It wasn’t enough for Bill Gates to finance the Common Core, which survives butis held in contempt by many.
Now he wants to write curriculum for the nation.
Apparently he knows nothing about the Math Wars, the History Wars, the Wars in other subjects in the 1990s.
Ignorance is bliss.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sounds like Competency Based data collection to me. Gates doesn’t write curriculum. He sells software.
and surely he will “write” a curriculum which will sell: a curriculum which will TEACH is unlikely to be the top goal
This is just another way to take away local control in the name of corporate greed and profit. No surprise Gates is leading the way. Maybe its time for the nation’s teachers to follow the WV lead and walk out united this time. Enough!
Hammer Head Syndrome:
If the only tool you use is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail…
Maybe Gates has the “lesson head syndrome”:
If the only tool you use is a lesson, every problem looks to be lesson based.
Then again, as Judge Judy proclaims:
“Inadmissible, You can’t tell me what they think, you are not them.”
Once again Gates is inserting himself into education, a discipline he knows little about, yet in which he has underwritten considerable chaos. I heard Gates babbling about this plan on “Ellen,” and she treated him with reverence as though he was “Yoda.” Gates’ ‘aligned’ curriculum sounds like the Common Core 2.0. Gates will work with TNTP, profit generating non-profit, founded by Michelle Rhee. What could go wrong? It sounds like Gates is trying to offer another alternative type of non-university training for teachers. My guess is the emphasis will be on brainwashing new recruits into accepting computer software to drive instruction. This plan is more of the Gates’ villainthropy we have all come to know as a Trojan horse designed to undermine traditional instruction. He is trying to infiltrate K-12 instruction by presenting himself as a kinder, more benevolent oligarch. I’m not buying it!
Gates SCHMATES is just insuring his income stream … Ka-CHING, and saving his ego. I hope he crashes and burns.
Exactly, Yvonne. Gates knows diddly squat about education, but he sure knows how to sell software.
Gates has never created anything. He purchased his operating system from a guy in Colorado. Then he and his lawyer father SEWED UP the market. If Gates had to make an honest living, he would starve.
I read that Gates was a great salesman back then and that skill to convince that he was the guy that could deliver was what won the contract for him.
“I hope he crashes and burns”
You mean like so many of his computer programs?
Good one, Duane.
Gates is just a LAZY RICH person who has never had to do much of anything his entire life. I would like to see him TRY to teach a class of elementary school students for an entire month. He would, like his software, CRASH and BURN.
But surely we must think of the children first, eh!
Bill and Paul should be in jail. They demanded that their sales people SELL ONLY their product. The USA fined Microsoft only $10 million, while the European Union fined Microsoft $2 Billion. Bill and Paul violated Federal Law’s Restraint of Trade. And now we have, Microsoft’s awful operating system.
So, would I want someone like Gates writing curriculum? Answer: NO! Don’t want a liar and a cheater writing anything for our young and their schools.
There are more than a few areas he’ll end up having to weigh in – remember when common core had to choose between math and new math? How much confusion that caused?
Well, there are culture wars here he’ll find in ELA (they probably avoided Social Studies because what is taught and how it’s taught is INCREDIBLY politically sensitive).
They’ll end up weighing in on close reading again, as well as how to teach grammar/whole language stuff.
In science, they’ll wade into Intelligent Creation and Climate Change among others.
If they are focusing more on the meta “what” goes into a quality curriculum rather than the content, then they are basically making templates for lessons and curriculum – there are already a bunch of those. It’s unavoidable that to show what “quality” looks like you have to weigh in on “what should you be teaching” to get to the “how do you teach it” and then the best “how” to teach it will be dependent on local resources. Do you find high and low tech ways for schools that don’t have high technology? What about a 1:1 school vs classes with only periodic lab access?
What about the content you put in front of students – who do you buy it from and what do you do about schools with vastly different SpEd, ELL, poverty populations?
There are some heavy questions there that are not answered, and if they just “dive in” they are going to make a bunch more costly errors.
Gates is wading into a battlefield littered with land mines.
Maybe he’ll step on one and blow himself up.
As someone that has spent many years on curriculum projects on both the state and local level, I believe the most meaningful, relevant curricula come from those that understand subject content, methods, and students. They are trained teachers, not corporations looking to cash in on a windfall.
Can you imagine using Gates anything? Not me.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
It’s called the rule of money: I have the money, therefore I make the rules.
Here’s my take (from February 9, when Chalkbeat cheerfully announced this new Gates venture): http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_in_a_strange_land/2018/02/what_is_a_quality_curriculum.html
Remember when the CCSS authors kept insisting that standards were not curriculum, that teachers would custom-tailor their own curriculum using the standards as a framework–“goalposts,” in the words of Arne Duncan? Not so much, evidently.
CC was never just “standards.” They didn’t know the difference between standards and curriculum.
The CC$$ was never an actual set of standards in spite of the fact that it contained a lot of things that would be found in one. No true set of standards is copyrighted of has an indemnification clause that one must accept as a condition of use. Those are the hallmarks of a product which is all that the CC$$ is. Remember also that it was not developed and written in the way that a true set of standards (for anything) is. Gates move into curriculum writing is merely an admission of these facts and of him coming a bit cleaner, an admission that all he is interested in is putting out a product. He remains just as disingenuously clueless as ever. This is just rebranding, nothing new at all.
