I opened up my New York Times and was surprised to find a full-page ad sponsored by the College Board attacking American education.
The ad showed a graphic in which “national security,” “jobs,” “healthcare,” and the “economy” rest upon a base of “education,” but the base is cracking.
The ad says: “Our future depends on the strength of our education system. But that system is crumbling.”
The ad then says “Help make education a higher priority in the presidential campaign. Go to DontForgetEd.org,” a website with very little content.
Why is the College Board spreading lies about our education system?
Who is paying for these ads?
Is the College Board mounting this campaign because David Coleman, the architect of the Common Core standards, is about to become its president?
What is their purpose other than to defame our nation’s hard-working educators?
If any readers can find a way to start a petition campaign to complain to the College Board, let me know.
They stink.
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not sure I am surprised by seeing this from the College Board, given that David Coleman, one of the primary architects of the Common Core Standards, is now the President of the College Board. It displays the same mindset that has unfortunately become the conventional wisdom of the chattering classes who have too much influence upon educational policy with little true understanding.
What a campaign against American education they have launched. I saw this in yesterday’s NY Times: “Tourists trying to figure out how to reach the capital’s monuments and museums on Wednesday found something on the National Mall that was not on their maps: 857 student desks arrayed near the Washington Monument. Each desk represents one of the 857 students who drop out of high school in the United States every single hour, every single school day, according to the College Board, which arranged the display to underline its effort to urge presidential candidates to put education at the top of their to-do lists… The effort is part of the College Board’s “Don’t Forget Ed!” campaign, the organization’s first venture into the world of politics.”
First venture into the world of politics… pffft… who are they kidding?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/education/857-desks-call-attention-to-dropout-problem.html?_r=1&ref=education
Shame…
Oh, yes, & the picture of Sec. Duncan w/the grim look on his face in front of those desks (this was on his invitation to “Twitter w/Sec. Duncan.”) I think this whole new campaign is a ploy to divert the focus from the groundswell & participation of parents against “standardized” testing. &–call me crazy (but remember the cliche- you’re not paranoid if they’re out to get you!)–I’m thinking this has something to do with Chicago–the CPS brass just announced an increase in graduation rates this past year (just like the graduation rates increased in Rochester, N.Y. &–Texas miracle be darned!–
during the tenure of the very same Broad superintendent!
Reblogged this on Continuing Change and commented:
What a campaign against American education the College Board has launched. I saw this in yesterday’s NY Times: “Tourists trying to figure out how to reach the capital’s monuments and museums on Wednesday found something on the National Mall that was not on their maps: 857 student desks arrayed near the Washington Monument. Each desk represents one of the 857 students who drop out of high school in the United States every single hour, every single school day, according to the College Board, which arranged the display to underline its effort to urge presidential candidates to put education at the top of their to-do lists… The effort is part of the College Board’s “Don’t Forget Ed!” campaign, the organization’s first venture into the world of politics.”
First venture into the world of politics… pffft… who are they kidding?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/education/857-desks-call-attention-to-dropout-problem.html?_r=1&ref=education
Shame…
The College Board probably colluded with Duncan in orchestrating the campaign. Arne published a picture of himself standing in front of the 857 desks on Twitter yesterday: http://t.co/pJF95TW2
Not so strange bedfellows.
Very little content on DontForgetEdOrg? What do you mean? They have a T-shirt. They have a few statistics and a video. And they have a “Tweet an Influencer” link! I clicked on it, and it takes you to wefollow.com, a website that lists “influential” people on Twitter, including Britney Spears and Snoop Dogg.
Seriously, though, what’s going on here? I watched the short version of the video, and the first person to appear on it is Joel Klein. (He appears in the extended cut as well.) Both versions of the video are full of vague yet dramatic statements.
Who’s behind this, other than the College Board? And why is the College Board “powering” this campaign?
Its tone and gist remind me of the Council on Foreign Relations report. I wonder whether there’s a connection.
Oh, well Britney Spears. No doubt a leading candidate for our next Secretary of Education.
Careful what you click on! You might be joining Students First!
Creating a crisis in education = Creating a market for big business
Since when did you become the nation’s premier defender of the status quo? It’s fine to rail against this contemporary iteration of reform, but you might try proposing an alternative.
Let’s start by deciding what problem you want to solve. I don’t mean that in a snarky way; it’s an honest question. Schools with less than 10% of their kids qualifying for free and reduced lunch are doing great; kids who are attending high poverty schools are not.
