The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent a few billion on remaking public schools in the United States. Strangely, they have not attempted to introduce the kind of student-centered education that their own children experience at Lakeside Academy in Seattle. Instead, they want everything and everyone to be tested and data-driven, including the privately managed charter schools in which they have invested. They don’t “give” money to public schools, as philanthropists of an earlier generation did. They give money to be used only as they direct: on high-stakes testing, on evaluation of teachers by test scores, on the uniform adoption of the Common Core standards, and on schools willing to follow their directions. Needless to say, neither Bill nor Melinda has ever been a teacher. Yet they consider themselves to be experts in what and how to teach.
In this article, Carol Burris reviews the couple’s recent national conference, at which they announced that they are pleased with what they have done and have no intention of changing their approaches. In other words, they called a press conference to say “Stay the course.” Clearly, they have not noticed that 220,000 students in New York state opted out of the state tests in protest of an overemphasis on standardized tests. Nor have they noticed the protests from all sides of the political spectrum against the coup engineered by Bill Gates to impose the Common Core on the nation without bothering to respect the views of the public (i.e., democracy).
Burris, the new executive director of the Network for Public Education, says that Bill and Melinda point to Kentucky, Denver, and Washington, D.C. as their evidence for the success of their reforms. She carefully dissects each of these examples and demonstrates that they have only been listening to their “yes” men and women. Denver has stagnated for the past decade despite near-total control by Gates-style reformers; Washington, D.C. continues to have staggeringly large achievement gaps between different racial and ethnic groups; Burris shows that Kentucky’s improvements began long before the introduction of the Common Core. (Hmmm, Kentucky is one of the few states that doesn’t have charter schools, which may explain why communities are very invested in their public schools.)
Carol says that this is what she learned from their interview with PBS journalist Gwen Ifill:
From this interview, three things seem clear.
Bill and Melinda Gates do not understand teaching and learning, yet they comfortably assume an air of expertise.
They view victory as the implementation of their reforms and while they claim to be all about the metrics, they only select examples that suit their purpose.
The first couple of reform neither appreciate nor respect the role of democracy plays in the governance public schools.
They demonstrate the old maxim that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
They also demonstrate that they have a problem with democracy; it threatens to derail some of their fabulous ideas.
It was clear that the couple worry that the democratic process can undo their reforms. As Bill Gates wryly observed at the end of the interview, “The work can go backwards….nobody votes to un-invent our vaccine.”
This statement is a bold assertion of Gates’ arrogance. Nothing that his foundation has done to American public schools is comparable to a vaccine against disease. If you listen to parents and teachers, the Gates’ obsession with standardization and testing is the disease, not the vaccine.
Our only hope to find a vaccine for the standardized testing disease, which is a mental aberration that distorts the purpose of education, is democracy, not the Gates Foundation. The public must vote for candidates who promise to make public education more like Lakeside, not a processing machine that ignores the interests and needs of children.
Gwen Ifill did not challenge even one of their lies/falsehoods/bogus claims. Not one.
Can we also conclude that PBS is on the Gates payroll as well.
I believe PBS is on the Gates payroll — NPR is, and the education reporting coming from NPR is nothing but marketing / PR for the policies of the Gates Foundation.
Bill Gates should be paying his fair share of taxes (which would be a lot more than he does), instead of using his foundation to shelter money so he can use it to set policy. He should be treated like the complete idiot that he in fact is.
My impression after watching PBS and listening to NPR on a regular basis is that both entities have been completely cowed by political attacks and neutered by donations from the likes of the the Gateses and the Koch bros.
Don;t forget that the Eli Broad Foundation are supporters/donors to both.
There was a panel discussion on Common Core C-span 2 on Common Core. Perhaps, more will speak out and things will change.
Thank you for all you do to inform the public regarding this testing frenzy.
Why pay attention to the public push back on their programs when they, and their corporate allies, continue to make money and still have government backing of their plans? The fickle little people don’t matter.
We all can suffer from the deceit and arrogance of psychological projection: wishing and putting upon others what we think they should become or do. Bill G believes everybody should become the math and binary nerd he was, and he does possess unique gifts in that field, and he was diligent in the development of them.
So, hats off to Bill G for becoming who he is and what he does. Yet, not everybody in the world should, or needs to become, a coder and eventually work for Microsoft. Yes, Bill would like all to become his employees and grow his financial empire. But, the world needs farmers, garbage men, post-office deliverers, welders, etc; people of all shapes and sizes, not just coders and electrical engineers.
Bill needs to come down from his presumed “pedagogic paragon” and leave his Ivory-Tower and “idealistic nonsense” and lower himself down into the needs of the working masses; many of whom may never need or use a MS program; yet, still can find their niche in our economy.
To speculate that our economy will become so high-tech, so that everyone will need to code, is a myth and delusion. We will always need people in the trades, people on the farms; people doing much more important work than creating a newer version of Angry Birds (in spite of what Bill G thinks or wants).
And we also need our artists, musicians, poets, writers, philosophers, historians, and others who fill our minds and souls with wonder.
We’re not going to be nurturing very many of these, either, if Gates and his cohorts have their way.
“High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.” -attributed to Kurt Vonnegut
I guess you could substitute just plain “school” in the quote above. I’ve always loved the idea -and Vonnegut.
Yup, our students are once again getting a real lesson on how things work in the U.S.A. A tragic lesson.
They are merely reinvesting in their own lively hoods. Putting their money to reinstated their monopoly on data and resources.
Yes indeed!
“Lively hoods” indeed. (^_^)
Gates’ latest dispatch from the billionaire bubble illustrates how arrogant and out of touch he is. He chooses to ignore the fact that not everyone in the world supports his world view. He feels entitled to remake education into a mass produced cyber factory without allowing democracy to creep into his view of the new world order. He only sees what he chooses to see. “The emperor has no clothes.” The American public did not ask him to impose his model of education on them. Now that more people no longer view him as benevolent dictator, he and his twisted notion of education are being rejected by parents and educators that understand teaching is about relationships and connections, not testing, data and punishment. They want an authentic education for students. He simply chooses to ignore them because he can.
retired teacher:
“billionaire bubble.”
