Peter Greene, a high school English teacher in Pennsylvania, has concocted a press release by Pearson, issued soon after it purchased the U.S. Department of Education in 2015.
In this press release, Pearson announces the release of the Common Core 2.0.
Here is a sample:
“*We’re pretty sure that Kindergarten simply isn’t early enough to start the reading process, so we are proud to announce a program that starts this important educational experience as soon after conception as possible. Our problem with backwards scaffolding has been that we stopped too soon. How can we hope to compete internationally when our newborns have not yet been exposed to a dynamic and robust reading curriculum. Phonics for Fetuses closes that gap.
*DIBELS broke new ground with its program of having small children read gibberish. But why stop there. The new SHMIBELS program will require students to write gibberish. Students must produce ten pages of lettering without creating a single recognizable word (yet all completely pronounceable). The writing will be timed and matched against the Pearson master SHMIBELS list to see if students have produced the correct gibberish and not just any random gibberish. (Note: this program is expected to help target many future USDOE employees).”
It gets better as Greene goes on. These are my favorite changes to CCSS:
“*In response to continued complaints that focus on testing has squeezed out many valuable phys ed and arts programs, we are proud to introduce the Physical Arts program. For this program, offered during one day of the 9th grade year, students will draw a picture of a pony on a tuba and then throw the tuba as far as possible.
*By pushing subject matter further down the sequence, we expect to free up the entire 10th grade year for testing. Nothing but testing, every single day, all day. With that much testing, our students are certain to become the kinds of geniuses who can trounce our historic enemies, the South Koreans and the Estonians. We anticipate this becoming a rite of passage and popular cultural milestone as families look forward with joy and anticipation to the Year of the Tests. To those critics who claim that we have not offered support in the literature for this testing, we want to note that we have closely followed the writings of Suzanne Collins and Franz Kafka.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sounds like this program will fit well with my Calculus in the Womb series.
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I love the article.–it’s funny and very sad at the same time. I hate to say this, but the “conspiracy” aspect of all this gets bigger each day. Why are they so intent on not having our children know our history–the good, the bad, the ugly. Why are they not able to see the value of the arts, civics, world history, music, literature, creative thinking, problem-solving–do they really want students not to think–certainly that’s what political extremists on either side of the aisle are always intent on. Pearson is one of them–clearly has moved farther and farther to the Right–Texas-style. The same names keep popping up–determined to get all collecive bargaining out of the way, to end public schools for all–determined to have excuses to close public schools in poor neighborhoods–determined to use tax-payer money for private charter schools accountable to no one. Everything they say and do contradicts themselves–teachers aren’t qualified in the public schools, but as in the Koch charters–we’ll take business school students, put them in for two-years stints in their schools–and then send them on their way to Wall Street. There’s no money for public schools, but somehow there’s plenty to fund charters. It’s all subterfuge–it’s all a plan to destroy anything public, unions, and to be sure our kids don’t think–just learn the how-to of reading, the how-to of math, and the how-to of writing–questioning, analyzing, debating–they get in the way..
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Reblogged this on McBlog.
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Is someone suggesting that learning AND assessments should be meaning getting?? horsefeathers!
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My concern is with the new Physical Arts program. I hear that in China the students are able to draw much larger horses, Clydesdales, on symphonic kettledrums by 4th grade. How will we get the parents on board to push for higher standards in Physical Arts here in the U.S. so that we get testing on this earlier?
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Hilarious! Maybe I’ll use it with my juniors to teach satire and irony!
Pearson is the Monsanto of education.
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Kafka and Collins!! Onward to complete dystopia!!!
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Why stop there. I’m sure Pearsons 3.0 will be Testing the fetus.LOL
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If George Orwell were alive today, he would be saying that he didn’t intend 1984 to be the equivalent of the coach’s playbook
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BTW, in other news: (this comes from the Smarter Balanced website):
“01/07/14
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust announced today grants to Smarter Balanced and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) totaling more than $1.6 million. These grants will fund a partnership between the two multi-state assessment consortia and the nation’s largest teachers’ unions, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), to further engage educators in the development of next-generation assessment systems.”
From the Rheformish Lexicon:
union: universal scapegoat, as in
“The teachers’ unions are,
of course,
largely responsible
for the utter failure
of U.S. public education”
from the popular Rheformish hymn “Arbeit macht Frei.” See, however, AFT and NEA.
AFT and NEA: propaganda ministries of the Common Core Curriculum Commissariat and Ministry of Truth (MiniTru). Archaic usage (pre-Rheformation): organizations representing the rights and interests of teachers; teachers’ labor unions. See Union
And yes, that is how the hymn goes. The Rheformish are prosody challenged because they do not believe in education in literature, music, and the arts, which are not necessary skills for low-level service workers in the 21st-Century Rheformish economy.
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Here’s the story on the new collaboration between the two testing consortia and the two “teacher’s unions,” as reported by the NEA:
http://www.nea.org/home/57603.htm
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Note the headline: It actually suggests that the teachers are going to do the development of the assessments.
It does not say, “We need to handpick some folks to rubber stamp our overall approach (and incidentally do some free item review) so that we can then say that the assessments were prepared by teachers.” It does not say that much of the money will go into putting together CCSS pom-pon teams and glee clubs in districts around the country. If you are attempting to impose a top-down, totalitarian system, it’s essential, of course, to identify the ones willing to become your boots on the ground and to reward those folks for their collaboration. Every rural village in China also has its local citizens chosen to be the eyes and ears of The Party.
But clearly, YOUR teacher’s unions are being contracted to be the deformers’ primary instrument of enforcement and propaganda on the ground, and YOUR union leadership is thrilled about this.
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