The problem, I suspect, for those kids, isn’t that they need new curriculum or more tests. I think they probably need more time with caring grownups (teachers or hard-working parents), access to a quiet, safe place to sleep and study, chances to travel and experience nature, and to be food secure. They need to be able to walk or otherwise transport themselves to a library. I don’t think firing their teachers addresses any of that, nor does putting their exams on computers (especially computers without electricity or networking).
Curriculum is in fact a major problem. See books from Cohen, Ravitch, and Darling-Hammond for more.
Teacher certification is a major problem. Ravitch recently complained about lowered standards of entry. But those standards were already abysmally low. How many ed schools adequately prepare their students to be content experts? How many prepare their students to be deft classroom managers? When so many teachers leave the profession before 5 years, we can’t continue to blame attrition on selective programs that certify a very small percentage of new teachers. Or we can, if it suits our agenda.
Curriculum may be a problem in some places. I do not believe it is a problem in California, where I am.
Certainly there is always room for change and improvement, but the curriculum my child is working through is rigorous and better designed than the one I was taught with.
Cover the desks with bubble tests and a note that reads
“NCLB and RTT came to my school and all I got was this lousy test”.
LOVE IT!! Someone please go do that who lives there.
Perfect!
Right on target with that statement! It would be great to create a banner with that statement and to hang it across Arne’s work place.
change.org is running scripts on that page be careful you’ll end up in Students First
Our ‘Don’t Forget Ed’ campaign is not driving a specific agenda other than to underscore the importance of education. I don’t think anyone would dispute the importance of focusing on education and we look forward to working with educators to elevate the issue in the 2012 campaign.
In terms of the substance of your criticism: the United States used to be number one in college completion but we are now 16th. That is unacceptable. Unless we as a nation act to prioritize education and prepare our nation’s workforce to compete in the 21st century global economy, we will continue to fall behind those nation’s smart enough to match their understanding of the importance of college completion with the investments that make it possible.
Peter Kauffmann
Vice President, Communications
The College Board
Peter,
Many teachers, parents, and principals are tired of the constant pounding of the public schools. Considering the massive budget cuts and layoffs, considering the challenges that students today live with, considering the negative actions taken by many states towards teachers, it is amazing that our schools do as well as they do.
Nations that want good schools pay for them. I hope that the next College Board advertising campaign will call on the nation’s governors to stop cutting education funding to give tax breaks to corporations.
Meanwhile, you might enjoy reading this article by a brilliant thinker who is no “defender of the status quo” but a sharp-eyed realist: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2011/tc20110112_006501.htm
Diane
Way to go Diane! The only thing Peter Kauffmann seems concerned about is how much money his company can make.
Diane-
Considering the challenges that students face and considering the dire fiscal situation most states are in, I can’t understand why you would be against an effort to rally support for education. The College Board looks forward to engaging educators to get involved in the Don’t Forget Ed campaign and increase the attention paid to education this election season.
-Peter Kauffmann
The College Board
Mr. Kauffmann, I can’t believe you rely on disproven talking points to make your points. I expect better from an employee of The College Board.
Here are some references for you to check out so you can update your talking points with actual, provable facts. It’s an academic tradition, you know:
1. “. . .American universities graduate three times as many qualified science and engineering students each year as can be absorbed in these fields. (Source: Science and Engineering Indicators, 2008)”
2. From GoodEducation:
“Back in 1964, American 13-year-olds took the First International Math Study and ended up ranking in 11th place. Considering that only 12 nations participated, including Australia, Finland, and Japan, our next-to-last performance was pretty abysmal. Other international tests American students have taken over the years have also never showed that we were in the top spot. It’s a myth that we’ve fallen from our glory days.”
3.The 2010 Brown Center Report on Education:
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2011/02/07-education-loveless
4. From the OECD Report from which your talking point comes from:
“The number of Americans earning college degrees has been steadily rising, from 11% of the population in 1970 to 30% in 2010. Younger Americans, however, are not keeping pace with their peers in other developed countries, so among 34 countries in the OECD report, we have fallen to 15th place in the percentage of 25 to 34 year olds with college degrees.”