TAGO!
😎
Gates is arrogant. He has NO CLUE, except his $$$$$$ can BUY people who have little morals and cannot or refuse to connect the dots.
I don’t think the foundations would bother me so much if it wasn’t a fact that US lawmakers 1. never publicly contradict them, and 2. all adopt their recommendations.
Gates speech at the forum is identical to the Obama and Kasich Administration agenda for k-12 public schools. That’s a fact and politicians need to address it honestly instead of blowing people off. Is this a coincidence? Is there really just one way to approach K-12 education, The Bill Gates Way? I refuse to accept that.
Rick Hess and Carol Burris shouldn’t be the only people questioning this stuff. Something has gone terribly wrong here. I am sick and tired of the Gates and the Waltons and the Broads running US public schools. I want some due diligence and independent thought from the people we’re electing and paying. That is their job.
Yes, there is another way to address K-12 education. Let me enumerate.
1. Formally declare that there is no problem to resolve.
2. Forbid any mention of problems and ideas for change because educators have done this for 200 plus years and they know it all.
3. Claim all the problems if any is related to poverty and the Oligarchs are the primary reason for poverty.
4. Claim that elected politicians blow people off.
5. If people keep saying that problems still exist, blame it on Bill Gates, Waltons, Broads, Obama, Duncan and charter schools.
6. Finally do nothing, even though the educators who are about 4 million, are the front line of K-12 education and have no impact on the state of the public schools.
You’re ready to storm the Bastille with that strawman army.
Nobody did it like that — straw man, Raj. However, the fact remains that Bill Gates’ solutions are, in fact, much worse than doing nothing.
Oh, we have plenty of problems in my local public school. I’m on a committee so I hear all about them. The biggest problem we have right now is how to manage less funding with more mandates. The second biggest problem we have is attendance- a lot of our kids miss school because they’re low income and they have chaotic lives with really onerous economic uncertainty that leads to instability in their families. That’s where we’re focusing. On getting them to school.
Bill Gates offers me no solutions to either of those problems, but it’s okay, because I don’t turn to him for “solutions” anyway. I have no idea why I would. If I want a business person’s perspective on education we have business people here who actually send their kids to our public schools, so I’d ask one of them what they thought.
Raj, would it help your line of activity if someone installed a sword over your head and threatened to cut it off if you did not meet an arbitrary deadline? Would you like to take orders from someone who has never done the work you do?
Here’s mine.
1. Abolish standardized testing except as one of many diagnostic tools of the classroom.
2. Actually pay teachers what other professionals make.
3. Establish strong mentoring and senior level teacher programs. Apprenticeships have worked for thousands of years. Trash test and punish.
4. Insist politicians do their job and address jobs, crime, homelessness, and poverty before blaming teachers.
5. Add more TRUE professional development, planning and collaboration time, and, from recent news, apparently desks.
6. Get politicians, billionaires, self-appointed experts, clueless executives, and profit driven hedge funds out of our classrooms and let teachers teach.
7. Insist that every person who unfairly disparages teachers be forced to teach in a high risk classroom for one year. Put up or — you know the phrase. We are tired of paper tigers who have all the answers but have never stood in front a classroom..
Mathvale steps up to the plate. Bottom of the 9th, and the bases are loaded
Edu-fakers lead the Ravitch Raiders 3 to 0.
The pitch from Raj . . .
Looks like a screwball based on the rotation.
Mathvale swings . . .
going, going, gone!
I urge everyone that visits this blog to copy and put in a safe place the six points enumerated above. I am not joking…
They express, more succinctly and straightforwardly than almost anything else I have read, the underpinnings of rheephorm thinking.
For example, #1 is simply made up. #2 could be the poster child for “give me an example of a vacuous generalization”—don’t even mention the contortions that would be involved in trying to define the individuals and groups involved and the time period[s]!
#3 and #6 are particularly self-wounding to the rheephormista cause. In the first place, they are lies made up out of whole cloth—in general, when confronted by the numerous difficulties/problems that students face, public school teachers and staff don’t give up. On the contrary, the opposite is true: they feel challenged to work harder and better and give more of themselves. The kind of public school staff that “when the going gets tough, won’t get going” do one of two things in my experience: 1), they quit, or 2), they become admins to get out of the classroom [apologies to all the good admins out there but truth be told…].
Amanda Ripley in her book, and the Gates Foundation folks to Anthony Cody in his book, express a similar POV—utterly at odds with reality. Again, the general tendency for public school staff is to feel challenged—when they don’t fell overwhelmed—to deal with a constellation of factors, a few modestly under their control and most out of their control. The rheephormistas are precisely the ones that surrender to the “don’t deal with poverty” meme. They just keep repeating that by doubling down on teachers and tests and such that a whole bunch of other, much weightier factors, will somehow correct and straighten themselves out.
To put it another way: as in so many other cases, their “thoughts” are just projections on to others of their own lack of intellectual rigor and honesty, work ethic and compassion.
It substitutes for actual dialogue and empathy. They quite literally don’t—and don’t want to—understand the thoughts and feelings of anyone that doesn’t go all in with them.*
What does get their dander up? When servility and conformity are under fire and being threatened by those for a “better education for all” it’s time to bring out the big guns and civil dialogue and decency be damned…
Any wonder then that the shills and trolls that visit this blog have the most casual contempt for anybody that disagrees with them?
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
P.S.* The rheephormsters are rather literal (if thin-skinned and lightweight) examples of the observation ascribed to Anaïs Nin: “We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
I ask Lloyd Lofthouse’s pardon in advance for reusing this example, but—as I heard Maoist demonstrators in the late 1960s vociferously protest when someone pointed out contradictory assertions in the Little Red Book—
“You can’t quote the Chairman against the Chairman!”