When the French wanted to standardize education, they experimented with the Lycee under Napoleon, who was a tyrant who wanted competent administors of his policy. Later, they came up with the idea of Normal Schools, schools which would teach,the teachers and thereby establish norms. Normals schools were established in America, I suppose in direct imitation of the French.
It was a really good idea. Let the professors teach teachers what they think people need to know. Then came the anti-intellectual sentiments of the business class of people, who felt that professors were fundamentally stupid because they disagreed with each other. As the business class grew powerful in a monetary sense, they acquired the notion that business had something to say to education.
At the pinnacle of this process is the extremely wealthy people from various business parts of our world thinking that they are the ones who know what we all need the most. The frightening aspect of this trend is that so many good parents are opting out of the system altogether. They feel powerless to deal with the system as it is practiced, and they school their own children. We could debate the efficacy of homeschooling, but that is not my point here. Many of the parents who are homeschooling their children would make wonderful contributions to the way we do things if the system allowed it. The present system does not allow it. Teachers do not have a choice about curriculum, it is sent to them from a far-off land, and they are punished with bad test scores if they happen to teach a different approach.
Many academics have been complicit in this process, suggesting that teachers do not really have the competency to know what kids need. Now we have, joining the academics, business people whose only educational experience was dropping out of learning in order to make money. Famously, some of them dropped out before they graduated college because their idea took off. Good for them, I say, for there needs to be a variety of paths to success in a free society. I applaud their gain so long as it is not acquired dishonestly. But their success in a field unrelated to education does not qualify them to be even mildly conversant regarding education.
We are blessed with a good group of historians and well educated people on this site. Someone please tell me where I am wrong. I have an open mind.
Bill Gates dropped out of school and stole his idea from somebody else. His Father was connected and knew people in high places who could open doors for little Billy. Those are the ONLY reasons Bill is at the top of the food chain.
I like this big picture account, Roy. I long for the days of normal schools guided by subject-area experts instead of self-styled pedagogy experts or egomaniacal business tycoons!
Whatever he will come up with, content-wise it will hardly be worse than what the schools peddle now. ELA barely scratches the rules of the language (what is a past participle?), math is all watered down, and science practically does not exist. There should be well-defined subjects like geography, biology, chemistry, physics all starting from middle school and being mandatory. Existing structure of subjects in American schools reflects 18th century mindset, but without Latin, fencing and poetry.
Because there is no official federal curriculum, it will be hard to compare his efforts with the myriad of curricula. On the other hand, big publishers are de-facto curricula providers, so I don’t see how Gates is worse than Pearson, they simply are rivals for the same piece of pie, the teachers and students are just cannot fodder.
There will never be a national curriculum. Period.
How many NO!s do I need for your post, Joe?
Ay, ay ay ay ay!
Don’t know if you are a teacher, are you or have you been a teacher? If so, how long and what was/is your subject/grade level experience?
Thanks in advance for answering my questions.
Ooooh, maybe I will stop teaching literature, composition, and critical thinking so I can teach participles (which, by the way, is a CCSS). Gerunds are why I became a teacher. I could spend the year diagramming sentences, giving multiple choice questions about nonsensical talking pineapples! How exciting.
To all in the business world: Get out of my business.
SAME-O, SAME-O BS, John Doe.
Then how do you explain this? https://www.nasa.gov
I know many scientists and mathematicians who write software that works. But, of course, they know they are not teaching students. They know the limits of what they do, unlike people like Gates and Zuckerberg. They went to public schools.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/missions/cassini/in-depth/
If math is watered down in many districts across the US, you can thank Jason Zimba, the quack who wrote the Common Core math standard
I call him a quack because though he knows math (as do millions of scientists and engineers in the US), he has no expertise writing a math standard..
The math professor who was advising the CC committee actually refused to sign off on the CC standard because he said it would dumb down the nation’s math program, which it has.
Zimba should be sued for every penny of the hundreds of thousands of dollars he charged for CC “development”.
Glad to know he had a doctorate in teaching and learning, and child development.
I taught what my administrators thought was a canned reading program. They missed the lesson taught by the creators of the program (actual teachers as well as professors) as they demonstrated to us how they MODIFIED the program to fit the needs of their students and the system parameters under which they taught. I have grown to hate the term “teaching with fidelity,” a phrase known and loved by administrators who, if they ever knew, have forgotten what it means to be a teacher. They saw no incongruity in demanding that I follow the program to the “T” while being mandated to develop individualized education programs for my special ed students. Even after seven years out of the classroom, I find myself more and more angry at their ignorance.
Well, here I show my age. When I first started teaching special education, Public Law 94-142 was just taking effect (the year after I first started teaching, in fact). Special needs kids who had never had a chance to attend school started flooding into public education (and thank goodness for that).
But there really was no written curriculum for the developmentally disabled whom I taught. The only curriculum the first school I taught in had was DISTAR reading. A very scripted, phonics-based program. But the school didn’t care how we implemented it. I used it, but I added a bunch of other stuff, including sight words such as “safety words” (words like Do Not Enter, Danger, Poison, Exit, etc.). Given the severe impairments of most of my students, I am proud to say that a lot of them learned to read on the 1st or 2nd grade level, and some of them up to a 5th grade level.
Everything else, including the safety words program, we wrote and we implemented. Making change, telling time for those capable of it, self-care skills, working on task skills, pedestrian safety, and again, for those few capable of it, some science and social studies. Plus sign language and/or early communication boards for those students who were non-verbal.
