Carol Burris, experienced educator and Executive Director of the Network for Public Education, reacted to the article in Fortune about corporate support for the Common Core. Her message to CEO Rex Tillerson: “Leave our children alone.”
Burris wrote a personal letter to Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil. Tillerson was quoted in the Fortune article, complaining that American schools turn out “defective products.” For unknown reasons, he is convinced that the Common Core will fix those “defective products” (i.e., students) and make them “college and career ready.” Why does he think so? Well, important people say so, and that’s proof enough for Rex.
Burris’ message to Rex: leave our children alone. They are children, not products.
She writes:
Your Dickensian thinking has been “outed” and this holiday season, you are as welcome as the ghost of Christmas past. The common-folk for whom the Core you adore was designed, do not like it—only 24 percent of public school parents want it used in their school. And they certainly do not like to hear their children referred to as “defective products.” Mr. Tillerson, you have made the mommies and daddies mad.
I understand their reaction must confound you. In a world in which your corporation has been declared a person, one might mistake human children for products to consume. When we humanize the inanimate, it is easy for the humanity of the animate to slip away.
Take that, Rex. Very bad PR for Exxon. What is “good will” worth to your corporation? When you make the parents and teachers mad, you make a big mistake. A gaffe. A PR disaster.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The goals of current education reform are not an equitable education for all, nor are they to prepare all students for life, work and citizenship. Instead, there are several different goals: (1) Maintain the privileges of the already privileged (therefore, do not challenge inequitable local property tax funding or accept increases taxes on the wealthy); (2) Save some children among the “deserving poor,” (so support charter schools as an escape hatch and do not talk about poverty): (3) undermine teachers unions, one of the remaining strongholds of unions in general; (4) Open up education as an investment opportunity for private capital.
Education strategies for “other people’s” children, such as no-excuses behavioral strategies reflect the race and class biases of its advocates. It is what so-called reformers think “they” need not what they want for their own children. Similarly, advocacy for reward and punishment as motivation reflects an ideological commitment that trumps evidence.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
AMEN, Arthur.
Oh, the irony. With the likes of Exxon serving as the authority on what constitutes “defectiveness” we will all suffer from their abhorrant malfeasance…for generations to come. Exxon knew. http://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/Exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming
“Exxon-Mobil Truths”
Global warming isn’t real
Cigarettes are good
T-Rex never had a meal
Of fresh-killed flesh and blood
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Discover that corporate CEO’s think of OUR children as their products to do with as they want.
Cros-posted at http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Carol-Burris-to-CEO-of-Exx-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Carol-Burris_Diane-Ravitch_Education_Personal-160104-680.html
with this comment:
If you are still unaware of the WAR ON PUBLIC EDUCATION and the ongoing move by legislatures to takeover our public schools
https://dianeravitch.net/?s=legislature
then go to my series at Oped, and see the end of American Democracy and the road to opportunity, being subverted as education is privatized. http://www.opednews.com/author/series/author40790.html
Also, you can follow education news that is REAL AT The NPE
http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/news/
Ms Burris writes…
“But let me make this clear — our children are not products for your purchase. You, and the captains of industry (or whatever you call yourselves this century), are not “the customers.” School is not a training camp to work on oilrigs, to pump gas or design lubricants.”
Let’s check the course list for classes at South Side High in Rockvile, NY. Courses include…
Auto Mechanics
Carpentry
Refrigerating Heat and Air Conditioning
Welding
Advanced Topics in Chemistry
Marine Biology
Al of these sound like training or at least pre-training for a career at ExxonMobile
Click to access Program_Planning_Guide_2016-2017.pdf
Cynthia Weiss,
Your snide comment about Carol Burris’s high school, from which she recently retired, proves what a great principal she was. She offered International Baccalaureate classes, vocational classes, she welcomed students with disabilities and English language learners. Can you say the same for any charter schools?
Ms Ravitch,
You try to defer by pointing to charter schools, so clearly you missed my point.
At some level, high school is preparation for employment. Ms Burris can deny this all she wants, but the courses offered and likely demanded by parents at her own school are the proof.
Cynthia Weiss, I just saw Carol Burris and she told me that her school does not offer the list of courses you cited. She will post a link to the course catalog when she gets to a computer. She said you are wrong.
Do you think children are “products”?
C Weiss, Whether students pursue classes w/ real-world applications/hands-on experiences or classical studies, is it legitimate to regard them as “products”?
Ms Weiss. I suggest you do a close read. You know darn well that South Side does NOT offer auto mechanics, carpentry, welding and refrigeration. It is on a page that shows what the local BOCES offers. a few kids (about 10 a year of our 1100) choose to go to the BOCES –a different high school about 10 miles away, to take tech courses for less than half a day. They then come back to South Side to take their academic courses. Of course you do not mention the rich IB program in the arts, music, theatre and film which South Side does offer. We do have a wonderful course in IB Environmental Systems, which teaches students how the emissions from companies like Exxon result in Global Warming, and Theory of Knowledge that engages students in critical thinking–very helpful in preparing them to spot corporate propaganda.