Yes I can and yes I will.
Bill Gates. Speech. Alma mater. Lakeside School. September 23, 2005.
Link: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/media-center/speeches/2005/09/bill-gates-lakeside-school
That’s what he thinks genuine learning and teaching is all about. For HIS OWN CHILDREN.
Thats not what he’s pushing for and paying for and imposing on OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
It’s not long. Ponder the difference between what the leading rheephormsters do for them and theirs and what they do to everyone else.
‘Nuff said.
Apparently, Bill Gates is one of John Steinbeck’s biggest fans—
“Man is the only kind of varmint sets his own trap, baits it, then steps in it.”
😎
Yes, except Bill sets the trap for other people, because the one with the bigger bank account gets to make the traps. Though, as a society if one falls into a trap we all suffer (except the trap builders suffer last….sad, they should suffer first).
Presumably Chairman Bill’s own kids know how to track the teacher with their eyes, walk in single file in complete silence, and be willing to wet themselves rather than disrupt a high-stakes test. Wait, that’s right, no high-stakes tests at Lakeside School.
“…. I support Lakeside because I see a deep need for leadership in the world, and I believe Lakeside can help provide it”
. Ah Ha ..There it is! I have always suspected that, regardless of his stated admirable intentions, Bill Gates’ public education initiatives are serving a less than admirable function. ..Yes, he hopes to fill the need for future leaders in the world” from the student populations of Lakeside and other similar private schools….but is ensuring that be the case by turning the public education students of the US into the mindless sheeple which those magnificent Lakeside leaders will ultimately lead using their stellar Lakeside leadership skills. How does one ambitious billionaire ensure his offspring remain as members of the ruling class? …simple, just damage public education beyond repair so no underlings can never rise up.to seriously challenge the masters of the future. Try though I may, I have never been able to see Bill Gates as anything other than an arrogant. overly ambitious “stage dad”.
JoJo, apparently you don’t see the need for a master class. Some of those who have the good fortune to have a fortune, do.
JoJo, that has been happening before CC.
Maybe I should introduce you to Bill Gates.
That, public education should be like the top private schools is a noble goal, but not realistic. I drive by Philips Andover (actually the exit) every day on my way to work at a public school. The per pupil expense at Andover is north of $65K – the average in the town I leave and the one I work in is closer to $10k. Just did some quick math – and Gates if he wanted to scale up the districts I live and teach in to be like Lakeside would be out about a billion dollars – that is for just 2 districts in MA.
The “Lakeside” argument is the “Hitler” and “Nazi” of analogies and comparisons. Not realistic or useful.
Perhaps you should read the speech more closely:
“What does this have to do with Lakeside? Our foundation’s work in high schools is based on principles that happen to be deeply ingrained in Lakeside’s culture. We call them the new three R’s—the basic building blocks of better high schools.
The first R is Rigor – making sure all students are given a challenging curriculum that prepares them for college or work;
The second R is Relevance – making sure kids have courses and projects that clearly relate to their lives and their goals;
The third R is Relationships – making sure kids have a number of adults who know them, look out for them, and push them to achieve.”
That is what Gates said about his small schools initiative, which encouraged the breakup of big high schools into small high schools and affected about 2,500 schools around the country. He decided in 2008 that small high schools didn’t produce higher test scores, so he abandoned that initiative. He spent $2 billion on it. He probably has a new slogan by now.
Abandoned is certainly the word for it. Boston broke up several of its comprehensive high schools to get the Gates grants, with mostly disasterous results and triple the administrative costs, because each small school needed an individual admin team. Course offerings were limited or diminished because there were fewer teachers available for electives. School pride and a sense of identification with your school’s sports teams, plays, and other extra-curriculars diminished.
Gates,like a fickle lover who decided that he just wasn’t that into you, left our public high schools seduced and abandoned and worse off than when they began the fling.
Well said, Christine. A high school that is “too small” cannot offer advanced courses, multiple world languages, or serve ELLs and other populations with special needs.
Yes, the smaller schools initiative worked, but did not work as well as Gates desired. Academic improvement was small, if at all (In many cases having a smaller school reduces the offerings too.)
It did help in other ways – mental health / belonging.
He was expecting more bang for his buck.
The small schools arc makes me believe in Gates Foundation. They try real substantive efforts, they share results, they act on those results. Something most school administrations could learn from.
Right Christine because Hyde Park High and West Rox were so Lake Wobegone…Unless he made a promise that he would fund the initiative forever I don’t see your point. Go back to the way it was if it was better. IT wasn’t. I say that as a former resident of Boston from the time of the initiative.
(What works in Boston Public is pretty clear by the success of certain charters/pilots and that is 1) longer school day, 2) longer school year, 3) 1+2.
Everyone’s facts,
No one suggests that we go “back to the way it was.” Everyone I know wants it to far better than the way it was, and far better than the way it is now.
Diane, I would put Gates and his foundation in that “everyone.”
Oh, and proper grammar would be everyonesfacts’s
My autocorrect did not permit me to write everyonesfacts. I had to turn it off.
Who are you, everyonesfacts? seems unlikely that you’re a Boston parent or teacher. More likley what you know about schools you learned from the Boston Globe, via Scott Lehigh.
I’ve come to believe that the fix was supposed to be in for Boston to be a demonstration model for privitization after it was awarded the Broad Prize in 2006, but the dark hand behind the superintendent’s chair couldn’t bring it off even after Payzant was struck with meningitis. Carolyn Johnson, who had achieved a few reformy things in Tennessee was supposed to achieve reformy nirvana, but was too incompetent to do so. Not taking action against a principal who pled guilty to battering his pregnant wife was not such a good move.
You’ve omitted Dorchester and South Boston high schools from your litany. The Gates bribe to “transform” schools left the schools it was applied to in far worse straits than they had begun. Southie had never recovered from busing, had corrupt leadership and was a mess. The central office had loaded the dice for Dorchester High, assigning 1/3 each of the students each from the following populations: ELL’s, SWD’s (severe behavior and emotional) and court involved. The court had an office in the school so they could check in with parolees so they could continue to attend court-ordered classes. Sound like a recipe for success?
