The story about Bill Gates’ swift and silent takeover of American education is startling. His role and the role of the U.S. Department of Education in drafting and imposing the Common Core standards on almost every state should be investigated by Congress.
The idea that the richest man in America can purchase and–working closely with the U.S. Department of Education–impose new and untested academic standards on the nation’s public schools is a national scandal. A Congressional investigation is warranted.
The close involvement of Arne Duncan raises questions about whether the law was broken.
Thanks to the story in the Washington Post and to diligent bloggers, we now know that one very rich man bought the enthusiastic support of interest groups on the left and right to campaign for the Common Core.
Who knew that American education was for sale?
Who knew that federalism could so easily be dismissed as a relic of history? Who knew that Gates and Duncan, working as partners, could dismantle and destroy state and local control of education?
The revelation that education policy was shaped by one unelected man, underwriting dozens of groups. and allied with the Secretary of Education, whose staff was laced with Gates’ allies, is ample reason for Congressional hearings.
I have written on various occasions (see here and here) that I could not support the Common Core standards because they were developed and imposed without regard to democratic process. The writers of the standards included no early childhood educators, no educators of children with disabilities, no experienced classroom teachers; indeed, the largest contingent of the drafting committee were representatives of the testing industry. No attempt was made to have pilot testing of the standards in real classrooms with real teachers and students.. The standards do not permit any means to challenge, correct, or revise them.
In a democratic society, process matters. The high-handed manner in which these standards were written and imposed in record time makes them unacceptable. These standards not only undermine state and local control of education, but the manner in which they were written and adopted was authoritarian. No one knows how they will work, yet dozens of groups have been paid millions of dollars by the Gates Foundation to claim that they are absolutely vital for our economic future, based on no evidence whatever.
Why does state and local control matter? Until now, in education, the American idea has been that no single authority has all the answers. Local boards are best equipped to handle local problems. States set state policy, in keeping with the concept that states are “laboratories of democracy,” where new ideas can evolve and prove themselves. In our federal system, the federal government has the power to protect the civil rights of students, to conduct research, and to redistribute resources to the neediest children and schools.
Do we need to compare the academic performance of students in different states? We already have the means to do so with the federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). It has been supplying state comparisons since 1992.
Will national standards improve test scores? There is no reason to believe so. Brookings scholar Tom Loveless predicted two years ago that the Common Core standards would make little or no difference. The biggest test-score gaps, he wrote, are within the same state, not between states. Some states with excellent standards have low scores, and some with excellent standards have large gaps among different groups of students.
The reality is that the most reliable predictors of test scores are family income and family education. Nearly one-quarter of America’s children live in poverty. The Common Core standards divert our attention from the root causes of low academic achievement.
Worse, at a time when many schools have fiscal problems and are laying off teachers, nurses, and counselors, and eliminating arts programs, the nation’s schools will be forced to spend billions of dollars on Common Core materials, testing, hardware, and software.
Microsoft, Pearson, and other entrepreneurs will reap the rewards of this new marketplace. Our nation’s children will not.
Who decided to monetize the public schools? Who determined that the federal government should promote privatization and neglect public education? Who decided that the federal government should watch in silence as school segregation resumed and grew? Who decided that schools should invest in Common Core instead of smaller classes and school nurses?
These are questions that should be asked at Congressional hearings.
The only way that is going to happen is if there is a sustained campaign of letters and phone calls that proves to Congresspeople and Senators that their asses might get kicked out if they don’t. Because sadly, they’re too busy worshipping at the Temple of Gates’ Mammon to investigate otherwise.
Watergate Hearings. This should be taken just as seriously, investigated as thoroughly, aired far and wide, with all key players called to testify and penalties applied where due. Most of the research has already been done by everyone who participates on this blog, completed in real time, on the ground, eye witnesses to the destruction of the USA free public school system.
American Montessori Society and American Montessori International, where is your leadership and conviction? Why are you not speaking out on behalf of the child, as an advocate for all children, as Maria Montessori did?
The problem with speaking out on this blog is that Montessori schools have to be choice schools, not traditionally zoned catchment neighborhood schools, something that orthodox posters argue strenuously against here.
AMS and AMI are two organizations that have their own membership, boards, conventions, publications, etc. They don’t need to use this blog in order to express their positions.
That’s a hot one: an economist complaining about orthodoxy.
Orthodoxy is relative to the community. Here I am a heterodox poster.
Cross posted:
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Time-for-Congress-to-Inves-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Congress-Contempt-Of_Congress-Oversight-Failures_Education_Policy-140609-906.html#comment493749
Here’s a story about what looks like some sloppy work from another DC think tank/lobbying group:
“Cleveland teachers may not be the leaders in skipping days from work after all, despite the implications of a national study released this week.
An unusual number of class days missed to attend training sessions – many organized by the district – appear to have played a big role in making teachers here look like they had the worst attendance record in the country.