Oh, and for the older students (high school age to age 21), appropriate sex education. Special needs people are often taken advantage of, up to and including being raped. But some of them actually get married, and need to know about birth control and such.
We taught it all, and much of it, we developed.
So I ask, Gates Foundation, what are you doing for students like the ones I taught?
I remember Distar!
Speduktr, it’s been around a long time.
So have I!
LOL!
The Gates Foundation, as all ed-reformers, want SPEd kids to go away. The only thing they offer are the Special Education Scholarships the euphemism for vouchers.
Once the system is slowly privatized, dismantled and fractured, kids with disabilities from poor & not-savvy parents will disappear from the spreadsheets. Devos stopped enforcing civil rights violations & Arne ended compliance enforcement with IDEA.
ESSA allowed mixing general ed & SPED funds- everyone fights for the same paltry amount of money. Right after ESSA the budget cuts came down & pitted one against the other. It’s the Hunger Games for SPED & Gen ed kids, and these elected officials act as if we should kiss their rings & tank them for giving us crumbs.
Parents had better wake up before they find their kids previously protected programs have been outsourced to charter chains & SPED consultants.
Education works best IMHO when teachers teach students, not just ‘programs.’ When I first started teaching French, I used a prescribed audio-visual program. I was new to teaching,so I followed it, but I saw it didn’t work with all students. I had nothing to fall back on, and I thought I would lose my mind. It was so frustrating.
Q The frightening aspect of this trend is that so many good parents are opting out of the system altogether. They feel powerless to deal with the system as it is practiced, and they school their own children. We could debate the efficacy of homeschooling, but that is not my point here. Many of the parents who are homeschooling their children would make wonderful contributions to the way we do things if the system allowed it. END Q
I have some acquaintance with home-schooling. I agree that many of the parents who have given up on the publicly-operated schools, could be making wonderful contributions to the publicly-operated schools, if the system would permit this.
The parents who are the most involved with teaching their children, are the home-schoolers. What incentive do they have to assist the public schools? NONE What reason do they have to vote for bond issues, and tax increases, to help the schools that they have abandoned? NONE What incentive do home-schooling parents have to ask their local school boards to improve the public schools? NONE
This starts a “vicious cycle”, where the best parents pull their children out of the public system. The systems get less financial support. The public systems decline in quality. More parents home-school. And then down it goes.
Charles,
90% of parents choose public schools. Very few Home school.
If public school teachers in the US had autonomy in their classrooms, then they would be free to utilize these parents that are willing to homeschool their children to avoid the mostly top-down public education system in the U.S.
Top-down put power and decisions in the hands of a few. Bottom-up where teachers have a lot of autonomy puts decision making into millions of hands and not all that much power because in the traditional public schools, legislation exists to deal with abuse of power in the hands of teachers.
For instance, “Influence of Family on Education – Finland”
“It is said that family is one of the most crucial partners when it comes to learning and promoting different kinds of social skills. You will notice that teachers are urged to keep the parent informed about their child’s education progress use various modes. This includes parent visitation to childcare or school setting, telephone conversations, newsletters, home visits, informal notes, bulletin boards, workshops, and regular face-to-face communication. All of these are focused on what the child is actually doing at school – and whether or not their parents are aware of the same.”
http://www.finlandeducation.info/Career-Options/Career-Guide/Influence-of-Family-on-Education.html
In the United States, instead of respect and trust (like in Finland), all the blame for every perceived flaw/failure in public education has been heaped on public school teachers and teachers’ labor unions. With teachers blamed for every perceived flaw/failure, students and parents are off the hook for being responsible for anything.
For instance, in California when I was still teaching (don’t know if this is still the case), the state had school report cards that had to be available to the public and the rating for the high school where I taught had dropped to the next lower number. It was in the newspapers and the students were buzzing about it because their parents were talking about it and it was obvious that the teachers were being blamed for that ranking drop that was based on the results of a statewide standardized test.
In each class, I put a stop to the laughter and accusations and pointed out that a few miles away was another high school in another district that had ranked at the top of the 1 to 10 scale. I pointed out that if our high school and that high school swapped students but not teachers, the score would follow students and our high school would shoot to the top and the other high school would drop near the bottom — with the same teachers in place.
In addition, I want to point out that more than 90 percent of my students did not turn in homework on a regular basis or read most of the assignments. After all, if they didn’t learn, it wasn’t their fault. It was always the teacher’s fault. With blame being heaped on teachers, students now had an excuse to do nothing and as top-down grew over the years with high stakes tests being implemented that rankied and punished teachers, that mindset among students grew stronger.
How do I know that? When I started teaching in the 1970s up to the early 1980s before the flawed and misleading “A Nation at Risk” report came out under Reagan, more than 80 percent of the students I taught did their homework because, at that time, students and their parents thought the child was responsible to learn on their own with teacher guidance. The teachers were responsible to teach, correct and assess. Students had to actually do the work and study and when a student earned a poor grade, it wasn’t the teacher that was blamed.
I am a successful homeschooling parent. By any standard, my adult children have proven that my methods were good for them. But nothing that I have been able to do here at home, will ever translate to a public school setting! I do not know more than public school teachers, who are highly trained for the setting in which they must work. I should not be consulted on curriculum, classroom management, funding, or discipline policies, except as a private citizen and community member.
My job as a homeschooling parent is not to give advice or intervene, concerning our local schools. It’s not even my job to enroll my child in public school, so I can support schools from the inside!