You seem to have left out the part about it being the 23-34 year-old cohort that is slipping behind. Analysis of the report also states that one of the probably causes of the lag is that the price of a college education in the US is higher than anywhere else in the world and is subsidized to a far lesser degree probably due to the low to median tax rate in the US compared to the rest of the world.
Also, you neglect to mention the good news from the same report:
From SV[e]F:
“The 500-page OECD report is a treasure trove (overused term, but true in this case) of amazing statistics and many of them place the U.S. in good standing.
– 99% of our K-12 teachers meet state qualifications.
– Even though classroom instruction time has taken a hit, we still exceed the OECD average at 1,068 hours for high school.
– Ditto for class size; it’s increasing but remains lower that most other nations.
– Despite the high price tag for a college degree, graduates more than make up for it in future earnings and lower unemployment rates.
– The unemployment rate for high school drop outs is 15.8%, but for college graduates it drops to 4.9%.
– College graduates earn about 87% more over their lifetime than high school graduates who don’t go on to college.
The facts seem to negate the panic your advertisement and your quote of talking points invites.
The problem, as it always has been, is poverty, lack of governmental support through tax dollars, austerity budgets, and lack of political will . I wonder if The College Board plans on addressing these issues through you PR campaign?
Thanks, Brian. You saved me a lot of trouble. 🙂
Mr. Kauffmann,
Don’t give us the “Our ‘Don’t Forget Ed’ campaign is not driving a specific agenda other than to underscore the importance of education” BS. We know what your agenda is, and we are not going to stand by and let you and your cronies take over any longer. Good teachers are being given pink slips because school districts have to spend millions on testing material and other failed policies you and your company support. I look forward to the day I can personally hand you your pink slip, and this country can begin to move education in a new and better direction.
Please see today’s article in the Wall Street Journal: Do Too Many Young People Go to College? Four education-policy experts debate whether a lot of students would be better off spending their time and money somewhere else:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203960804577239253121093694
Mr. Kauffman,
I believe your organization has experienced a huge increase in AP test fees since anyone can take AP classes now. Although there is little to no increase in students passing the tests. I thought I read the increase was millions. Would you be willing to donate those funds to needy public high schools? It seems there is no shortage of vultures pecking away at the public funds for our schools all in the name of educating the children.
And you featured Joel Klein in the video? Really…that was your best choice? I guess the lowly public school teacher should be happy you didn’t have the star deformer, Michelle Rhee.
Why wasn’t a public school teacher featured?
I suggest you line the Capitol walls with Pearson test booklets, bubble sheets and #2 pencils. That would display the true state of our public schools.
Mr. Kauffman,
Do you mean like Finland?
We are moving in the opposite direction, so I don’t expect things to get better….only worse.
Exactly, Linda, & we can largely attribute the problems to your previous comment. “Standardized” testing & constant test prep. is killing our kids, & THAT is LOWERING the bar & dumbing them down! Critical thinking skills are crucial to success in college, & prepping for “standardized” tests is NOT the way to prepare our students.
I reiterate–this new campaign is being started to take the focus off “standardized” testing, & this is taking place because KIDS & PARENTS are starting to get angry enough to do something about it!
One of the things with all the testing is the fact that these policies, NCLB and RATT, use a carrot and stick approach (mainly stick in the form of “fear” of “losing” monies-these are “fear”-based regimes). So the state fears not getting federal dollars, the states then put pressure on the districts by threatening them with withholding accreditation which can lead to a state takeover. Then the district central office threatens the building administrators with their livelihood if they don’t raise the test scores who in turn threaten the staff with their jobs (especially with idiocies like VAM) if they don’t get the students scores up.
I hope you know where this is going by now! Yes, the students then are cajoled, threatened, disciplined into “doing their best” to “help the team”. Now, maybe it’s not taught in schools of education anymore but I was taught that the best teaching and learning environments is one that is threat-free where the students feel safe and secure. So we have federal, state and district policies that tend to make the teaching and learning environment more “threatening” for the students. And they smell a “RATT”.
The students know that they are caught in a battle amongst the adults and are essentially helpless in defending themselves against the onslaught. “They only test us to they can get more money.” “If I don’t take it, it’s ten percent off my semester grade” (in other districts and states it may be withholding credit or not graduating or moving on). or “The teachers really put pressure on us because they are afraid of losing their jobs”. Yes, I’ve heard all of these multiple times and many more.
An aphorism: Any public educational practice that is based on threats and using fear as a motivator is dead wrong.