The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) reported Tuesday that Cleveland teachers missed the most school days – an average of 16 per teacher – out of 40 big-city districts studied for the 2012-13 school year .
The Washington, D.C., organization also reported that Cleveland had one of the highest percentages of chronically absent teachers – those skipping a day of school every other week, on average.”
How great is that Congress and the Obama Administration swallows this stuff whole and blasts it over the whole country?
“Science!”
Of course, it’s now too late to correct the record. Cleveland and Columbus teachers have been declared “chronically absent” by the DC ed reform chorus. Nice work!
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/06/cleveland_teachers_may_have_ta.html
That is the latest lie coming out of the “reform” movement–that teachers abuse sick time or take too much time off.
This despite the fact school districts blatantly violate FMLA–as I know from personal experience–despite the fact being a teacher of students means more chance of being sick, despite the fact teachers have professional development days.
The NCTQ is a FRAUD.
NCTQ IS GATES’ FUNDED
Chiara Duggan: it won’t come as a shock to you that NCTQ is not to be taken seriously.
I reprint below the entire blog posting of June 19, 2013, of Aaron Pallas. Link below. When you get to the end of the third paragraph—it’s like the punchline to a very bad or a very good joke. And the follow up fourth paragraph ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at either. And the fifth and sixth [last] ones, well, it just keeps getting better and better…
Or it goes from bad to worse. Your call.
[start quote]
Yesterday, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) released its first national ratings of teacher-preparation programs. Passing judgment on 1,200 undergraduate and graduate programs across the country—but not other routes to teacher certification, such as Teach For America—NCTQ painted a dismal picture. Only four institutions rated four out of four stars: Furman, Lipscomb, Ohio State and Vanderbilt Universities. One hundred sixty-two programs received zero stars, earning them a “Consumer Alert” designation, and an additional 301 were awarded a single star.
The release of the ratings, and their damning character, came as no surprise to schools of education and their supporters. NCTQ has made its mission over the past decade to promote a particular vision of teacher education emphasizing criteria such as the academic performance of teacher candidates, instruction in the teaching of school subjects via scientifically proven methods, and rich clinical experiences. No one really knows if meeting NCTQ’s standards results in better teachers—but that hasn’t slowed down the organization a whit. If an ed school had a mix of goals and strategies different than NCTQ’s and chose not to cooperate in this institutional witch hunt, well, they must have something to hide.
To be sure, few of us relish being put under the microscope. But it’s another matter entirely to be seen via a funhouse mirror. My institution, Teachers College at Columbia University, didn’t receive a summary rating of zero to four stars in the report, but the NCTQ website does rate some features of our teacher-prep programs. I was very gratified to see that our undergraduate elementary and secondary teacher-education programs received four out of four stars for student selectivity. Those programs are really tough to get into—nobody gets admitted. And that’s not hyperbole; the programs don’t exist.
That’s one of the dangers of rating academic programs based solely on documents such as websites and course syllabi. You might miss something important—like “Does this program exist?”
Today, the editorial board of the Washington Post praised the NCTQ ratings, while blaming ed schools for why “many schools are struggling and why America lost its preeminent spot in the world for education.” Sunspots too, I suppose.
I look forward to the Post instructing their restaurant reviewer, Tom Sietsema, to rate restaurants based on their online menus rather than several in-person visits to taste the food.
[end quote]
Link: http://eyeoned.org/content/the-trouble-with-nctqs-ratings-of-teacher-prep-programs_478/
Sloppy work? You are too too kind.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
Excellent
The 1% to police the 1%? House and Senate members, both sides of the aisle, are complicit in the Gates purchase of education policy, just as they’ve been complicit in enabling capitalism to run amok. Only the 1% know what’s best for our nation and our schools. Gates, along with other know-it-all billionaire moguls and their foundations, own Washington. The White House and Capitol Hill work for them, aided and abetted by Chief Justice Roberts and his rightwing Supreme Court majority. Democracy has been replaced by plutocracy while the rest of us have been preoccupied with scrambling to eke out a living and do the best we can with the economic scraps left behind. The same plutocratic-autocratic reign has succeeded in taking over state governments as well. Connecticut is certainly a prime example of that. Here education has been robbed of nearly any semblance of local control under state leadership that is dominated by powerful, wealthy privatization forces intent upon ensuring that every aspect of schooling mirrors whatever Arne Duncan and Bill Gates prescribe.
Brilliant! “Who decided that schools should invest in Common Core instead of smaller classes and school nurses?” I taught inner city public high school for a few years after college. I coached track and taught three classes of classical guitar to 34 kids at once. If it was up to me, I would have enhanced sports, music and art. When a student has something to lose, she studies harder; with only academics you’ve got nothing to lose, so why study? I don’t know if this is right, but the point is: Who Decided? Brava!