My job as a citizen is to encourage my friends and neighbors who teach, gladly pay my property taxes, buy the overpriced fundraiser items, attend town hall meetings, set a good example for families – keep a well ordered home, value education, and raise good kids – and to get informed before I vote.
And I MUST vote. What do you mean, I have no incentive?? My incentive for voting in favor of schools must be the long view – these are America’s children, and America’s future. I know the history of public education, and why it matters! Nobody should only care while their own child is in the school! Maybe that’s how we got here?
After twenty years of homeschooling, I know a lot about home education. But I only know two things about public education:
1. It is essential, and must have my full support, and
2. There are experts on public education, who deserve respect and deserve to be heeded, before it is too late. And I don’t mean Bill Gates or schoolteachers from Finland or homeschool parents!
Thank you, Amy Hopkins Raab, for your knowledgeable comment.
Obviously, you are a thoughtful citizen of this country and are very aware that it is crucial for our children to be educated in good schools. And most of our children go to public schools.
Lloyd Lofthouse, I did not see your reference to Finland, before I posted. To be clear, let me explain that I did not mean that our schoolteachers and others in public education should not study other nation’s education systems.
I specifically meant that those outside of public education should stop looking to others also outside of public education, as the ones with the answers. Outside is not where to find experts.
The Gates interference with Public Education is very worrisome.
Gates’ fragile EGO is his problem. He is covering up his own inadequacies using $$$$$, like so many do.
Just the thought of Bill Gates writing the curriculum for the nation’s public school teachers is a raging laughing matter.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen co-authored Microsoft BASIC, one of the first Microsoft products.
And we all know how reliable and safe Microsoft’s programs are. I mean, Microsoft never had to fix anything wrong with their programs, right?
For instance, “Microsoft issues emergency Windows update for processor security bugs”
And that was just last January 2018.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/3/16846784/microsoft-processor-bug-windows-10-fix
Lloyd, you know nothing about software development. If you want to get a feel of what a daunting task it was to create software for IBM PC architecture, get a copy of Undocumented Windows, reads like a thriller.
John Doe,
How do you know what Lloyd does or does not know?
In my last reply to John Doe (aren’t John Does usually unidentified corpses or someone alive that lost their memories and do not know why they are) I said I didn’t know much about software development. I should have mentioned that after I retired from teaching, I took night classes to learn how to build and program my own websites and blogs. After the night classes, I took some day-long workshops too.
I think that qualifies me for knowing a “little” about software development.
It is more frightening than that.
Software guys assume that any “bugs” in what they sell can just be fix ed every Wednesday night in a maintenance release. The idea that the product should be correct at the beginning is a lost concept. They assume that after a number of “iterations” they will get it right.
Unfortunately, children can’t be “patched” like Windows. Once they hit middle school, it might be too late.
N.B.: I am currently a senior software developer but am appalled at the way Silicon Valley tech mogels are trying to impose their shaky version of reality of the world.
True, I know little to nothing about software developed and I don’t care that I don’t know.
But Bill Gates knows nothing about teaching children and the challenges that teachers face every day. Bill Gates attended the same very expensive private schools his own children attend. He has no idea what public school teachers face every day and the problems he has caused with his meddling.
Know-nothing (about educating children) Bill Gates should get his power-hungry, manipulating fingers out of public education.
Then how do you explain this?
Note the difference in fines. I smell many rats.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/05/03/technology/gates_penalty/
You don’t have to know anything about software development to know that Microsoft software is full of bugs and security holes.
Their automated windows patch updates are all the proof one needs of that.
But there is a reason that many of the software developers that I worked with refered to Gates’ company as Microslop. Gates’ approach to software development is “release something that kinda sorta works, let the customers find the bugs and then fix them over time with patches and new releases”
I think it’s a great idea. Have you even looked at Khan Academy? It’s brilliant and free. Gates finances it. What is education afraid of? The education community likes to pay money for items because it’s easier than figuring out how to get better items for free. Rich people use the free items first and spends money only if needed for tutors and consultants. Everyone else spends the money on medicore learning materials thinking it’s good because it’s easy. Students find it tedious. At least Khan shows growth.
I believe all students can master math if taught well and without teacher or bias. Gates does too. Have you seen the bias in teacher training math textbooks? Did you know that Finland removed all gender references in 1990’s? We still don’t get it. Just saying.
You must surely be right. All students can master any subject best without teachers. Why have humans teaching when machines are so cool and cost so little.
Salman Khan:
“I think they’re valuable, but I’d never say they somehow constitute a complete education.”
If you’re “Usually Right”, well this time you have it “All Wrong”.
That or my sarcasmometer need adjusting.
Somehow though, I think it’s just fine: “At least Khan shows growth.” Oh, he does? Is he getting taller in each video or is he getting wider in each video (more likely)?
Tell me please what is the standard unit of “growth” to which you refer?
In the beginning, Khan Academy was helpful. Once he teamed up with Gates, Khan Academy became common core aligned. No longer could I use Khan Academy to help my children do their homework or to help them understand a math concept….it’s all about skill sets with no connection to….anything.
A while back i looked at a few Con Academy lessons in physics and was not at all impressed.
Con was confused about very basic physical principles and even about definitions like “scalar” and “vector”, which he mixed up.
The fellow is pathetic.
I doubt Bill Gates knows enough physics to judge Con’s stuff, but I would not recommend it to anyone.
American corporations have to deal with the individuals who graduate from America’s schools. Why is it so terrible, that corporate leaders cannot have some reasonable input into education policy?