Hyde Park (my alma mater) and West Roxbury were in the second round, after the obvious problems had been documented, but the Gates money spoke and down the rabbit hole we went. At Westie, only one of the three schools had access to the library because the school was divided up by floor and the other two small schools were denied physical access. Hyde Park was an easy candidate, with a large Haitian population, whose parents lacked social capital to fight to hold on to their school. Westie was done to punish its headmaster who wouldn’t accede to the new regime, and he retired in protest. He was one of the last old school headmasters who had come up through the pipeline beginning as a classroom teacher and enjoyed the acclaim of his staff, whom he shielded from ridiculous mandates and allowed to teach as professionals who best understood their students’ needs.
Many things could have been done to improve these schools, but breaking them up into smaller schools with reduced course offerings, increased administrative costs and student bodies pitted against one another, like the co-located Success Academies, certainly was not the answer.
Teachers, parents and students knew that then, but hey, they’re not billionaires, so why listen to their concerns?
Christine, I am everyonesfacts. As I said, I was a resident at the time of the initiative. And yes, a teacher, but not in BPS.
The history of Boston schools has been a history of under-performance, that is before busing, after busing, before Gates $, during Gates $, and after Gates $.
The brightest lights other than Boston Latin and the other exam schools have been the charters and pilots with extended time. This imho is scalable if taxpayers will foot the bill, or better yet maybe we can get Gates $ to pay for it…
“The brightest lights other than Boston Latin and the other exam schools have been the charters and pilots with extended time. This imho is scalable if taxpayers will foot the bill,”
Well, BLS and the other exam schools are the shining lights as measured by standardized exams, because entrance to these schools is controlled by performance on a standardized test. Duh.
Repeating talking points about charters’ longer school days making them “successful” doesn’t make those points true. Here’s a look at charters measured against Boston’s public schools: in 2013, 51% of BPS students graduated and went on to college vs 46% of charter students.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16_mDV4hf8bwUxy3OYY7ITs349YRXfvEouiSBe9QKYjc/pubhtml
Meh? not such a big difference? Except that in sheer numbers, BPS has far more individuals and they include ELL’s, SWD’s, low SES kids that charters don’t service.
Why should taxpayers foot the bill, when it means redirecting funds to a black hole of no accountability? See MA auditor’s report on that topic.
So the charters outperform the regular BPS schools, by your own chart.
BPS outperforms charters when exam schools are included.
This is from the link you shared.
MA auditor’s report on MA charters:
http://www.mass.gov/auditor/news-and-updates/press-releases-2014/bump-state-needs-to-improve-charter-school-data.html
That makes things clear as mud.
Doesn’t add to your point or detract from mine.
My state just enacted a (weak) charter school reform bill.
Guess who wrote it:
Senator @peggylehner calls out the important work done by @CREDOatStanford, @bellwethered, and @smarick. Research provided reform structure.
Did they get input from anyone outside these “movement” ed reform groups? Is it really too much to ask that they STOP relying on the same 15 people when drafting laws that affect every school in the state? These groups promote charter schools. Why are they drafting regulations for charter schools?
“Do your own work” seems to me to be a pretty important concept to relay to children. How about lawmakers start modeling that?
Posted numerous times on this blog, but still relevant:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made.”
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby”
“The Great Gates, B.”
He lies with his lips
And lies with his money
He lies to the Libs
And even his Honey
He tells all these fibs
Which makes him a cad
But lying to kids
Is really quite sad
I always look forward to reading your poems lol.
Nicely written.
Bill and Milinda Gates are 2 of the most arrogant people I have ever read about. Many years ago I had decided that he was after not just money but power as well. For some reason he has picked the public schools to press his power thru money ideas and agenda. I do not and have never though Bill and Milinda Gates had only good motives and good desires for all children. If they were as pure as the fresh snow perhaps they would have been interested in building housing for the poor or paying for good pre-k’s throughout the United States. They are interested in destroying public education across the country.
Amen!
Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
The arrogance of Bill and Melinda Gates is staggering.
But I guess, if you are surrounded with “yes men,” you begin to think that the sun shines out of your @ss. Or, to put it even more crudely, that your sh!t doesn’t stink.
After all, how many multi-billionaires are accustomed to hearing the word “no”?
Bill Gates got rich by stealing the idea from apple back in the late 70s and early 80s. Initially, apple computer created the graphics operating system of point and click with a mouse. Gates, the jerk that he is, had DOS. Anyone using DOS had to type in commands i.e. c:/input: goto …and so forth …. Apple created the point and click computer. Gates stole the idea watch the movie the pirates of silicon valley and you will see how gates stole the idea from apple….Now, this thief wants to tell america how to run our public schools…first he gave us smaller schools and then admitted they do not work……ah geez we live in a corrupt society
Indeed, the man is a poor to mediocre technologist, but an utterly brilliant monopolist.
Sadly, students and teachers must pay the price for his infinite greed – that’s a play on something Gates himself once said – and will to power.
Stealing from Apple was only the tip of the iceberg (although admittedly it’s how he got his big break). He’s been in court so many other times for so many other things, but ultimately he’s made of Teflon, everything just seems to slide off him.
Money buys justice*. . .
If you don’t agree just try getting a case into the courts without any.
*American legal justice which has very little to do with moral, ethical justice.
Small claims court. That’s about the only place where anyone can go to court without much money. In California, lawyers are not allowed to small claims court.
Actually, the core ideas for the personal computer — like the graphical user interface and mouse — came from Xerox PARC, which both Steve Jobs of Apple and Paul Allen (of Microsoft) “co-opted”.
Microsoft even hired a guy (Simonyi) who was instrumental in development work on PARC’s Alto computer.
It’s actually humorous that Apple sued Microsoft at one point for stealing “their” ideas when “their” ideas also came from PARC.