This is my favorite part of the Gates story:
“Armed with $476,553 from Gates, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s foundation produced a seven-minute video about the value and impact of the Common Core, a tool kit to guide employers in how to talk about its benefits with their employees, a list of key facts that could be stuffed into paycheck envelopes, and other promotional materials written by consultants.
The tool kit provided a sample e-mail that could be sent to workers describing “some exciting new developments underway in our schools” that “hold great promise for creating a more highly skilled workforce and for giving our students, community and state a better foundation on which to build a strong economic future.”
In paycheck envelopes! Just to be sure the workers don’t miss the message, which was based completely on fear. They sold it 100% on economic insecurity and fear.
Now that the national tests are in, the stick, we’ve moved onto a “softer” message where it’s about “collaboration” and “empowerment”.
Missing school is not always the teacher’s fault. I only missed 2 days due to sickness this school year. I was out of my classroom at least 12 more days for mandatory workshops for learning the new common core standards due to my state being part of “Race to the Bottom.” It is all a crazy mess. I hate leaving my students, and I apologize to them. I tell them that I would be “written up” if I did not attend. This has all gotten out of control, and the new Common Core and “Race to the Bottom” is an evil monster. Most schools separate the absences into sickness, professional days, and personal days. Teachers cannot do anything about missing the required professional days. It is required to attend all of this silly workshops, and a teacher is “horrified” that she has to leave her students this much.
It’s just propaganda being pushed to show teachers are overpaid, lazy bums who abuse sick leave.
It just angers me to no end.
I know how you feel Sad Teacher….but this Race to the Top is now a Violent Plummet to the Bottom and Beyond!!
Not to quibble, Diane, but the takeover of public education by the so-called reformers has been anything but silent. After all, has there ever been a “movement” (sic) that has been more excessively hyped, has made such transparently false claims, while using such cliched, insipid language?
I think the correct term is one I’ve been using for years and alludes to the origins in the world of Finance of so much student’s and teacher’s current misery: The Hostile Takeover of Public Education.
The term originated in the 1980’s workings of private equity firms that would buy companies, load them up with debt and strip them of assets, pay themselves phenomenal fees, and then sell off the carcass to the rubes managing mutual and pension funds. So, to cite one example, it’s fitting that the head of the Green Dot charter chain came from Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s old private equity chop shop.
The allusion works regarding the so-called reformers behavior in the public schools, taking them over, stripping resources and re-allocating them to private charters and CMOs, and diverting ever-more resources to business and ideological cronies.
If we can’t purge the parasites from Wall Street, perhaps we can purge them from our public schools.
And perhaps the first to g should be the heads of the teachers unions who sold teachers – and public education – down the river.
to go….
Democracy…When I first read your reply to yourself…I thought your correction was a Combo Meal of “Democracy to Go”…included are Scorched Political Fries and a 16 oz Power Drink…..
🙂 Love it!
The small school movement that Gates started out trying to foment and fund must not have been good enough for business, so the pendulum swings to the idea of promoting one giant national school system… I’m working on trying to get MIcrosoft out of my life as much as possible. Maybe a nation-wide Microsoft boycott or some other kind of legal cyber or other action that would really annoy them would be in order.
I have witnessed people saying they thought that Microsoft would soon become The God of Education……decorated with $$$$.
I have pictured this person’s face….$ for eyes…one half closed and winking..while the smile of the $bill goes from ear to ear..as “IT” relaxes in the over padded beach chair located on their Private Island……………consuming Umbrella Drinks…and thinking only of SELF..
IT….SELF…
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
I just tried to post the link to this page twice on Microsoft’s Facebook page, but it disappeared both times within seconds. Maybe no private posts get published there despite the invitation?
Diane & her friends who are politically connected. This column should be an op-ed. An OPEN letter to Congress. Meanwhile I plan to send this to my Congressman and Senators — all Democrats cause I am from the bluest of Blue States — CT.
Great post. This is an idea that must be pursued and made into a reality. The opposition will be ferocious and insidious — as ferocious and insidious as the campaign to impose. They will also attempt to define the argument as they have done with astounding success with every other issue of education. But the truth is on our side. What Gates and Duncan were allowed to to mocks and disgraces everything this country claims to stand for. It is a horrific precedent which, if allowed to stand, sets this nation on an inevitable course of outright and naked oligarchy. This reality must be expressed again and again and again until sleeping or exhausted America understands and demands justice and democracy.
Any congressional representative who cannot recognize that the “Gatesgate” of Common Core is all about money and power is wearing blinders. Since it is the environment that shapes behavior and learning, if Bill Gates were genuinely interested in the best education for children, planning for CCSS would have included child developmental specialists, mental health specialists, and environmental studies.
CCSS has created an environmental nightmare for children and teachers and is destroying the teaching profession.
The unrealistic demands, obsessive focus on performance, and neglect of social and emotional needs has created the same punitive authoritarian environment that can be recognized by anyone who is familiar with the dynamics of ACoA and Dysfunctional Families.