Do you think that any human being should be referred to as a “defective product,” Cynthia?
Ms Ravitch wrote…
“Do you think children are “products”?”
Did you address my point that parents demand these classes and they provide real world training ‘to work on oilrigs, to pump gas or design lubricants’ despite Ms Burris’ claims that schools do not do this?
To Cynthia Weiss,
Schools respond to local needs. I live on Long Island. Parents are not demanding real world training to work on oil rigs, etc. and no one goes to school to learn to pump gas. No one pumps gasoline anymore. The pumps are automated. I frankly have lost sight of what your point is, other than to knock Carol Burris. I know Carol Burris, and believe me, we can all take lessons from this gifted educator.
Cynthia, have you addressed Booklady or my questions? Should ANY human being be referred to as a “product,” or, worse, a “defective product?”
Ms Ravitch,
Sorry I am not being clear.
1) Ms Burris writes to ExxonMobil and says school is not training for careers in oil\gas
2) I show that indeed schools do prepare students for these careers whether it is a chemistry class, a math class, or a CTE class like those offered to students where Ms Burris was principal.
As far as students being products, students are not the products but their level of academic achievement and preparedness for life and careers certainly are the ‘product’ schools should be ‘generating’.
“defective product” What the heck !? Bravo to Carol for writing to Rex. If the reports of Exxon’s climate finagling are true; he may have contributed to the extinction of the human race.
We can start by boycotting all Exxon products: https://exxonmobil.com/Lubes/products_brands.aspx
“Defective Products”
Tillerson’s defective brain
Makes him sound a bit insane
Talking about our little kids
Like they were some bottle lids
Thank goodness for individuals like Carol! Thank you! There are not enough voices of truth and reason to power. Exxon CEOs and all those insulated from “the real America” should be ashamed of themselves for daring to publish such clearly classist and biased comments. I am particularly disturbed by the “behaviorist” methods that they recommend for the “commoners”. View a YouTube video of Skinner’s Teaching machines and compare…..Children are not property, nor are they lab mice, Mr. Tillerson!
Thank you, Ms. Burris!
Ms Burris,
So parents and students in Rockville have never asked for these tech classes? Seems like semantics to say that South Side does not offer these classes, yet they are available to the students. Not sure how things work in NY, but in AZ our high schools join together to form JTE districts that offer these classes to students, paid for by voter approved property taxes. Parents have demanded and voters approved of these classes as IB and critical thinking classes are not for everyone.
Do you think these ‘tech’ classes ‘offered’ to the students at your former high school are valuable in providing those students real world training whether they work at a local mom and pop HVAC shop or a multi-national like ExxonMobile?
And what does global warming have to do with this debate?
Not really sure what your point is here. No one is arguing that public education should not play a role in preparing students for the world of work (or higher education). The vocational program you are focusing on is “offered” to many HS juniors in NYS as an off campus experience.
Ms. Burris is rightly correcting Mr. Tillerson’s misguided idea that the main purpose of public education is to provide well trained, highly functioning “products” for America’s workforce. And too think that harder tests will produce better welders, fork lift operators, or chemical engineers is simply preposterous. Tillerson is just another clueless oligarch with his head up his ass and his hand in our pockets.
Which parents are demanding what!? Scrapping bogus tech classes you mention above? I don’t understand your point is.
IBs don’t offer courses to train corporate elite-wannabes.
Your last sentence reveals your total ignorance of ExxonMobile’s dirty hands in the global warming.
No wonder you are totally way out of “twilight zone.”
hi- read with interest your blog re: Exxon Mobil and Leave our children alone. Exxon Mobil needs to take care of the Torrance, CA plant that THREATENS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF LOCAL RESIDENTS AND ESPECIALLY SCHOOLS AND that has had so many explosions it is now being investigated by the EPA–finally.
The plant exploded last February and if the blast had hit the illegal Hydrofluric Acid tank we would not be here today. We just had a big community meeting about the real threat it poses. Of course, Exxon has raised its’ gas prices here as a prize for Ca residents.
SO EXXON TAKE CARE OF YOUR BUSINESS BEFOREÂ YOU TRY AND TAKE CARE OF EDUCATION!
THANKS JOAN
Refinery Air Monitoring
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Reblogged this on Network Schools – Wayne Gersen and commented:
This is preposterous! The CEO of a corporation that deliberately misled our nation for over a decade wants to tell educators how to prepare students for the workforce of the future. I hope that “telling the truth” is one of the ideals employees of the future will aspire to.
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Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon-Mobil, does all he can to quash home rule in his state (Texas) and to stuff the TX legislature and TX Railroad Commission with paid proponents of unregulated gas drilling and processing and eminent domain for his criminal company and all O&G producers.
But when it came to approval of gas drilling and/or processing plants close to his home near Argyle TX in Denton County, he opposed it.