected American City school systems. Why, because the problem with American Education is poverty the lack of decent living wage jobs, a healthcare system that is only as good as how much money you have, and a class of people at the top who want to profit from our Public Schools.