Mr. Kauffmann,
You have never been a teacher, so please stop acting like you have a clue of what you are talking about. All you know is about business and I hate to break it to you but EDUCATION IS NOT MEANT TO BE RUN LIKE A BUSINESS! Since states are facing dire fiscal situations, then why don’t you give the money back that states gave for these dumb and arbitrary tests? Oh right, because then you and your College Board cronies wouldn’t make any money.
Look at countries such as Finland where they don’t give their students high-stakes testing and they have the best education system in the world. What do you think about that?
I look forward to one day shaking your hand and handing you your well deserved pink slip.
Well Mr. Kauffmann, it appears that you have awakened a sleeping giant here. Thanks to Diane providng this forum the false meme of America’s supposedly failing schools is being amswered by vocal teachers, parents, professors, and other interested parties.
It seems the perfect storm is about to arise wherein the corporate hedge fund takeover of our public schools can no longer rely upon the familiar talking points cleverly used out of context and misapplied to forward an agenda that endangers our democracy.
We are finding our voices and speaking up! From the Univeristy of Virginia fiasco to the silencing of the medical professor in California the hubris of the deformers is being noticed and many, many people are realizing the emperor of business has no clothes when it comes to education.
Things are about to get very interesting in America. When teachers, parents, professors, and educated people unite the rentiers of the plutocracy haven’t got a chance if history is a good teacher as I think it is.
So Peter Kauffmann: what “investments” does the College Board specifically support? More online learning? More high-stakes testing? More charter schools etc. and the entire privatization agenda of #corporate reform? And what is the relationship between the College Board, Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee?
Yep,
High-stakes testing, it’s their bread and butter.
When higher ed (and public ed) finally “crumble” it will be BECAUSE we don’t consider the needs of students and only consider the profit to be made on them. Forgive me for being cynical about organizations that tout “the crisis in education” and that bring us solutions such as charter schools and vouchers. If the profit goes to someone who can only point out what a bad job public schools doing, they deserve cynicism.
Carrie is right. There isn’t any money left in other sectors big business has devoured. Now they come for the children…
I have not seen the ad but based on what you are writing, I’m not sure how we can ignore the people running the public schools and their failings? The only thing I see missing from the ad as you explain it is, how the bureaucrats and legislators have helped the destruction of public schools. Give them back to the local communities and parents.
Mr. Kauffmann,
Please help us all by putting the blame where it should be put. NCLB mandates and now Race to the Top mandates.
And while you’re at it, make sure we have the money to educate. . . not to test but to educate. You are right in that we can do better. So get the people who don’t know what they’re doing off our backs.
Mr. Kauffman,
Might the U.S.’s lowered rank in college completion have something to do with the skyrocketing costs of college, the burden of student loans, and the fact that as more states have cut meaningful CTE tracks, students who otherwise would prefer and excel in such tracks feel pressured to attend a four-year college?
Tired of the term “food insecure” etc. How about “hungry”. Students should not come to school hungry, period.
I get your point, Michael. Short words often do the job better than long words. I prefer “food insecurity” at times because it contains not only “hungry” but the stress of insecurity, not knowing when there will and won’t be enough, parents’ worry for children, children’s worry for parents, and much more. Maybe I’m reading too much into it; I’ve never gone hungry. But I have known the stress that comes from insecurity, and it’s quite enough to derail learning, even without the hunger.
News from Indiana:
http://www.indystar.com/article/20120621/NEWS/120621017
I can confirm this, that Mitch Daniels appointed 8 of the 10 members of the board of trustees that offered him the job of president of Purdue University were appointed by Daniels. Also, someone posted this on Facebook (I did not fact check the rest of this):
All eyes on Daniels ahead of Purdue trustees’ vote
Yesterday, Governor Daniels reappointed three Purdue trustees, including Michael Berghoff, who led the Purdue Presidential Search Committee. Michael Berghoff’s company, Lenex Steel Corp., has received millions in state incentives and funding
8 of 10 Purdue Trustees were appointed by Governor Mitch Daniels creating a conflict of interest specifically prohibited by the organizations bylaws.
Several grassroots watchdog groups and good-government organizations are outraged
“It does raise questions of impartiality and decision-making,” said Julia Vaughn of Common Cause.
Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, used even blunter language: “This definitely has an odor to it.”