Since many congressional representatives have symptoms of ACoA & Dysfunctional Families and may not recognize this environment as NOT “normal”, it will be difficult to get Congressional hearings without input from child development specialists and mental health professionals.
Where is our NIMH?
I believe the emotional needs of teachers are also negatively affected by this CC Bill Gates nonsense.
( Please read my post below. ) I absolutely believe Gates is a dangerous narcissistic individual who actually believes he should rule the world because his ideas will fix everything from education, to over population, and disease. The scariest part is he has the money to make it happen, proven by the fact that Obama, Arne Duncan, and every governor went all in on his offer. Now he is holding dinner meetings with senators. He is buying our nation and many are too stupid to see anything but the money. My mother used to say, “If you don’t know or can’t find the answer, than the answer is money. ” We are selling out to the devil!!!
This is a highly public example of how the role of concentrated wealth in politics and policy has gone far beyond what would have prompted hand wringing a decade ago.
Click to access EPRU-0205-59-OWI.pdf
I believe it was President Obama speaking to a group of wealthy donors, including Bill Gates, “You now have the potential of 200 people deciding who ends up being elected president every single time.”
This is the the intersection of unregulated political money speech and the move toward standardization began in Charlottesville, Goals 2000, and IASA.
If Gates owns the majority of Congress, it will never happen, and it’s obvious that he already owns the White House. In an e-mail signed by Obama that I received from the White House after I complained, the e-mail said Obama’s partners were working hard to reform public education.
Well, it’s obvious that the principal partner in Obama’s fake education reform movement is Bill Gates.
We didn’t elect Bill Gates to be the President’s partner in the White House. Obama already has an elected VP and a wife.
What title do we give Bill Gates? White House CEO over and above the president.
What title do we give Bill Gates? Lots of titles come to mind:
How about Education Pimp ?
How about Self-appointed Education Czar?
http://educatingthegatesfoundation.com/2014/06/09/the-almost-outrageous-opposition-to-bill-gates-market-based-ed-reform/
The Cradle-to-Grave Student Surveillance and Personal Information Database Idea That Will Not Die:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/13/political-winds-shift-federal-unit-records-database-how-much#sthash.7CkhCvMH.dpbs
Our Secretary of the Department for the Standardization, Regimentation, Dehumanization, and Privatization of U.S. Education (formerly the USDE) continues to push full steam ahead for a Student Total Information Awareness Program, championed, of course, by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
You are so right and I’m hopeful that with the information you provide regarding Common Core, Congress will realize that Common Core Standards are not in the best interest of students.
This is just like Benghazi. There. Now we’ll have a hearing.
you know, I – and dozens of others – have been telling EXACTLY this story for the past SEVEN years in every forum we have been able to reach – we supplied names, connections, details of grants made, dates, connect-the-dots diagrams even…. and we were told we were conspiracy theorists, cynics, crazy, uncouth yokels…. that something like this would never happen in this country… that the economic/political landscape just isnt this way… Though why you would think it hasn’t happened before and wouldn’t happen again in this country is beyond me, but then you have all been enculturated to believe your own PR that business and government in this country is different in some magical red/white/blue way to the rest of the world, choosing to forget that human greed and sociopathy doesn’t wear a particular flag or honour border crossings… Maybe its time, in the 21st Century, to drop your myopic naivety, especially about your own country…. The world thought it was cute in times gone by, but really, its too dangerous to us all, to allow you to continue basking in it…
So now, finally, you believe it… and here we still sit, safe and comfy in the echo chamber of our anti-ed reformy club (as the deformers sit in their cosy club also), gasping and pontificating and whining and calling for Congress to have some hearings…. while the damage continues to be done to our children….
Anywhere else on the planet, this final piece of public articulation of the heist Gates has pulled off would lead to millions on the streets….. would lead to empty classrooms… would lead to burning of Pearson/Common Core text books and test papers… would lead to picketing of the White House and Microsoft and Pearson headquarters… would lead to the flooding of the media of images and sounds of teachers and parents refusing to accept this…. but not here…. cos no one wants to risk anything, to put it all on the lines….
Gates says he’s doing it all for the kids…. we claim we’re in it for the kids too… he takes action…. and we don’t…. AND THAT’S WHY HE WINS…. don’t whine that he has all the money and power and leverage… he needs our enabling, our participation to implement his grand scheme…. without that, his entire agenda falls apart… and we’re obliging him nicely by going right along …
Amen!!!!!!! Read my entry right below yours.
Beautiful, Powerful Piece and So Right On The Money! We are obliging him and assisting him and watching the impact on kids or turning away because it is too painful to watch while trying to justify our participation.