Guys like Gates and Jobs love to take credit for things that other people created.
Good answer. Pirates of Silicon Valley.
That would be a good question to ask a candidate- “where do you differ on K-12 education from Gates (Broad, Walton)?”
It’d be fun to see if they would dare to dissent publicly. There have to be more dissenters than Carol Burris and Rick Hess, right? It’s a big country.
One thing I’d like to ask Professor Ravitch is what the Common Core should be replaced with, given the strong support expressed in ‘The Death and Life of the Great American School System’ for a truly national curriculum, and her lament that Liz Cheney was able to torpedo the last attempt in the early 90s.
This is NOT a troll-question. I genuinely want to know what the deficiencies of this standard are and how we can come together to make a proper one
Eli,
I spent the summer revising “Death and Life of the Great American School System.” There will be one major revision. I have eliminated my proposal for any national curriculum. The disastrous launch of the Common Core standards convinced me that the assumptions behind standards and testing are wrong. Higher standards do not lead to higher achievement, nor does testing and rigor. What our students need most is to have good health, economic security, food security, smaller classes (especially where students are struggling), a full curriculum, especially the arts, and teachers who enjoy the respect of the community, who are treated as professionals and paid as professionals. I don’t think anything should replace the Common Core other than broad curriculum guidelines about what should be taught in each grade so there is no duplication when families move to a new district.
We offered the type of comprehensive education you describe before NCLB. In this respect we should move backwards to move forward. The only difference I would mention is that we must have more equitable funding, and find some creative ways to integrate public schools. We never should have ignored the plight of urban schools.
Rigor, too? This is some revision. I look forward to reading it!
I’m especially curious about why the assumptions turned out to be bad ones
I agree. I moved school districts twice during my freshman year and three times during my sophomore year. There was either duplication of learning material (for example, I read Romeo and Juliet twice) or the opposite (when I moved schools during sophomore year my first math class was on chapter 4, but my new school’s math class was on chapter 10! It was a huge jump, and thus created a gap in my learning. My third school that year was in chapter 7. It was crazy). Also, one school offered courses another one didnt (American literature vs. world literature). At least I had the opportunity to take courses that weren’t data driven, and focused on actual themes.
Eli
What would be reasonable to establish is a suggested “Scope and Sequence”
for math, science, technology, history, and the humanities.
A “Scope and Sequence” is a list of all the ideas, concepts, topics, and skills that will be covered in a full academic program and in each course as well. It is just a list, and the list is written in the order in which the material should be taught as dictated by experience, developmental readiness, and best practices. S&S lacks the detailed goals of formal standards as does not prescribe pedagogy.
The scope and sequence of a particular class, like biology would look very similar to the Table of Contents in a well written biology textbook.
A sample program S&S for a secondary science program might look like this:
Grade 6: Exploratory Science: Introductory Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Geology)
Grade 7: Biology
Grade 8: Physical Sciences (Chemistry and Physics)
Grade 9: Biology
Grade 10: Earth Sciences (Geology, Astronomy, Meteorology)
Grade 11: Chemistry
Grade 12: Physics
Having a commonly accepted scope and sequence would solve the problem transient students have when they move. If every 9th grader in the country was studying biology in the approximately same sequence of topics, a move would not be quite so problematic. However, I have found that this issue is generally way overblown. The transient students that struggle in a new school probably struggled in their old school as well. They tend to lead unstable family lives. Good students that move to a new school generally do well despite the move and probable changes in course subjects.
The US must ABOLISH the use of standardized tests to evaluate schools, teachers, and even students. Grade span testing that does not threaten, mis-label, stigmatize, or punish would be an acceptable compromise. Improvement in teaching and ;learning cannot and will not happen as long as reformers continue to push policies based on mis-trust of teachers, threats, coercion, and punishment. You can take that to the bank.
I missed all of the introductory physics stuff. I never studied simple machines or Newton’s laws of motion. Apparently that subject was part of the eighth grade curriculum in NJ, but was covered in sixth grade in Illinois. I spent a great deal of time after we moved being sick, so I actually don’t remember a whole lot of what we studied that fall.
So you are against national curricula – across the board?
I ask this because you often defend unionization by showing its use elsewhere. Are national curricula not a transnational phenomena the way unionization is?
Perhaps the Onion could do an article: There is no way to pass a national curriculum in only country that does not have one…
While I’m for national standards (and one could even argue for global objectives, ie. understand the role of statistics in data, and the potential for the misuse of them) I do believe in the power of local context and local stakeholder input and ownership in curricular decision-making. So, have national objectives that are broad and general, and let the states and counties adapt and fine-tune them, for the application in the local setting. Without some specific application of local relevance, broad and national objectives have no pedagogic momentum.
Rage Against the Testocracy, what you propose seems more deterministic than CC.
I support CC, but would get rid of the testing that goes with it – to be replaced by surveys. Ask the parents and teachers (optional) at younger ages and ask parents, teacher (optional), and students at older ages. There could also be samples of work online in text and video form to show what is expected for each standard (Note: I would not ask about each standard, but perhaps 5 different ones 3-4 x a year.) This would take 0 class time and imho be just as reliable as the testing regime that has been in place for the last 20 years.
So each quarter of the year, teachers focus on the standards du jour for their grade? So everyone designs their lesson plans to highlight “the chosen”? I apologize for being snarky, but I am really tired of attempts to save the standards. I really do not see the advantage to a national standardized education if it is going to drive instruction with its “accountability” provisions. Frankly, I don’t see what is so wonderful about national standards. Learning does not happen by standards.
Agreed, most of our standards are common sense and assume the goal of “developing a productive and responsible citizens”. Graduating high school in 1978, we had no state or national standards in CA that I heard about, or remember. We had a rich and diverse curriculum with many great Vo-Tech electives (ex. wood and metal shop, cooking, welding, auto mechanics). We did long-term open-ended projects, requiring collaborations across disciplines; we had fun learning and were learning so much in such a real-world manner that I know look back on it and believe it was what John Dewey believed in (powerful, engaging and relevant curriculum).