Our nation needs a committee like the Japanese MITI, to oversee industrial and education policy, and make recommendations to both industry and government (including public schools), on all types of economic policy decisions.
Why not bring in some corporate leaders, into the education policy debate, and receive their observations and suggestions? We need to have psychologists, teachers, academicians, university leaders, policy wonks, and ordinary citizens involved in this debate. We should even include some military professionals, and get their observations on what should be included in school curricula. The military has to deal with the output of our nation’s public schools, too.
“War is too important, to be left to the generals” – Clemenceau
I want to become a surgeon. Do you think I could find a corporate executive to teach me how to do surgery?
I want to become a lawyer. Can you recommend a software designer to give me a law education?
One of my favorite high school classes was JROTC. I think it is terrific to have military training in high schools. Students get exposed to military history, first aid, military protocols, firearms safety, and a host of subjects that are not presented in any other high school instruction.
Sad that Nikolas Cruz learned so much about shooting as a member of JROTC. Sure many fine young people went through the same program.
Note how our resident contrarian for contrarian’s sake completely ignored the questions about a surgeon and a lawyer. Last year I had a discussion with a physician who could not understand my disdain for deformers, I said, “You surely would not support having people with no medical training advising patients about disease. Why would we let anyone with no experience in a classroom tell teachers how to teach?” He still wasn’t sure that he was convinced by my argument, but he said he’d have to think about it. I followed up by asking if he would feel safe driving over a bridge that had been designed and built by someone who had not studied physics and engineering. I struck an intellectual nerve.
GregB,
Some of the contrarians disappear. On purpose.
@GregB: I did not ignore the question, I submitted a comment, and it was not published. I am not suggesting that bridges be designed by people who have no background in physics/engineering. I am suggesting that education and educational policy impacts every sector of our economy. Corporations hire individuals, who are educated in the nation’s public schools/universities. Why not seek their input, in crafting educational policy? The Japanese have done this for many years, through their MITI, and other quasi-governmental policy think tanks. Japanese public schools produce excellent results, their students continually score very highly on exams. The Japanese economy benefits from graduates who are prepared to work in corporations, who have contributed to the contents of their educational policy.
@Diane: Your analogies are false and pejorative. I am not suggesting that engineers set up medical schools. I am not suggesting that software designers develop law school curriculum. I am advocating nothing of the sort.
You often suggest that our nation adopt some concepts from Finland (I agree). Why not adopt some concepts from Japan? Their public schools work in concert with industry and government, and the results speak for themselves.
I am suggesting, that our nations public schools, serve the public. The public pays the bills (through taxes), and the output of the schools (graduates) are going to be working in our factories and laboratories. Since public school advocates often (rightly) stress the democratic nature of public school policy, then why not seek input from a variety of sources, including industry?
I submit, that our nation’s educational system could learn a great deal from the military. For the first 100 or so years of our Republic, the only engineering school in the nation, was West Point. The military operates vocational/technical schools, which teach computer operations and maintenance, and all types of subjects like aircraft maintenance. The service schools develop curriculum for their schools. I submit, that public schools could possibly adopt some of their teaching methods, and educational philosophy.
The US system of public education, is modeled on the Prussian educational system, see:
http://www.returnofkings.com/64892/why-is-the-united-states-still-using-the-prussian-education-system
Have you ever wondered why students would rise, when the teacher enters the classroom? This is a military courtesy, we picked up from the Prussians.
Bottom Line: Our educational policy impacts every sector of our economy, and our national security. It is just far too important to be left solely in the hands of government-paid educational bureaucrats, who have no concept of the private sector, and the real world. Seeking input from a wide variety of experts, in the corporate world, the private sector, as well as from psychologists, and other professionals, is just good policy.
Charles,
I love your idea about learning from Japan.
They have strict gun control.
They value education.
They don’t have vouchers or charters.
A very strong public school system.
Diane, before we decide (and before Charles decides) that we need to emulate Japan in all things regarding education, we also need to be aware that Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world among school- age children, and a lot of that is because of the pressures put on those kids.
Beware of what you ask for. We need to take the good but not the bad.
https://www.humanium.org/en/child-suicide-in-japan-the-leading-cause-of-death-in-children/
I don’t think we neeed to copy any nation focused on test scores but it was Choice-loving Charles who said we should copy Japan. I wanted to remind him that Japan does not take his advice.
Oh, I realize that, Diane, but I don’t like answering Chuckie directly, and haven’t for a long while, because I find him tedious and, frankly, remarkably stubborn and unwilling to learn from anybody else.
True
There are many excellent policies in other nations, that this nation could pick up on. The Germans invented the autobahns, as a way to move military vehicles and equipment. That is why we have the National Interstate and Defense Highway system.
Our nation does not have all of the answers. If Japan’s educational system, gets input and policy assistance from the corporate sector, we can too!
Japan followed Deming’s lead and remade its corporations.
Read Andrea Gabor’s forthcoming book, After the Education Wars, to see how Deming’s principles would improve our schools. Accountability begins at the tip. Stop blaming front line workers for management failures.
Wrong. The German’s did not invent the highway system that they call the autobahn. The U.S. was the first country to come up with a modern highway system.