Indiana State Ethics Commission requires Indiana executive branch employees to comply with a mandatory one-year cooling-off rule when considering outside employment with organizations doing business with the state and avoid the “appearance of impropriety”.
When organizations with power, influence and prestige make blanket simplistic statements it is damaging and diverts attention from the real problem. You may not be picking a side but people will assume it and run with it and is not that the power of marketing, the unspoken message. Therefore, when you attack education, the already angry electorate (society) immediately jumps to their own conclusion without all the facts based on a loaded statement. Their frustration leads them to their limited view of education trying to figure out the loaded statement which may lead them to conclude bad schools, bad unions, bad teachers, blame the teachers, get rid of bad teachers, get rid of unions, hold teachers accountable, no excuses for teachers, longer days, more rigor, tougher programs, you cannot trust teachers, you cannot trust unions, teachers are greedy, teachers don’t care about students, and so on… You see, it becomes whatever the reader wants or needs it to become based on his or her own limited personal experiences and worldview because the message is vague on purpose, it is the beauty and power of marketing, which can also make it dangerous when used recklessly.
Teachers and Public Education are easy targets and we are sick of it because we know and live the truth every day and have answers if anyone would listen! Our answers are not “excuses” they are the “truths”. Public education educates all children who come to our schools; this is an enormous challenge to provide education to all children in the United States no matter what. However, each decade society has demanded more and more of us. We are not failing, we are actually doing quite well if you look at how our country has changed, grown and become more diverse. Society’s growing pains in response to these changes is to demand public education fix anything society cannot solve (poverty, teen pregnancy, drugs, bullying, mental illness, obesity, joblessness, etc…) Society shifts the responsibility to public education, mandates it and then forgets about societies responsibility in helping solve it or fund it, a “not my problem” mentality. Then when “it” is not solved in a timely manner, all the while still expecting all students to perform at 100% by 2014, schools and teachers are failures and not worthy of any consideration. Public Education can barely keep up with the demands and cost of those demands continually coming at it from every angle, parents, students, politicians, policy makers and society itself. If education has a problem, it is because people find it easier and more convenient to blame us instead of face and tackle the real issues and it is maddening.
In business, you never solve a problem by ignoring the variables that caused the problem. You do not improve sales by ignoring your primary consumers’ needs. In medicine, you do not hold a doctor accountable for a patient’s lack of medication compliance, poor eating habits, genetics or lifestyle choices. Therefore, in education why do some education reformers and politicians ignore the variables or choose to focus on one and absolve all parties, except for teachers, from their responsibility.
I just read that the lastest Gallop pole shows that American’s confidence in public education is at an all time low of 29%.
I know it is sad. When my friends get mad at public ed, for example teachers teaching to the test, 2 weeks worth of standardized tests, and other assessments 4 times a year, I let them know we are only following required mandates, And by 2016 our school’s success, our teacher evaluation and pay will be connected to those assessments and the common core. Their anger is quickly shifted to the politicians and policy makers passing these laws and madates. I could go on and on but I do take the time to explain to them the situation. It is much more complicated than a billboard or set of desks on a lawn.
The key indicator is really what people think of their own children’s school and data from last summer indicated higher confidence: 36% Completely Statisfied and 42% Somewhat Satisfied, compared to 21% Somewhat Disatisfied and 9% Completely Disatisfied.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/1612/education.aspx#1
Due to the ongoing “failing schools” narrative that has dominated the press and talk from corporate ed reformers, it’s not surprising that confidence in education has decreased. A major component of Rhee’s spiel is trying to convince people that they should not be satisfied with education in America just because their own children’s school is fine.
Well said.
Dr. Ravitch,
How much do these adds cost? With so many groups out there fighting this kind of stuff, we should be able to get enough money to write our own? Or do you have to be funded by the billionaires to get in there?
They have a limitless amount of funds. We have to make cupcakes and brownies and then spend our own money to make up the difference.
Their camping has no substance at all and their leader is the one whose curriculum standards we are all supposed to follow without question.
One more fraud manipulating the public for their own personal gain.
I understand Linda, but what I’m saying is maybe we can buy some space to place an ad like they did. We have the wealth in people. I get that we don’t have the money. . . but. . . Can SOS or Dumpduncan right an add. . . .
I don’t know Stephanie. Anything paid for by the union would be seen as teachers just protecting their jobs. I don’t know who we have in our corner with as much money as they have. It is all so discouraging. So many are retiring and/or making plans to get out earlier than expected. Who woul pursue teaching as a profession?