Today, we have factoid-base multiple-choice tests, where the “tail wags the dog”; where curriculum is developed for a test, not visa versa. We’ve lost open-ended projects with cross-discipline collaborations; we’ve created a dry, boring and sterile curriculum with little local relevancy and lacking the “pedagogic bang for the buck” that I had in my high school.
When an automaker wants to make a better car they don’t develop a new driving-test course first. No, they go into the assembly line and improve the process and outcomes.
In education, we just believe building new test courses; kind of stupid.
2 old to teach, not at all. All the standards would be asked for – let’s pretend a teacher has 25 students. Each quarter each parent would be asked if their child was meeting 5 standards – 3 math, 2 ELA. If you and I were both parents what I was asked and what you were asked would be completely different (Of course, there could be overlap).
At the end of the year, you’ve been asked about 15-20 standards for your child. Each parent has done that, but the standards have been randomly assigned.
So, it would not make sense to teach to only certain standards. And what I like about CC standards is that a parent could say for a standard, my child is a grade ahead, a grade behind, etc. because the pattern is easy to follow. FWIW, videos are already coming online showing what a met standard looks like.
I really am not interested in whether my child can reliably identify the main idea in a random bunch of short reading passages. Nor am I wowed if they can pick out two details supporting their claim. I am more interested in if my child enjoys reading and shares that interest. Can they talk about a book they enjoyed without sounding like they are preparing for a bubble test on it? The teachers in my children’s elementary school wrote wonderful narrative reports about my children. They told me far more about my children than letter grades or test scores ever could. I groaned when I heard years later that parents in the upper elementary grades were pushing for letter report cards. I laugh now when they complain that they don’t know enough about what their children are doing. When you create standards with measurement in mind, you confine yourself to describing learning through tasks that can be quantified.
I am not sure you understood my post.
Under my plan, there would be no need for bubble tests or grades.
I would think it would lead to a greater love of reading too, at least I can’t think of why it wouldn’t. I am not sure getting the main idea of a reading sounds like a bubble test. In history this is often a point emphasized – what is the main point, where or what is the evidence, etc. And here I am talking about adult book groups.
Whether grades are narratives or letters or some other thing is beyond what I wrote. I, like you, would be for narratives. I would still combine the narratives with the surveys I suggested.
We did have survey type reports where the teachers indicated the child’s level of performance in areas which were of interest at that level of development. I suppose you could do the same with standards but not with the ones we have. The ones the teachers used were connected with what we see “typical” children doing/attempting at a stage. They were intended to give a snapshot; they were not targets to be met.
Not sure why that couldn’t happen.
I think it is quite easy.
Take R.L. 7.1: “Cite several pieces of textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.”
The survey would turn that into a question: Can your child…?
The survey could have links to what it looks like on paper. It could also have video of same. It is already under way: http://educationnext.org/showing-parents-grade-level-work-looks-like/
We are not talking about quite the same thing. You seem to be talking about performance criteria. The survey I am talking about indicated developmental landmarks and conceptual understanding. The tasks were not defined because a teacher might have ten different ways of evaluating a child’s understanding of a particular concept.
everyonesfacts – “So you are against national curricula – across the board? I ask this because you often defend unionization by showing its use elsewhere. Are national curricula not a transnational phenomena the way unionization is?”
This comparison doesn’t make any sense. ‘Transnational phenomena’? Why not bring in taxes or interstate highways?
Unionization in US govt, industry & services has a long history. Many studies on its influence on society in ed & other fields. National ed curriculum: no history in the US. So you have to bring in other OECD nations, & studies pre-& post-establishment of natl curriculum for its effects on a nation’s ed achievement– then try to find sufficient common ground between US culture/makeup & another nation(s) to make a case for valid comparison.
Bethree, no national curriculums existed under 200 years ago.
They are now a rule. The US is an exception. And the US to me is similar to ALL industrialized countries, at least enough so that they can be validly compared (and contrasted) in terms of education (curricula, goals, work force, income demographics, etc)
Unions did not exist anywhere 200 years, they now exist in most places.
The analogy is valid. And the question about why the US can’t or shouldn’t have a national curriculum is one that is left unanswered.
If it is best that the US not have a national curriculum, should all other countries get rid of their national curricula? Why or why not?
everyonesfacts,
Having a national curriculum doesn’t produce higher achievement. It doesn’t matter. In the case of Finland, its national curriculum leaves most decisions to teachers.
I would have to disagree.
The top performers have national curricula.
I did not say that the curricula should be overly prescriptive.
AP is a good example of a de facto national curricula. An AP lite as a national curricula for a starting point.
The reading, writing and speaking standards of CC seem useful too – especially in science and history…
Everyone’s facts,
The low performing nations also have national standards
I am getting confused. Are we talking about standards or curriculum?
Seems like a good argument, but it isn’t.
Since so many nations that should imo be behind us based on per pupil funding, funding as a percentage of gdp, etc are above us in international comparisons – and they have national curricula it makes an argument for national standards and curricula.
That Zambia and El Salvador, have national curricula and standards are behind us even though they have them in place is not a winning argument. They should be behind the US! There is no country imo that is behind us in international rankings that should be ahead of us – so there example is not a strong one.
I would hope that everyone would agree that the US should be a top 10 country in international comparisons based on factors I suggest. That we are behind – we should look to why – there are factors outside our purview – 25% of children in poverty, and ones that are – national standards and curricula.
The U.S. Will not be a top performing country as long as nearly one-quarter of its students live in poverty. The U.S. has many ELLs, who don’t do well on tests in English.
I would not go that far.
I think the US could be in the top 10 with changes to curricula, practices – shouldn’t we all take to heart the work of John Hattie and Dylan William, to a lesser extent McRel/Marzano? – and standards.
