The usual narrative about the politics of Common Core describe it as a split within the Republican Party. On one side are the extremist members of the Tea Party, fearful of a federal takeover. On the other side are “moderate” Republicans like Jeb Bush, eager to make American students globally competitive.
The Southern Poverty Law Center thinks that the grassroots radicals want to use Common Core to destroy public education. Glenn Beck ‘s new book displays equal contempt for Common Core and public education.
But what is Jeb Bush’s role? He is no moderate. He is an avid proponent of vouchers, charters, tax credits for private schools, and virtual charters. He is as eager to destroy public education as any member of the Tea Party.
In this 2012 speech to business leaders, Bush said that the rigorous standards, if linked to rigorous assessments, would show the public just how bad our schools really are. He said,
“Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush captured the scale of the challenge when he told the gathering on the first morning that states are heading for a “train wreck.” He noted that when the new standards and assessments come fully online in 2015 that many communities, schools, and families are in for a rude awakening.”
Furthermore, “Bush warned that such bluntness about the poor health of American education and student achievement will trigger serious political backtracking. He said, “My guess is there’s going to be a lot of people running for cover and they are going to be running fast.”
Jeb Bush, in short, looks forward to the inevitable collapse of test scores on Common Core tests. The public, he expects, will be so shocked by the scores that they will be open to the choices he advocates. Suddenly, there will be a public clamor for vouchers, charters, online learning.
So the great divide within the Republican Party over Common Core is not between the “moderate” Jeb Bush and the “radical” Tea Party, but between factions that are both hostile to public education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So the Bush kids struggled in school? He struggled? He didn’t attain the heights of success he should have because our schools were so miserably failing? I’m assuming not…It appears the Bush family has done well.
Did they do well because their teachers were disrespected, over-mandated, insecure, underpaid and they spent the entirety of their school careers being mechanized to serve the market, measured and tested, with nervous teachers wondering whose metric they would be measured by, and retained/fired with…or who their edu-souls and data would be sold to? These pretend public servants make me worry for this country. Self-inflated self-importance is even more dangerous when there is someone else able and willing to hand over the reins or give a stage for this clown show to continue.
This is why these folks aren’t really interested in the validity of VAM or various standardized tests. They start with the assumption that public schools are failing. Any instrument that shows failure must be accurate; any that doesn’t must not be.
They do not even care if public schools are failing. It is just the premise for a huge PR stunt. When did Jeb Bush types start caring about poor minority children in urban public schools? They want to control costs; salaries, benefits, pensions. These goals are best obtained by elimination of tenure, teacher deprofessionalization, teacher churning and union busting.
Those comments look like they could have just as easily come from Secretary Duncan. What’s his reason?
I can’t tell the difference, because there is no difference.
I don’t know: one person uses the phrase “government schools” and the other doesn’t?
You really have to parse it pretty fine and rely almost completely on rhetoric to come up with a “Democratic” position on public education. There isn’t one, as far as I can tell. There’s the Republican position, which Democrats adopted whole and the “abolish completely position.
The pro-public schools position is politically orphaned.
It works both ways. Bush and Duncan both favor handing the whole public sector over to profit extractors, by centralized corporate control and fragmentation.
There aren’t just “factions within the Republican party”, though. There are people. They vote for the party, hold local offices, serve on local committees, councils and boards. They write for local newspapers. If you’re a middle class Democrat, they have more in common with you than you suspect, and vice versa.
The corporate control narrative doesn’t acknowledge their existence, and corporate media don’t pick them up, but they appear to have much greater access to their local media than independent Democrats do. You go figure.
If you’re working class, you probably aren’t any kind of Republican, and keep hoping you still have a “faction within” the Democratic party. All these actual people, anyway, are fed up with the coprorate attack on education.
Let’s listen to Missouri Education Watchdog. Is this red or blue?
http://missourieducationwatchdog.com/pearsons-behavioral-assessments-for-students-welcome-to-school-hell/
The Christian Post makes some very good points about a dishonest CCSS push poll. This is not Sarah Palin.
http://www.christianpost.com/news/mclaughlins-common-core-poll-was-propaganda-not-news-why-didnt-the-media-say-so-120205/
And here’s Oklahoma on the subject of Oklahoma. Jeb Bush is toast there, I think, but that doesn’t make them Tea Party.
http://newsok.com/article/4850331
And here in my true-blue Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we’ve got us some Republicans scattered around our hinterland who are not Tea Party, and with whom we can certainly work to preserve our public education system against charter swindlers and corporate strong-arming.
http://www.telegram.com/article/20140522/NEWS/305229367/1116#.U4ApqbrQBks.twitter
I don’t think it’s that complicated.