Great comments everyone! I find it funny Mr. Kauffmann hasn’t been back here to defend himself. DOWN WITH THE COLLEGE BOARD!
He just responded to Diane…very brief, vague, no substance. I don’t think he could handle nor does he desire to respond to each of us individually. That would be time consuming I suppose and then he would have to dialogue with real teachers.
Teachers??? Why would he want a dialogue with us teachers??? According to the education deformers we teachers aren’t much better than pond scum, greedy union pond scum-even if we aren’t union members, all teachers are obviously greedy. (That’s supposed to be blue font, by the way).
More students taking Advanced Placement classes, but test pass rate remains about the same
Perhaps surprisingly, those concerns are shared by the not-for-profit College Board, which runs the AP program and has benefited from its growth (collecting $353 million in revenue from its college readiness programs, including AP exam fees, in 2009).
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/report_more_students_taking_ad.html
The College Board has been marketing the AP tests quite heavily the last 10 years. I remember going to a “professional development day” that was basically a day long AP testing sales job.
And notice they are “not for profit”. What do they do with all their money? Ooooh…spend in on a marketing firm to truck desks into D.C. I wonder what they do with the desks afterwards. I am sure there is a local PUBLIC school that could use them.
Not for profit organizations (what a joke) with executives making huge salaries…and the teachers are ripping off the USA.
Peter,
A campaign that “is not driving a specific agenda other than to underscore the importance of education”? What about the fact that the College Board advocates for the expansion of unregulated charters, which siphon funds from public schools, in the new book, “The Achievable Dream: College Board Lessons On Creating Great Schools”:
http://www.9news.com/moms/article/273531/499/College-Board-lessons-on-creating-great-schools
I have been puzzled as to why the College Board hasn’t spoken out against using the AP test to measure teacher effectiveness — after all, according to what I have been told, the AP tests are scores for college credit, NOT a grade like you’d get in a class. Now I know the answer. They aren’t on the side of teachers.
I haven’t read about the AP tests being used to measure teacher effectiveness. Can you please fill in with some sources.
If that is the case then I would agree with you in challenging the College Board to speak out against said practice. The fact is that all the major testing organizations, APA, AERA, NCME, and I’m sure the College Board, say that using a test (and by extension a test score) for any purpose other than for which it is designed is invalid and UNETHICAL.
In Florida they are using various tests for half the teacher’s evaluation. Although not up and running yet, it is very possible that AP test will be used for those who teach AP.
It is possible that districts will have to make a test, but then that means our AP students have more tests to take. Either way, it is simply a wrongheaded practice, and could keep kids from being put in AP (which is a wonderful experience, whether they take the test or not.)
In the past, I’ve been a booster for the College Board and a committed teacher for the Advanced Placement program. The history of the program, and its service to a generation of gifted children, warrants a little defense.
I valued AP because it was the only program in the country that could reach and serve gifted high school students. The College Board decision to open up AP access came before the Exxon “grants” to AP science, and some of my students who took advantage of that open door have since gone on to doctoral studies, and research careers. I wince when I read the blanket denunciations of the College Board, because I saw them fight to defend the authenticity of their program from narrow test-prep encroachment. They lost.
It broke my heart to see AP bought out and corrupted, beginning about four years ago with this corporate “gift” horse:
http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/community_math_nmsi.aspx
Please be clear that the Exxon “grants” were designed to leverage control of the whole state’s support budget for advanced science teaching, with a paltry investment. They came with strings attached; they couldn’t be used to support delivery of the actual courses, but instead funded off-brand (non-College board) professional development (out of Texas) and a for-profit online tutoring and test prep regime. They sucked up the public science education money that could have bought probeware and supplies, and diverted it to their cronies.
The old “Acorn” principle of the AP Chemistry test was that different universities might offer a variety of ways to enrich and fulfill the fundamental introduction to the discipline. There would be some material students hadn’t been exposed to, because the tests were normed to actual university student scores. Questions presented unexpected challenges, because they did attempt to probe for flexibility and depth in whichever area students had focused on.
Instead, the test prep regimens have tried to raise scores by drilling students blind in every possible variation of previous years’ questions. They take our most avid learners now, and crush them with their dreary, ignorant grind. Ask the kids, if you don’t believe it.