In the spring of 2011 I put up a bulletin board in my teachers’ room, not visible to children or parents, regarding the Bill Gates take over of our educational system. The heading read… You Should Know… I posted NO opinions, just articles linking him to Teach for America, Donors Choose, ( a program that was being pushed down our throats that I believe pitted teacher against teacher) and many other programs that made him look like a philanthropist but actually proved his disire to undermine teachers and the profession as a whole. I posted quotes that proved that Gates wanted to increase class size and hire less teachers, replacing them with virtual lessons. My board outlined his connection to data collection programs that would pigeon hole students and be used to evaluate teachers. I used red arrows to show the connections between all of his “generous” programs and the implementation of the lauded CCSS which we never piloted and knew nothing about except that a child moving from one state to the other wouldn’t be lost in his or her new classroom.
I bet you can guess what happened? My 30 something principal demanded I take it down. I refused,siting a little thing I like to call freedom of speech. She called the Superintendent to take a look. I still refused to take it down. Members of the School Committee weighed in, I still refused. My union finally came over and said it could stay, but strangely, they had nothing to say to me. (At the time they were all for Gates and CC. Why? The money of course. Had no one else taken the time to spend an hour or to online investigating?)
Many of my friends and colleagues either indicated I was overreacting or simply ignored me. I started to feel shunned, and soon I was shunned. And then, I broke. I resigned after 27 years in the midst of one of the deepest depressions I had ever experienced. The job that I loved, the lessons in which I sang and danced to help my fourth graders remember, the pleasure I received as I watched my students grow to appreciate the love of learning
Pamela, Your students will never forget how wonderful you were as their teacher. It is now YOUR TIME to live for YOU and YOUR FAMILY. I am at the end of my 29th year of teaching, and I am horrified at the changes I am seeing. The younger teachers are asleep at the wheel, like they are in a fog, and are not fighting back with questions and concerns. These young teachers are too “out of it” to see that they will probably never reach a retirement in teaching. They think these bad things will never come to their classroom door. We both know they will. These younger teachers are lambs being led to slaughter. I’ve never seen anything like it. The politicians want rid of the older teachers because we are wise, and we clearly see what is happening here. The career of a life-long educator will soon be dead. The new teacher evaluation system will make sure of that. Even with good test scores, this evaluation system can still rate you as a poor educator.
And, news to them all, everyone, sooner or later, will turn 50 years old. It is unavoidable. You and I must feel blessed that we will be able to reach a retirement in education. I honestly feel we are in the last groups of educators to be able to do that. Good Luck to you, Pamela. Go back to college, get an associate’s degree, and go out into the business world. They will not treat you like you are a “nothing.” And, when you work your overtime, you will be paid for it! The rich politicians want our low pay. They have no idea the amount of money we have spent buying our students supplies for our classroom. Shame on all of them. They make me sick.
Pamela and Sahilia…..
As I’ve pointed out for quite some time, it’s not only the corporate-style “reformers” like Bill Gates who are to blame for undermining public education.
It’s also public school administrators and teachers and school board members who’ve embraced the nonsensical. Plenty of administrators wrapped their arms around NCLB. And the National Association of School Administrators, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, and the National PTA have all endorsed Common Core. So have the AFT and the NEA.
School board members go along with what superintendents tell them. (One school division in central Virginia, for example, has created a system of high school “academies” based on the notion that there’s a STEM “shortage,” which is utterly false. They’ve turned around the whole school division on the basis of a myth perpetrated by the superintendent.)
And far too many teachers have bought into the ACT/SAT/AP nonsense. The makers of those tests and programs were key players in developing Common Core.
This was not a “stealth” campaign. Common Core was aided and abetted by educators who should have known better.
Investigate Rupert Murdoch’s defunct data mining scheme (inBloom) tied to the Common Core funded by Gates.
In the spring of 2011 I put up a bulletin board in my teachers’ room, not visible to children or parents, regarding the Bill Gates take over of our educational system. The heading read… Things You Should Know… I posted NO opinions, just articles linking him to Teach for America, Donors Choose, ( a program that was being pushed down our throats that I believe pitted teacher against teacher) and many other programs that made him look like a philanthropist but actually proved his desire to undermine teachers and the profession as a whole. I posted quotes that proved that Gates wanted to increase class size and hire less teachers, replacing them with virtual lessons. My board outlined his connection to data collection programs that would pigeon hole students and be used to evaluate teachers. I used red arrows to show the connections between all of his “generous” donations to programs that “seemed” to support teachers but ultimately lead to the need for less and less of us. I printed documents in which he discussed how HE thought the implementation of the lauded CCSS should play out. (The same CCSS which we teachers had never piloted and knew nothing about except that it is great for a child moving from one state to the other because he/she wouldn’t be lost in his or her new classroom.) I put his picture in the center and connected the dots.