Jeb Bush is considered a “moderate” because Democrats have adopted Jeb Bush’s entire education agenda.
If a Tea Party person wants to distinguish themselves on education they have to go further Right, to completely abolishing it.
It’s really been damaging, in my view, the consensus around Jeb Bush’s agenda. You end up with such a narrow spectrum of views, from “Jeb Bush” to “far Right”. It leads to crazy results. In Ohio the chair of the education committee in the lower chamber is actively opposed to public schools. This is now considered mainstream, within the ordinary discussion. It’s amazing to watch happen in what is a state that is split evenly (voters) between R and D. It’s swung SO far Right on that issue.
Diane, I’m trying to figure out why I get the sense from reading your posts that if the reformists just went away and we were left with voluntary national standards that schools were free to follow or not follow and that if students were only given one standardized test a year that did not have any bearing on how teachers were compensated and that if teachers were all given a few more dollars and had total control over their classrooms and were backed by strong unions who protected them from “unfair” treatment by principles, all things in schools would be hunky-dory.
To me, I find it interesting that you were so much a part of the reform movement while your sons were in school, but now that you no longer have your own children directly involved as students in public schools, you now sing a different tune. Of course, you were right to end your support of reforms that have not and will not work, but you’re wrong to think that public schooling isn’t damaging to kids and isn’t in need of a complete overhaul of its structure.
And while I don’t have any admiration for Glen Beck, nor will I read his book, I find it distasteful for you to criticize a book that you haven’t read. How is it that you know the book, “Displays equal contempt for Common Core and public education”? How many other books that you haven’t read do you write about? I haven’t read your last book. If I had a band of loyal fans who thought my words gold, would it be fair for me to write on my blog of how Reign of Error is just another book by a union lover who really doesn’t understand what the problems are in today’s schools?
Why is it wrong to hold contempt for public education? Is anyone who calls for a systematic change in public schools merely someone with contempt for public schools, and therefore not someone with anything intelligent to say? Is John Holt merely someone who had a contempt for public schools? Isn’t it possible for someone to have an intelligent argument as to why public schools should see a systemic overhaul? Might it be possible that someone offers up an intelligent argument as to why public schools, unless they can make the systemic changes they need to make, should no longer be funded?
Richard, if you’re “trying to figure out why I get the sense…” of anything, it’s because you aren’t interested in “sense” at all.
Listen to yourself, in your last paragraph:
“Why is it wrong to hold contempt for public education?”
vs
“Is anyone who calls for a systematic change in public schools merely someone with contempt for public schools, and therefore not someone with anything intelligent to say?”
In reasoned discourse, one does not offer supporting development for an idea by immediately contradicting it. But at least nobody’s going to argue with you, because nobody can.
You are right, chemtchr, the first sentence in my final paragraph should have been edited out. I sometimes write too much in order to find what it is I really want to say and then edit. Sometimes when using this forum, I post too soon. Thanks for the heads up.
Do you think telling me that I’m not interested “in ‘sense’ at all” has a place “in reasoned discourse”?
I agree. Richard’s intention is well shown from his rambling phrases. It’s just prepostrous to fight contempt with contempt Many of us are way ahead of it.
I find it hard to take you seriously when you argue that our public schools need “a systemic overhaul.” I’m a public school parent in New York and my children did (and do) just fine in the public schools. In fact, my daughter (now 29) received a much broader and better education in the pre-testing era than my son who is now 14 is receiving.
What our nation does need to focus on is the fact that over 25% of our children live in poverty. There are no amount of pre, post, summative, high-stakes assessments that will fix this problem. The truth is, our politicians are too busy pandering to the monied interests to do anything about fixing the real problem.
How, RL, would you “fix the real problem”?
Harlan, I am not RL and cannot speak for him/her, but since poverty has a lot to do with economic conditions, perhaps we should be asking why our economy does such a poor job of employing people. I’m thinking that a a full belly and a safe place to call home would do more for education that all the standardized high stakes tests. Judging from the number of people who try to struggle through on minimum wage jobs, I’m guessing that an economy that employed its people with living wage jobs might find that inequities in educational opportunities would be much easier to identify and address.
I very much agree. I just want to add that “the economy” employs no one. Individual companies employ people.
Harlan, companies don’t employ people. Consumer demand hires people. Without demand, there are no companies. And in an age where income inequality is growing, the middle class is being diminished, With so many people struggling financially, demand won’t recover. Hence the primary reason for the weakest recovery imaginable.
Granted. Then how do we diminish the income gap, I.e. bring more people back into the middle class?