But yes to be the top or in contention for the top would have to mean the elimination of nearly all child poverty…sigh…
Actually the international rankings mean nothing. Read Yong Zhao. Read Reign of Error.
I’ve read and listened to Yong Zhao.
I agree with him somewhat.
But no one who follows education can argue that international comparisons mean nothing. If they did mean nothing, we wouldn’t be citing Yong Zhao.
I could just as soon cite 2 Million Minutes and say they mean everything (They don’t.).
One can make an argument that they should mean nothing. I’ve seen that and disagree with it. I believe that with the mobility of students, especially the poorest and how often they switch districts it behooves the US to have uniform standards (CC with maybe a few tweaks works for me) and a scope and sequence of curriculum (This imo should not be overly prescriptive.).
I could buy into national standards that were intended only as guidelines not a series of task analysis exercises. A national curriculum with scope and sequence is by its nature overly prescriptive.
I would like to see those national curricula and compare them to each other before making any judgement. When you are talking about curriculum, you are talking not only about what is to be taught but how and with what resources. I know I have no desire to teach in such a system or to have my children in one. Of course, you have to consider that many of the nations you may be referring to are the size of states and share a cultural tradition that is more homogeneous although that is certainly changing. We see many European countries struggling with how to integrate ethnic minorities right now.
Please do.
In the last 20 years nearly all states have had state curricula, so if you were teaching in public schools you were probably already doing this…
We don’t only see European countries, we see the US struggling to do this, for instance all MA teachers are taking classes for English Language Learners (I find this an overreach by the state and courts, but it is a good example of what you say is happening in Europe, happening in the US).
Yes, it makes sense to have broad curriculum guidelines so that everyone takes state history in the same year. But it is not necessary to tell teachers how to teach or to put boundaries on their professional judgment.
On this we agree.
Perhaps there is a better example than state history. I can see absolutely no reason why people in fifty different states have to take state history in the same year. Math comes the closest to having a case for covering certain topics and concepts at the same time, but I am sure the math people here could debate that as well, especially if you get into issues of the depth of coverage. Yeah, you could mandate that every Mandarin, Spanish, German, French, Arabic class cover the same material in a year. For what reason, I am not sure. Even science could be regimented, but then you are mandating that topics must be taught in a certain order, which does not facilitate unique connections and different theoretical approaches. Every subject I ever learned in K-12 school was presented in a spiraling procedure with each iteration delving deeper or from a different angle. Trying to prescribe how that would be done at a national level would necessarily curtail innovative approaches. The argument that things could be changed doesn’t hold water since trying to get agreement would be problematic. Just think how hard it is to amend the Constitution!
I don’t believe Common Core ever established a beachhead to be properly replaced. It is over before it really started. The disturbing outcome is the expenditures of millions for a failed initiative that could have hired more teachers, aides, nurses, librarians, coaches, vocational instructors. We are losing (have lost?) a fair chunk of the next generation to this billionaire folly.
By the standard of true standards, Common Core suffers from poor construction. The math standard seems disjointed and inconsistent. Sometimes specific, sometimes vague. Some standardized content is in preambles. The standards meander between conceptual to a heavy handed requirement of what, when, and how to teach. If you have experience with other industry standards, the Common Core standards seem like a draft at best, amateurish rambling at worst.
Most standards are adaptable and extensible. There is usually a well-defined meta-standard that governs the evolution of the standard as new situations arise. Standards are developed with input by stakeholders in a collaborative process. The anticipation is the standards will improve from feedback during use – be versioned. In contrast, Common Core was written by a small group of mainly non-classroom teachers. The standards are copyrighted and far too rigid. Feedback from teachers is ignored.
I admire the open software movement. The standards and resulting products are innovative and flexible. The goal is collaboration and free exchange of ideas to build something better than the individual. Not so with Common Core. The single minded application of profit motive and rigid industry practices (Taylorism anybody?) associated with Common Core creates a restrictive, stifling teaching environment. To the industrialist with a hammer, every situation looks like a nail.
We need open, adaptive teaching less reliant on standards and with more freedom for information sharing and collaboration. The Common Core test and punish adds to the destruction. Time to start over and listen to parents, students, teachers – not politicians and billionaires. Keep reading this blog.
Eli B.,
” I genuinely want to know what the deficiencies of this standard are. . . ”
The “deficiencies” start with the concept of educational standards as a conceptual framework, a supposed foundation for the teaching and learning process. In doing a bit of research on educational standards and standardized testing I’ve learned that the term standard is widely abused and misused in the educational realm. The CCSS is neither a metrological standard nor a documentary standard, the two “standards” of standards:
Metrology is the science of measurement. It deals with physical measurement standards (not documentary standards). Measurements play a key role in modern life; in industry as well as in trade and in society in general, in assuring quality and safety. There is a growing need in science and technology for increasingly accurate and more complex measurements.
and
A documentary standard is a document that contains technical specifications or other precise criteria to be used consistently as a rule, guideline, or definition of characteristics, to ensure that materials, products, processes, personnel or services are competent and/or fit for their intended purpose(s). Many may be familiar with ISO standards which are initiated, proposed, made, revised in an open democratic research process by those experts in the field and by those who would use them.
CCSS fits neither definition. As a matter of fact the concepts of educational standards and standardized testing are so fraught with epistemological and ontological falsehoods and errors that any conclusions drawn from the processes are COMPLETELY INVALID as proven by Noel Wilson in his never refuted nor rebutted 1997 treatise “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Eli B, to understand the deficiencies start with my summary and then read Wilson’s work. If you have any questions or concerns, comments and rebuttals or refutations please contact me.
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine.
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
I echo what MathVale said, & refer you to this great link I got from an earlier thread on this blog, which is an excellent summary of the problems with the CCSS-ELA: https://www.heinemann.com/shared/onlineresources/E02123/Newkirk_Speaking_Back_to_the_Common_Core.pdf
As to what it should be replaced with, I wish I could refer you to the excellent & concise NJ state ELA curriculum circa early ’90’s, which governed my kids’ public ed. I was able to access it a couple of yrs ago. Sadly, the earliest version now available online is the 2004 version, which had already been poisoned by NCLB, re-written bass-ackward from the reqt for annual stdzd state testing [our annual testing (NJASK) started the following yr]. Our 2004 stds bear some resemblance to CCSS-ELA; perhaps they were among the existing state stds Coleman worked from.