I bet you can guess what happened. My 30 something principal demanded I take it down. I refused, citing a little thing I like to call freedom of speech. She called the Superintendent to take a look. I still refused to take it down. Members of the School Committee weighed in, I still refused. My union finally came over and said it could stay, but strangely, they had nothing to say to me. (At the time they were all for Gates and CC. Why?) The money of course. I get it. How could we refuse the money? They did not want to acknowledge or discuss my questions about the terms of accepting the money. Why would we lose Title One funds if we said no? What’s the catch? I couldn’t help but wonder why no one else had taken the time to spend an hour or to online investigating? Was I the only one to see this? I now know that the answer was no. People knew damn well what was happening, but they were only thinking about self preservation of their own little piece of the puzzle.
Many of my friends and colleagues either indicated I was overreacting or simply ignored me. I started to feel shunned, and soon I WAS shunned. And then, I broke. I resigned after 27 years in the midst of one of the deepest depressions I had ever experienced. The job that I loved, the lessons in which I sang and danced to help my fourth graders remember, the pleasure I received as I watched my students grow to appreciate the love of learning was all gone and so was my career. My resignation became my retirement as I knew I could NEVER return. I received zero thanks or cheap paper certificates thanking me for my years of service from either the school system, my colleagues, or my union. My heart was and still remains broken.
But, alas, I do at least have one thing to focus on…
Bill Gates has been exposed. The colleagues that ignored me now know what I proposed was true. My union must now admit everything comes with a price and perhaps it was not a good idea to promote the tests and CC in silly commercials with the Commissioner of Education, who is Arne Duncan’s pet project. (I live and taught in RI where Debra Gist, under the guidance of Arne Duncan, has used our state as her personal stepping stone and Guinea pig singing the praises of Race to the Top, every type of testing known to man, and a law that you must pass the NECAP with proficiency or you don’t graduate regardless of your GPA with no legal way to opt your child out of the testing.)
To my happy surprise, I did have a young union rep approach me at my sister-in-law’s retirement party last year crying as she told me I was right and people should have listened. Really? Oh well, no matter. That doesn’t change the fact that I gave up. Maybe I gave up too soon. Maybe I could have stuck it out and still have my health, my career, my friends, the source of the way I defined and valued myself and my beloved profession. Maybe, but I doubt it. I couldn’t handle the fact that even now teachers are not speaking out en mass. I know they are afraid. I get it, but they need to speak out and stand behind each other. Where are the unions? Why are they not organizing rallies? My brain knows it is because of money and politics, but my heart just can’t believe they won’t do what the know is best for the kids.
So, with that said, I thank you Diane. You have no idea how much your comments and opinions mean to me. You’ve made it all a little easier to swallow and even made me think that maybe it was worth it.
So, please keep up the fight for the kids, for the teachers, and for those who have been there but didn’t make it through the storm.
Hi Pamela – I am in RI too – thank you for your effort on this. Sad to see a good teacher leave. I 100% feel your frustration.
Thank you so much for your kind words. You made my day. Pam
I was shocked when I saw the Sunday WaPo. Above the fold, front page, 4 columns wide and with the subhead: After he bought into the plan, his money won over states, with few asking questions. Just about says it all. Just about…
Pamela said: “…. but my heart just can’t believe they won’t do what the(y) know is best for the kids….”
and that’s the bit that’s the killer…. that’s the bit that is unforgivable, truly unforgivable… that adults will let their fear and vested interests stop them from doing what’s needed to protect our kids from the abuse that is heaped on them every day, under the guise of ‘education reform’…
Hi Pamela!
My heart is broken too. I have worked so hard to help my students. I am tired of being criticized and disrespected. This morning I had a discussion with a student about her log on attempts. Her response was, “I know what I am doing. I am 21st Century.” When she turned out to be wrong, I retorted, “I know what I am talking about. I am 20th Century.” She laughed.
It seems Obama pretty much answered the questions you ask. He clearly supports the billionaire boys club. Just witness how the bankers were let off scot free while continuing to receive their bonuses on the tax payer’s dime. How many have been indicted? Under Bush II numerous top executives went to jail for the Enron and other financial scandals.
By the way, as I wrote this I listened to an NPR program with a guest from the Economist who co-wrote a book about more efficient government. One of the examples he sited was Chile and the privatization of education.
Yeah, a country that is trying to clean up the mess Pinochet/Friedman created.
I’ve been recommending teachers ‘like’ PARCC online and then send them messages via Facebook as to what they really think about it. I’m pretty sure CCSS has a Facebook too…why don’t we all start to tell them what we really think of them. A mass Facebook messaging campaign!
VERY Great idea!
Great Idea
I mean Very Very Great Idea
I like it
Agreed….
“The reality is that the most reliable predictors of test scores are family income and family education. Nearly one-quarter of America’s children live in poverty. The Common Core standards divert our attention from the root causes of low academic achievement.”
Reblogged this on From experience to meaning… and commented:
I read this weekend this piece on how Bill Gates also sponsored a program on PBS. Everybody is entitled to have an opinion on education but too much power seems a dangerous path.