So, it’s on behalf of those kids you’ve robbed of the real rewards that experience in advanced science can offer them that I say,
Shame on you, Peter Kauffman.
Re: ExxonMobil
Beware of Grease bearing gifts.
Your friend,
Cassandra
P.S. Apologies to Laocoon. I cribbed the line from him.
C.
Thanks for the link to Lacoon! Ah, learning so early in the morning, isn’t it great!
MoveOn.org started this site, SignOn.org http://www.signon.org/create_start.html?add_id=1&id=44252-9895204-q2WUaqx
I was going to provide some data to debunk the College Board’s claim that “our schools are performing at a level far below almost every other major industrialized nation. And the statistics continue to get worse every year” with some historical data, but Brian beat me to it with a list of great sources.
Here I add some information from the College Board (http://media.collegeboard.com/digitalServices/public/pdf/ap/rtn/AP-Report-to-the-Nation.pdf ) that seems to contradict its own claim:
7.3 point increase since 2001 in the percentage of U.S. public high school graduates earning AP scores of 3 or higher…More graduates are succeeding on AP Exams today than took AP Exams in 2001
Since the College Board has been pushing the AP courses as a rigorous academic experience and the AP exam an academically demanding test of students preparedness for college, this shows the U.S. education is not getting worse every year, right?
The AP story may reveal the motivation behind the Ad and the Don’tForgetEd.org campaign—more customers for College Board products paid by tax dollars.
According to the College Board 2011 AP report, the number of students who took the AP exam more than doubled in a decade: 431,573 in 2001 to 903,630 in 2011. And an Associate Press story http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765574199/AP-for-everyone-AP-classes-growing-in-popularity-as-schools-look-to-raise-standards.html?pg=all in May 2012 says “2 million students will take 3.7 million end-of-year AP exams.” The fee for each AP Exam in 2012 is $87 and that is $321.9 million total.
For low-income students, the Feds provide $53 per exam, meaning we, the taxpayers are paying for students to take the AP exam. 612,282 out of the 903,630 in 2011 were taken by low-income graduates paid by the taxpayers. Not a problem for me, if it truly helps the students. But it is not. It is just one more way to demoralize the struggling poor students. From the Associate Press story:
Nationally, 56 percent of AP exams taken by the high school class of 2011 earned a 3 or higher, but there are wide disparities. The mean score is 3.01 for white students and 1.94 for blacks. In New Hampshire, almost three-quarters of exams earn a 3 or higher; in Mississippi, it’s under a third. In the District of Columbia, more than half of exams score a 1.
More importantly, plenty of evidence showing that the AP does not really. “AP courses provide little or no additional post-secondary benefit,” writes economist Kristin Klopfenstein and her colleagues http://www.aeaweb.org/assa/2005/0108_1015_0302.pdf and “Even a score of 5 on an A.P. test is no guarantee of a college grade of A in the same subject,” said Harvard’s Philip M. Sadler, who directs the science education department at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics. http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/the-advanced-placement-juggernaut/
So might we hypothesize the following chain of reasoning behind the College Board campaign? (I know it sounds quite cynical):
American education is crumbling
Government should invest in improving education
Improving education means increasing college going and completion rates
To increase college readiness and success, you need “rigorous curriculum” and standards
And who provides that?
Readers who want to see the historical performance of US students can read my blog post at: http://zhaolearning.com/2011/01/30/%E2%80%9Cit-makes-no-sense%E2%80%9D-puzzling-over-obama%E2%80%99s-state-of-the-union-speech/
If you’re going to attack the thing CollegeBoard has going, you should probably back it up. Just saying its “shameful” but not giving reasons leads me to believe you’re just complaining to complain, and really know nothing about this.
What College Board has going is an absurd attack on American education. I suggest you begin by reading my article in the New York Review of Books, reviewing the ridiculous claim that US schools are a threat to national security. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/07/do-our-public-schools-threaten-national-security/?pagination=false
And drop the habit of writing insulting comments.
You might also find it useful to read Yong Zhao’s comment, which precedes your own. He is a scholar of comparative education. He knows a thing or two.
I do not know why you are surprised. The College Board is not setup to help students or advocate for students, it is setup to make money through SAT and AP so that they can pay themselves huge salaries and then hire their friends whom they then pay huge salaries to. I should know I worked for them and the budget for “Advocacy” was tiny and the salaries were large…..