Richard you are not trying to figure out anything. Count the number of question marks in your four paragraphs that denote statements couched in question form. If you are interested in having a conversation then state your own views and stop pretending that you are asking questions that you have some interest in finding out the answers to.
One of the big problems with the was education policy is set in the US is that so many of the people with intellectual or political clout (including Dr. Ravitch during the crucial years where the reform movement was building) believe that education needs a “complete overhaul.”
The “way” policy is set, that is.
FLERP,
I don’t believe it anymore.
Diane
This is extraordinarily important, FLERP! Well said. We have far, far too many of these top-down social engineers. Their prescriptions are inevitably a disaster.
Ecologies are healthier than are monocultures.
There has never been an overhaul. The basic structure of today’s schools still resemble schools many years ago, and they are antiquated and in need of great change. Today’s reformists aren’t asking for the kinds of changes I’d like to see. In fact, the greatest disappointment to me are the charter schools, and not for the reasons most of the people on these boards dislike them. Instead of leading the way in showing public schools the possibilities of what schools could do, which is what they were supposed to do, they’ve doubled down on the worst ideas in education: more discipline, more conformity, more punishments and rewards, and more focus on testing.
And, Bob, what I’m calling for would actually get rid of top-down social engineers. A student’s education would be guided by the person who seems to have the least input now but the most at stake: the student. The student should be the focus. The student should determine what is studied, when it is studied, and for how long it is studied. Education right now is something we impose on a student. Why not allow education to be something we guide a student through? We need to see less teaching and more of Sugata Mitra’s guiding grandmothers in schools.
Heck, we might be better off if overnight we turned all our public schools into Sudbury schools.
Richard,
My grandchild is in public school and will soon be joined by his brother. You are wrong. I don’t want schools to stay the same, I want them to be far better than they are now. As for Beck, the title of his book expresses his contempt for both the Common Core and public education. I don’t usually judge a book by its cover so I turned to someone else to review it. I did not. I read and review books that are important. I was happy to let someone else do this job for me. I make choices.
Good point, but let’s assume CCSS and its attendant testing crashes and burns, the next question is HOW to make the public schools “far better than they are now.” I personally would prefer to go that way than any other, but I haven’t yet seen how it is to be done.
Good question re: what will happen if the Common Core crashes and burns. I think that topic would make for an interesting standalone post for Diane, as well as an interesting comment thread.
The more difficult question may be what WON’T come to pass if the Common Core crashes and burns. We haven’t yet seen what public education looks like in a world where the Common Core standards have been successfully implemented and accepted (whether with enthusiasm or resignation).
On the other hand, haven’t we already seen what public education looks like without the Common Core? Won’t it look more or less like it did before the Common Core? In other words, there would still be standards, set mainly by states. The standards would probably still be widely criticized as bad and would probably still drive curriculum, which would also probably still be widely criticized as bad. There would still be standardized testing, perhaps less, but still a lot. Student test scores would probably still play a role in teacher evaluations, although there would be lots of fights over that. Class sizes would be more or less what they are now. Child poverty levels would be more or less what they are now. State and local education budgets would still be under strain.
Thanks, FLERP, good topic for a stand-alone post. Common Core will have no effect on poverty. Because the costs of testing and technology will go up, there will probably be larger class sizes. Despite the rhetoric, the implementation will vary from place to place. The best comparisons of states will continue to be NAEP, not CC. Many states likely to opt out of CCSS testing. Anyone who imagines that CCSS will be implemented in a uniform way across 50 states and thousands of districts is delusional.
I forgot to add that computing power would still be increasing exponentially; the amount of personal and education data stored in the cloud would still be increasing by a similar factor; and, each day, technology would still be more likely to disrupt traditional models of classrooms and teaching than it was the previous day.
Just once…ASK TEACHERS! Good G-d!
Harlan
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Until we work to improve our weakest link in the educational system. all other efforts are mostly for naught.
1) Which is the weakest link in public school systems where students struggle to succeed (graduate high school)?
a) Standards
b) Curriculum
c) Scope
d) Sequence
e) Teachers
f) Parents
g) Expectations
h) Funding
i) Technology
j) Politicians
k) Culture
l) Upbringing
m) Genetics
n) IQ
I don’t see the weakest link listed, which is family income, i.e., poverty. That necessitates early intervention, wrap around services, jobs with livable wages, affordable housing, etc.
I could have listed it, but its not the weakest link.
Low expectations are the residue of hopelessness which is produced by GENERATIONAL poverty and dependence. Some the hardest working and most successful students in my school system are the children poor or low level, working class immigrants.
I also left off: rigor and grit
Didn’t mean this to be a trick question. But notice where you put standards on your mental list.