That Power is the Dollar…..Billion$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Money Talks…..
Just discovered your blogs, Pedro. What rich mines these are! Delightful.
Thank you!
Not holding my breath….This will be just like the pretend investigation on Rhree and Erasergate!!
“Who decided to monetize the public schools? Who determined that the federal government should promote privatization and neglect public education? Who decided that the federal government should watch in silence as school segregation resumed and grew? Who decided that schools should invest in Common Core instead of smaller classes and school nurses?
These are questions that should be asked at Congressional hearings.”
Once again, Dr. Ravitch, you have clearly summarized the roadblocks spawned by the “reforms” that are actually impeding learning in our public schools.
Privatization efforts, neglect of public schools, increased public school segregation, the silence of the DOE and others who have the power to help innocent children but CHOSE NOT to will one day be called to account.
Contacting your Congressional Representatives is the first step.
Congress should be investigating a LOT of things–the Gulen schools (it looks like the FBI has been doing some work there), the Pear$on monopoly, the overreach of the U.S.D.o.Ed., etc., ad nauseum…
It’s all ideology, the notion that basically government is illegitimate if it interferes at all with the “right” of the rich and corporations to step on everybody else to get and maintain “their” wealth. The ideology says that all public institutions must be pilfered for private gain.
Because both political parties subscribe to neoliberalism, there is NO chance whatsoever they will ever investigate Gates and his criminal cohorts.
Economists are generally pragmatists, looking for where decentralized markets work better than centralized governments and where centralized governments work better than decentralized markets.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Your response leads me to suspect that ‘neoliberals’ (excoriated in SusanNunnes post) are driven by ideology rather than by pragmatic economic principles. While pragmatic economists may have much to recommend to corporations about whether centralized or decentralized markets “work”, based on hard facts about costs, sales, profits etc, they doubtless would not touch the issue of public education w/a 10-ft pole, being that “what works” is poorly defined, nebulous– unlike hardware or software, lacking in industry-wide acceptance of standards against which to measure, or even industry-wide acceptance of assessment by which to measure against the squishy standards.
But even before they got that far… I suspect that pragmatic economists would immediately make the connection between poorly-funded education/poor results & well-funded education/good results, simply measuring by grad stats & caliber of colleges accepting grads. They doubtless would not buy into panaceas promoting centralization, decentralization, ‘national standards’, etc.
Just so you know, “teachingeconomist” is a libertarian cultist. You cannot ever reason with people like this. The truth doesn’t matter when you are a slave to an ideology.
I am not really sure why you find it necessary to label me, but in any case the label is inaccurate.
What do you think of SpanishandFrenchTeacher’s post, TE?
Economists, pragmatic or not, study choices, and schools are certainly filled with choices. We are certainly used to working with nebulous concepts. I am teaching a class on economic development, for example, as nebulous a concept as you could want.
The first point an economist would make is that schools can and are produced privately. All schools are excludable, that is they all have admission criteria. Even in traditional public schools, if you violate the admission criteria you are guilty of theft of services and are in danger of being sent to jail. The second point an economist would make is that excluding students from a classroom or school is a good thing, as classrooms or schools can become congested and the education of all will suffer. Schools and classrooms are club goods.
The third thing the economist would point out is that high degrees of regulation of traditional public schools is the inevitable result of not allowing students to choose the schools they attend, but having local politicians determine catchment lines. Choice schools can specialize because students can always choose not to attend ones that they find unsuitable. Traditional zoned schools must be minimally suitable for all students in the zone, so likely optimal for relatively few.
I agree.
What about a class action lawsuit? Is there a lawyer in the house who could weigh in on that possibility and whether it would be effective or not?
His software is more rigorously tested than the standards he’s attempting to push into every classroom in the country! (Well, except for his kids’ classes)
Actually his software is tested the same way he is attempting to test CCSS. It is generally accepted that the users/consumers of Microsoft products do the beta testing.
Please do whatever powerful people do, but DO NOT do whatever they say.
Please watch and recite all steps from their action for their own children. Next, we try our best to follow and to apply their procedure for our public school children. Any question, please submit it to National Education Committee, or whoever is in charge of a country. Back2basic
Check on those writing the curriculum for the Common Core Standards. How are others profiting from the market-driven reforms? See Susan Ohanian’s blog posts.
I was very interested to hear Gates sidestepping Lindsey Layton’s questions that he defined as political. He kept insisting that he was not involved in the politics and was only interested in discussing questions of substance. Really?
Bill Gates should not be investigated by anyone.
He should be arrested.
We need an investigation to get some people under oath, and to ask cogent follow-up questions in response to the misrepresentations Gates made in his interview, about how much tax-deductable $$ he’s spent on political influence and product positioning.