Sorry, I meant to say ‘excellent NJ state ELA standards’ (not curriculum’). The beauty of it was that it WAS NOT a curriculum, just a listing of things students should be able to do, grade-span (rather than grade-by-grade), leaving admin/ teachers/ districts to fill in curricula and pedagogy for attainment. This allowed expansion and creativity.
For example, my town’s district decided writing was of key import, and established a scaffolded K-12 writing curriculum through district-wide teacher collaboration. My kids found, in attending metro-area college music-tech programs, that their writing ability put them above peers & enabled them to get good grades. With a little imagination in the current digital age, our town’s writing program could be made available to other districts. Just as any state could have adopted our early-’90’s “NJ Core Curriculum Stds” (free online!), emulating stds from a state which has produced top ed achievers for decades.
But no. Instead all this potential collaboration was stopped cold by top-down fed intervention, first w/NCLB, then RTTT/CCSS. NJ’s classrooms today, just like those of other states, are turning themselves inside-out in an attempt to implement hundreds of new stds imposed from above by fed–> state micromgt… which they could chose to ignore if it weren’t for the mandated ‘accountability’ measurements by which schools and teachers are graded via stdzd test scores.
‘The only difference I would mention is that we must have more equitable funding, and find some creative ways to integrate public schools. We never should have ignored the plight of urban schools.’
Integration though could lead to the disruption of community schools, which is another critique of the charter system. I suppose that’s why you said we need ‘creative ways’ of doing this, though. As for funding – what I’d like to know is, when was the last era that schools were funded properly or equitably?
Since property taxes are base of school funding, poor districts with a smaller tax base and very needy students that should have smaller classes wind up in large classes which only compounds the disadvantage of the students. While some states have been ordered to contribute more, the governors seem to get away with ignoring the court order. We need a better system.
Congratulations Eli B, you have arrived at the $64k question. Of course the answer is US public schools have never been funded equitably.
I can tell you that here in NJ we have a 30-yr history of redistributing property taxes from wealthy to poor areas in the attempt. There were some successes in the poor area nearest me (Newark)– but simultaneously, the inevitable happened: con-men got their hands on the excess funds for poor areas, scandals ensued. But instead of addressing the issues & improving the law, state gov moved in & ‘took over’ ‘failing’ districts (e.g., Newark) 20 yrs ago. This resulted in the graft moving to the state level, so that by late ’00’s you had inner-city school bldgs crumbling, mold-& rat-infested while state admin bloomed w/fatcats.
Enter the ed-reformers–Chris Cerf, Cami Anderson, Mark Zuckerberg, & the utter chaos of p.s. closings/ charter-openings/ indiv families w/3 kids assigned to 3 far-flung school assnts w/o transp, long lines in Sept for school registration, nonsensical course-assnts resulting in srs not being able to get courses needed for hs grad, etc!
Meanwhile, the Q you ask: doesn’t integration lead to break-up of community schools? is almost on-point in the ‘One Newark’ ed-reform scheme. Charterization itself breaks up community schools. As does any crazy mix-&-match ed-reform plan imposed top-down on a community. Hence the election [to replace ed-reformer Cory Booker] of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka who ran on a platform of returning mgt of Newark schools to local citizens.
The lesson, I think, is: no matter how poor or how segregated the area, the neighborhood public school, run by locals, is a cornerstone for building community. Without community investment & support in its schools, nothing good can be built.
It’s obvious that Gates, and the other power hungry, foolish, greedy autocrats who are also billionaires, doesn’t intend to let the people have a choice at the ballot box. They want to make sure that every candidate people are allowed to vote for is a candidate for their agenda and there is no opposition. When an honest candidate who supports the people and not the corporate education agenda slips through the net and makes it to the ballot, the Bill Gates Cabal of billionaires has proven that they are willing to spend ten to a hundred times what the candidate they can’t control and don’t own has to spend, and they will do this repeatedly from election to election knowing full well that studies have revealed that 91% of candidates running for public office who spend the most money end up winning.
“Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” these are the precepts our democracy were found on. It is a travesty that money holds sway over our democracy.
When “the pursuit of happiness” is equated with the American Dream, where having more stuff and money is “happiness”, then our democracy is run by the deceitful and vain values and morals of our culture, and we reap what we sow. For “the love of money…and the desire to get rich….cause a snare to the soul”
I, ME, MINE!! SCREW YOU!. . .
. . . is the New American Mantra. (and actually it isn’t that new just taken to new heights by the oligarchs and the minions that support them. It’s a beautiful life, it really is!)
Gates buys people. SAD!
Public schools would do well to consider the models of some independent schools that have done away with the AP testing regimens and listen to what colleges and universities are now emphasizing instead of test scores. independentcurriculum.org/
Also, consider Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith’s recent “Most Likely to Succeed” models for innovative and creative schools that challenge bureaucracies and the status quo. There’s some very good work being done in many places, often isolated and disconnected from a larger network but not always.
“As Bill Gates wryly observed at the end of the interview, ‘The work can go backwards….nobody votes to un-invent our vaccine.’ ”
Not quite true. Gates’ impact in the field of world health has many critics, among them, Medicins sans Frontieres. There are the $8000 public toilets in India, for example.
http://www.humanosphere.org/global-health/2012/05/doctors-without-borders-criticizes-gates-backed-global-vaccine-strategy/
A more updated look: http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/after-10-years-few-payoffs-from-gatesrsquo-lsquogrand-challengesrsquo/
Even something as seemingly simple as mosquito nets to prevent malaria didn’t work as planned — weren’t many of them turned by desperate people into fishing nets?