“Modern highway systems developed in the 20th century as the automobile gained popularity. The world’s first limited access road was constructed on Long Island New York in the United States known as the Long Island Motor Parkway or the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway. It was completed in 1911.[7]
“Construction of the Bonn–Cologne autobahn began in 1929 and it was opened in 1932 by the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer.[8]
“In the USA, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1921 (Phipps Act) enacted a fund to create an extensive highway system. In 1922, the first blueprint for a national highway system (the Pershing Map) was published. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 allocated $25 billion for the construction of the 41,000-mile-long (66,000 km) Interstate Highway System over a 20-year period.[9]”
Before the German’s built their first autobahn, the US passed legislation in 1921 to fund and create an extensive highway system modeled after what was built in Long Island New York in 1911.
I developed a process for teachers and administrators using Deming Principles. Teachers loved it and so did principles. Then came CCSS and testing and the dictates from those who have no clue.
See link below. Seems every tech company wants school money and are selling their wares.
http://cps.adobeeducate.com/US-Infographic?scid=social75739787&adbid=1747842428592416&adbpl=fb&adbpr=341657335877606
Meant PrinciPALS: sorry.
“Why not bring in some corporate leaders, into the education policy debate, and receive their observations and suggestions?”
That has been happening for over 100 years. To learn about how business people have been doing just that during that time please read Ray Callahan’s classic 1962 book “Education and the Cult of Efficiency”.
“We should even include some military professionals. . . ”
Why would I want the stilted opinions of someone who worked their way up the ranks in a system that is 100% built on obedience and ass-kissing and that is built to being the most destruction and death organization on the face of the earth?
I’d choose real educators and classroom teachers who support life and living for making a living.
For the first 100 or so years of our republic, the only engineering school in the nation was West Point. Many colleges and universities adopted the teaching techniques and curriculum from the service academies’ engineering programs. West Point itself, was modeled after the French Ecole Polytechnique. see
https://books.google.com/books?id=FhS5rzb-HyIC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=west+point+modeled+after+ecole+polytechnique&source=bl&ots=fu4yT28iVL&sig=BF5Jqpx5YKa3Ghy3F6olI3hV0ro&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjk9ZDA-tfZAhVRvFMKHQsbCWIQ6AEIQjAF#v=onepage&q=west%20point%20modeled%20after%20ecole%20polytechnique&f=false
Our civilian educational system has adopted many concepts and ideas, from our own military schools, and from foreign military schools.
That was then and this is now. I’m talking now. You didn’t answer my question as to why military officials should be included as the military then is not the military of today. No doubt that Napolean’s main concern in establishing the education system in France at the time was to insure that he’d have a steady supply of loyal supporters for/in the military. I know that is not the fundamental purpose of public education these days.
Again, answer my question, please.
Duane,
Here’s a for real one involving a military professional.
Boulder Valley Public Schools actually hired some retired military officer from the Air Force Academy. He didn’t last and also had a “Golden Parachute.”
Sigh…
Ah, the Air Force Academy, known for it’s militant xtian fundie support that is against the Military Code of Justice. See Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s site. He and his son are both graduates of the US Air Force Academy. https://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/about/michael-l-mikey-weinstein/
@Duane:I tried to answer before, but my comment was deleted. See my other comments. The US Department of Defense operates more schools than the US Department of Education. Many (not all) of the concepts and curriculum that the US DoD uses could be adopted by the US publicly-operated educational systems.
I am an Air Force veteran, and I am a former civilian employee of the US DoD. I work at the Pentagon now.
You obviously have a less-than-stellar opinion of the military.
I assert that the education of America’s youth, is too important to be left solely to educational government bureaucrats. Many nations seek input from outside sources, in their educational policy.
The Germans partner with private industry, in setting up and administering their apprenticeship programs. The Japanese utilize quasi-government “think tanks” like the MITI, to advise on educational policy.
I assert that the US military, could be of assistance in helping to shape American educational policies. Their vocational/technical schools train soldiers/airmen in all types of specialties.
The US military has to accept the graduates of America’s schools. Why not seek their input, in helping to craft a coherent and modern educational policy?
Charles, you have so many ideas and so little knowledge of education and children.
Charles, what you suggest sounds like turning the United States into Sparta. If this idea has been bantered about in your professional job circles, it’s obvious that the military-industrial complex is thinking what an advantage it would be to start OUR children early, like in kindergarten or preschool, teaching them to be ready for the next war.
Such thinking is absurd and insane. What you are suggesting is breeding our children for war, for battle.
We do not need and should not want to have military thinking involved in solving problems in our public schools.
To understand what I mean, read about Sparta here:
“Bred for Battle—Understanding Ancient Sparta’s Military Machine
“Sparta’s entire culture centered on war. A lifelong dedication to military discipline, service, and precision gave this kingdom a strong advantage over other Greek civilizations, allowing Sparta to dominate Greece in the fifth century B.C.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2016/11-12/sparta-military-greek-civilization/
I, for one, do not want that, a state run by an inflexible military regime, whose people exist almost entirely to serve the military and pour money into the pockets of freaks like Donald Trump and the Koch brothers. The U.S. has come way too close to that already with the endless wars from Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan and with Trump beating the war drums over North Korea and Iran, and with no end in sight.
There’s an old saying among “former” Marines that goes something like this. We wouldn’t take a million dollars to do it over again but we also wouldn’t take a million dollars to erase that experience from our minds … and most if not all of us volunteered for that experience.
Imagine forcing five and six-year-olds into that type of world against their will and the will of their parents.
Okay, Lloyd, I can’t help myself:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eZeYVIWz99I
“You obviously have a less-than-stellar opinion of the military.”