Jack Hassard has an investigation underway of what was really done with the $3.8 billion Gates dispensed in his “College Ready” grants, with more to come:
http://www.artofteachingscience.org/how-the-gates-foundation-used-3-38-billion-in-college-ready-education-grants-to-change-education-policy/
Yes, there is evidence laws have been broken.
Yet another interesting and informative article. Thanks for sharing!
It’s not just a badly flawed PROCESS that plagues the Common Core, it’s also the rationale behind the Common Core.
Here’s the Mission Statement from the Common Core standards initiative (this was before they scrubbed it from the website):
“The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.”
The common refrain among the“reformers” is that the Common Core is necessary to “make America more competitive” in the global economy. Bill Gates says it. Dane Linn (formerly of the College Board, now at the Business Roundtable) says it. Arne Duncan says it.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce tells us that “Common core academic standards among the states are essential” U.S. competitiveness. The Business Roundtable resurrects the “rising tide of mediocrity” myth of A Nation at Risk, saying (falsely) that “Since the release of A Nation at Risk in 1983, it has been increasingly clear that…academic expectations for American students have not been high enough.” According to the “reformers, public education needs a very healthy dose of “competition,” “accountability,” “entrepreneurial activity,” and “markets” to strengthen it.
But it’s all absolutely untrue.
The Sandia Report (Journal of Educational Research, May/June, 1993), published in the wake of A Nation at Risk, concluded that:
* “..on nearly every measure we found steady or slightly improving trends.”
* “youth today [the 1980s] are choosing natural science and engineering degrees at a higher rate than their peers of the 1960s.”
* “business leaders surveyed are generally satisfied with the skill levels of their employees, and the problems that do exist do not appear to point to the k-12 education system as a root cause.”
* “The student performance data clearly indicate that today’s youth are achieving levels of education at least as high as any previous generation.”
But the nonsense continued.
The World Economic Forum ranks nations each year on competitiveness. The U.S. is usually in the top five (if not 1 or 2). When it drops, the WEF doesn’t cite education, but stupid economic decisions and policies.
For example, when the U.S. dropped from 2nd to 4th in 2010-11, four factors were cited by the WEF for the decline: (1) weak corporate auditing and reporting standards, (2) suspect corporate ethics, (3) big deficits (brought on by Wall Street’s financial implosion) and (4) unsustainable levels of debt.
More recently, major factors cited by the WEF are a “business community” and business leaders who are “critical toward public and private institutions,” a lack of trust in politicians and the political process with a lack of transparency in policy-making, and “a lack of macroeconomic stability” caused by decades of fiscal deficits, especially deficits and debt accrued over the last decade that “are likely to weigh heavily on the country’s future growth.”
This year (2013-14) the U.S. moved back to fifth place, with the WEF noting that “the deficit is narrowing for the first time since the onset of the financial crisis.” Guess who has opposed nearly all the policies the policies that led to the reduced deficit? The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and big banks, corporations and insurance companies that are avid supporters of Common Core.
Common Core WILL make a difference, a BIG one. It means that schools and students and teachers will become even more test-focused, with emphases on the ACT and PLAN, and on the PSAT and SAT. These tests are largely worthless, but their makers (ACT and the College Board) were instrumental in developing the Common Core and say their products are all “aligned” with it.
Congress will not investigate, because Congress caters to the Chamber and the Business Roundtable, and to people like Bill Gates. Rather than government “of the people by the people, for the people,” we’ve become more like a plutocracy. Common Core is a plump pea in the plutocratic pod.
And public education? Ripe to be plucked for profit.
The people that follow the Real Bill have
Overdeveloped Wallets…and Underdeveloped Minds.
Test$ing….Test$ing…Test$ting….Test$ing…..Test$ing….
“This is philanthropy. This is trying to make sure students have the kind of opportunity I had . . . and it’s almost outrageous to say otherwise, in my view.”
Outrageous to question Bill’s motives, O.K. yes, he wants to improve education and close the achievement gap between the poor and the richer suburbs like Bellevue and Redmond, WA. He has enough money and has no interest in having to beat some Mexican oil baron for number one. I will give him all of that.
Outrageous to think his research is wrong or misguided? No, that is not outrageous. It is the foundation of good science, math, and logic to not stifle doubt and concern.
Fascinating. Ever think about how Bill Gates became rich? He became rich because
a court ruled he could copyright statistical formula that were clearly in the public
domain–most were a century or two old. So my university had to pay $800 a copy
for SPSS. That added up to at least half a million dollars for one university, and that
was almost all profit
Diane (and All)
In response to your question “Who knew American education was for sale?”, my research team did. We presented this in April, at AERA 2014, alas on Sunday morning c. 8am. EdWeek gave it some attention: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/04/16/28aera.h33.html?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mrss&cmp=RSS-FEED
Essentially, what we’re finding is that an enormous chunk of money for the Common Core is bypassing schools and going directly to a range of groups that support the reform. We reported that the Common Core is analogous to the Gold Rush.
Mindy Kornhaber