Yes, indeed, because I can see with eyes fully opened what the fundamental purpose of and the results of military actions entail. I do not see through the eyes of the propagandistic irreality of the military through which it would love all to see.
Why not seek their input, in helping to craft a coherent and modern educational policy?
Because society would be far better served if the military would stick to what it knows best-death and destruction and leave the life and living focused schools to do what need to be done to provide what it takes so that the public schools may fulfill their constitutional mandate of promoting the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.
I have attempted to answer your question. The US Dept of Defense has a wealth of information, and educational expertise, that could easily be interpreted and adapted for civilian use.
As far as France’s Ecole Polytechnique, see this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique
The institution was set up by Napoleon I as a military school. It has evolved into a prestigious educational institution, and today very few of its graduates pursue military careers. It served as the model for West Point, the US military academy.
It is a fine example of a military/civilian partnership, which results in providing world-class educations for its students.
I assert, that the USA could also establish a military/civilian partnership, and utilize the resources to help build a modern, 21st century educational alliance.
After all, Horace Mann adopted many of his concepts from the Prussian military schools. Horace Mann even traveled to Germany in 1843, and upon his return, lobbied hard for the USA to adopt the Prussian military model. See
http://www.forcedschool.com/post/69947261758/the-prussian-model
Many (not all) of today’s educational professionals have elevated Mann into a demi-God, and practically worship his reforms. Why not emulate his example?
Charles,
You manage to garble whatever you write about. Horace Mann never visited Prussian military schools. He learned about and visited the Prussian state schools. He saw the schools as a common state system. Other nations copied the idea as well. It had nothing to do with militarism.
All militaries exist primarily for the same purpose-death and destruction. France and education of Napolean’s time is not the same as public education two hundred years hence in the USofA in 2018.
I know your life has been built/lived on military terms, Chas. However, the military as it is today-a far greater death, destruction and killing machine, and through its personnel and retired personnel touting military “discipline” has no place whatsoever in public schools. Your glorification of Napolean’s military, a grand killing and destruction machine of its own and the American military is nothing more than propagandistic twaddle.
Reblogged this on Speaking As A Teacher – Susan Lee Schwartz Blog and commented:
Only teachers can write curriculum that meets the LEARNING NEEDS of the kids who sit in front of them! That is why the schools have been emptied of the experienced teacher… so magic elixirs https://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html could be passed on to a public that has no knowledge of WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE.
This report says Gates is already paying Larry Singer, the CEO of Open Up Resources, to develop curriculums that can be freely downloaded. Singer said his organization had to create a nearly identical version of one Common Core curriculum for West Virginia, but without any reference to the Common Core.
Open Up Resources is a non-profit funded by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.
The Gates Foundation alone has put $3.5 million into Open Up Resources, and spent over $4.3 million for a curriculum known as Illustrative Mathematics written by Bill McCallum. The ELA curriculum is from EL Education (formerly Expeditionary Learning). Gates invested $23.9 million in the Engage NY Expeditionary Learning program.
Both curricula are offered in print and online versions. They are in the can, not under development as some new venture. What seems to be new is the publicity, and some details not widely known. For Example TNTP will offer some version of teacher training or “professional development” for districts. Stanford’s Graduate School of Education appears to be promoting some aspect of this venture along with WestEd. http://ell.stanford.edu/search/node/Bill%20and%20Melinda%20Gates Open Up
The Gates Foundation will entrust quality reviews to “three partners:” Achieve and Student Achievement Partners—both deeply involved in promoting/writing the Common Core—and UnboundED. All three of these quality control reviewers have received millions from the Gates Foundation.
These “not brand new” curriculum materials will be available through a Creative Commons Licence. Lumen Learning, a provider of online open source courses, may be supplying some early college course credits for high school students or online courses for teachers who are using these curricula.
In 2014 The Gates Foundation sent about $3 million to Lumen Learning to “develop, distribute, and implement a new generation of digital courseware that is high-quality, personalized, affordable, scalable, and improves student outcomes…in high enrollment undergraduate general education courses. I wonder when the early-college part of this program will be announced.
This press release does not mention that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Lumen Learning are among the most conspicuous funders of IMS Global Learning Consortium. Members of IMS want interoperability to be a feature of online learning, and across international borders.
Among about 180 members of IMS are vendors of education products and services such as Houghton Mifflin; Harcourt; McGraw-Hill; Macmillan; Pearson, and Renaissance Learning. Add Google, IBM, MicroSoft, Mozilla, Oracle and the testing companies—ETS, ACT, even PARCC and SMARTER.
Other members of IMS are education agencies, foundations, and institutions here and elsewhere the world—all converting courses based on national, state, or district standards into competency-based online courses. Houston, Texas; Volusia County Florida; and Newburg City Schools in New York are among IMS districts. IMS has alliances with agencies in Japan, the Netherlands, the EU, UK, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and Spain. A main function of IMS is coding all aspects of education and certifying programs are interoperable. The US Common Education Data Standards program (CEDS) is working with IMS on coding for interoperability across national boundaries. https://www.imsglobal.org/sites/default/files/CASE/casev1p0/best_practices/caseservicev1p0_bestpracticesv1p0.html
Two more notes. Even before the Common Core State Standards were published, Gates was funding curriculum work. In December 2009, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation enabled the transfer of initial work on an ELA curriculum, started by the National Governor’s Association and Council of Chief State School Officers, through a grant in excess of $550,000 to a non-profit organization that happened to have the name Common Core.
That ELA project was led by Lynn Munson, former head of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The initial version of the ELA program was written in part by people who had worked on the E.D. Hirsch Core Knowledge Program as well as Achieve’s America Diploma project. The ELA project included a spreadsheet for teachers to record their “coverage” of each ELA standard for a particular grade level. The early marketing of the program referred to “curriculum maps.” The intent was to leave some selections of readings and assignments to teachers. I reviewed several of units and lessons in the ELA grade level map before the whole program went into a subscription mode. By then, Lynn Munson was developing Eureka Math and later a curriculum for history. That work is now marketed through the Munson-led Great Minds.org
Finally, EdReports, initially funded at $3 million by the Gates Foundation is also funded by Broadcom Corporation, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Foundation, the Helmsley Charitable Trust, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Overdeck Family Foundation, the Samueli Foundation, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, and the Stuart Foundation.
EdReport reviewers judge the“fidelity” of curriculum materials to the Common Core. If reviewers find that materials do not meet two initial “drop dead criteria” there is no redemption, no time wasted looking at the materials. ( one criterion: No review of work from a previous grade level. (The training program must run on time). EdReports is populated with leaders for Teach for America, TNTP, KIPP and others who meet Bill Gates standards as workers for his mission—total control, everything perfectly aligned, standards with curriculum, curriculum with tests, tests with standards and round and round—perfected circular reasoning.
Gates wants to usurp the authority of states, districts, schools, and teachers in reviewing and rating curriculum materials. He wants to put for-profit publishers of curricula out of business. He wants print material to be at the margins relative to on-line course material. Online encounters allow for data capture so flaws in the delivery of instruction and flaws in student learning can be exposed to view.
This announcement says Gates will focus on high school courses in math, English, and science. You can bet that the courses will be aligned with specific Common Core Standards and include a data-dashboard for evidence of student “mastery” of each standard, complete with an alpha-numeric code.
Gates has no understanding of the difference between training and education, and he does not care. He finds no sin in being a monopolist. He thrives on paying millions to people who will do his bidding and whose work he “likes.”
The Gates-funded ELA project in 2009 went to an organization called Common Core that had no relationship to the CCSS. I was on the board of CC. I left soon after the arrival of the Gates grant. Common Core was created in a partnership with the AFT to advocate on behalf of the arts and humanities at a time when NCLB threatened to snuff them out.
I am aware of that the organization Common Core existed long before the CCSS. You were on the board of Common Core, along with Hirsch and Munson.
But it is also true that Munson’s curriculum maps were written to be CCSS compliant and the website promo for Eureka Math includes a positive EdReports rating.
That moment in history was filled with “core” references–the Common Core organization, the Core Knowledge program, and the Common Core State Standards.
No doubt, but I had resigned from the board by then. When you take Gates money, you do what Gates wants.
Barbara Byrd Bennett was also on the board.
As usual, great post Laura!!! 🙂
Thank you, Laura. I will keep my eye out for the companies you named so I can resist them from the get go when my Gates funded district buys them.
Right on, Laura.
Agree with:
Gates has no understanding of the difference between training and education, and he does not care. He finds no sin in being a monopolist. He thrives on paying millions to people who will do his bidding and whose work he “likes.”
I really liked Lynne Munson’s editorials on the old Common Core website.
If Gates drops skills-centrism and instead falls under the sway of the likes of content-centrics like Munson and E.D. Hirsch, he might produce something salutary for American kids. But if his outfits keep cranking out EngageNY-type lessons –17 page directions on how to spend five days close-reading a single paragraph to “build up” non-existent general skills–stultification will reign.
Oops: “..and instead falls under the sway of content-centrics like…”
From the article:
“Another way to judge different curriculums is to focus on which materials have been found to make the biggest impact on student achievement. Studies have shown that some textbooks do better than others, though differences tend to be fairly modest, roughly akin to moving a 50th percentile student up several percentage points.”
Yes, I’m sure that the curriculum materials make a YUGE “impact on student achievement”. The teacher obviously has nothing to do with said impact. Who the hell thinks and writes so sloppily?
Not to mention I don’t give a damn about “student achievement”, to whatever it is that the author is referring. But boy oh boy, it makes a great ignorant talking point-raise student achievement. Again, who the hell thinks and writes so sloppily?
And in the same vein, I’d like to see those studies that show how a textbook “does better than others”. Same type logical error. The textbooks don’t do a damn thing, they’re inanimate objects. The teacher has nothing to do with it, eh? And, again, who the hell thinks and writes so sloppily?
Now one might wonder how the author can manage to pack so many stupidities and inanities into one small paragraph, but it ain’t over yet: “. . .roughly akin to moving a 50th percentile student up several percentage points.” Really?? Percentiles and percentages are not interchangeable terms. And even if the test scores were influenced to produce several (3-4 generally speaking) percentile points difference that would, more likely than not, still be within the range of the margin of error for said scores, meaning that the influence was basically nil and one can’t attribute the change to anything.
Who the hell thinks and writes so sloppily?
If the curriculum is reduced to algorithms and delivered online, then the “teacher” is really the unseen person or staff doing the coding. In that case Gates would probably think that tweaking the code would perfect the program.
Flaws in “implementation” have always been a favorite explanation for the failed uptake of the CCSS, not flaws in the standards.
Doesn’t matter to Gates. There’s gold in them thar data!
Gates is IMMORAL.
The horrid Hantavirus, if human, would be a better human than Bill Gates.