Does the phrase “weakest link” mean “biggest cause” in this metaphor? (“Easiest to break” is a totally different meaning that I could imagine.)
And am I correctly understanding you to be saying that the “weakest link” is low expectations? This seems pretty odd to me, regardless of what the meaning of “weakest link” is here.
My father grew up dirt poor on the lower east side (NYC) during the great depression; the son of nearly illiterate immigrants. His mother cleaned offices and his father was unemployed. He graduated 10th in his class from Stuyvesant HS in 1942. Expectations!
In every nation, family income is the strongest predictor of school success and there are achievement gaps between students from low income and higher income families:
“International tests show achievement gaps in all countries”
http://www.epi.org/blog/international-tests-achievement-gaps-gains-american-students/
More broadly, researchers tend to say that it’s socio-economic status (SES) which best predicts school success, since that term includes important factors that contribute to SES, such as parent’s educational level. (The education level of mothers in particular is highly predictive).
In England, an example of another country which has a wide achievement gap between low income and higher income students, as exists in all countries, this matter is referred to not as “the achievement gap,” as we call it here, but as “the social class gap.” They have long had an “upper class” there and they have a “middle class” as well. The low income children who do not achieve as high as children in those classes are from the “working class.”
The UK has been undergoing education “reforms” very similar to those in the US, to try to bridge the social class gap. Although the terms differ there, people might want to look into it:
“The Social Class Gap for Educational Achievement: A Review of the Literature”
Click to access RSA-Social-Justice-paper.pdf
Jeb Bush is for Common Core because Pearson is one of the top sponsors of his foundation. Pearson and Charter Schools have directly benefited from the Foundation for Excellence in Education’s lobby efforts.
There’s an amusing piece in the NYT about how colleges and universities are (now) concerned about the Obama Administration plans to assign them some kind of rating system.
The Obama Administration spokesperson told them it’s like rating “a blender”. They really do see education as a purely commercial consumer product, like a blender or a toaster.
I’m sure Jeb Bush agrees with them. It’s probably his idea.
And someone needs to call both Bush and Obama on that. It needs to be asked in debates: “Why do you agree with your opponent on education? Do you believe education policy should be left to the states and localities? Why or why not?”
I think that once people begin to see that both parties are on the same side, then people will begin to push back.
Here’s an update on the timeline for that, Chiara.
http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2014/05/22/education-dept-pushes-back-release-college-ratings-fall#sthash.6o2jfv1I.eEvWVbbT.dpbs
Be careful, though. A new federal/corporate axis ( the “public-private partnership”) is proposing to seize regulatory control of vast public and private resources. They’ll have a new profit center, and total control of higher education. The idea of it turns my blood to ice.
The Obama spokesman was trying to spin it for public consumption by making this mild, diversionary straw argument. This is what he WANTS you to repeat:
“They really do see education as a purely commercial consumer product, like a blender or a toaster.”
No, they do not. This is not a toaster. They know education is the very lifeblood of our democracy, and they actually mean to destroy it and turn it into corporate profit center and power base. Consumers have no part in the plan.
Stay out of the colleges ! That is just too scary !
They are already in the colleges . They have made changes to financial aid, which caused a revamping of the course sequence in my department in the community college where I adjunct. New Jersey is working on homogenizing the course content of all the county and state institutions of higher education. For example, they are recommending that all Comp 101 classes read from a preselected set of texts. God forbid that college students read a wide array of different books chosen by their professors.
If NJ is anything like my state, one concern is ease of transferring credit from two year to four year institutions.
Yup, teachingeconomist. This is the concern.
NJT,
I have no doubt that it is a concern, just not one that is at all relevant to my post.
I think we should watch how higher education’s concerns are treated by the Obama Administration compared to how K-12 educators were completely ignored.
I will make a 5 dollar bet with you. University and college objections will be heard and treated very, very seriously, because powerful people run colleges and universities and they have huge lobbying and media clout, and powerful people do not work in public school districts.
I plan to watch that, and compare.
Colleges and Universities are also less influenced by government decisions because they are often private. Even public colleges and universities, because they have an independent revenue source, tend to be more independent of government actions.
If you follow the thread TE, YOU were responding to ME. Are you confused?
Sorry NJT, I was confused about which thread the email came from.
Chiarra,
Keep your five bucks. Do higher ed admins compare to hedge fund billionaires in their ability to cough up the cash?
TE
Do you have a breakdown of federal funding of institutions of higher education? Although I have no figures at my fingertips, I guesstimate it is a bundle!
Pell Grants, a federal voucher program for higher education, seems to be the big program with spending between currently around $34 billion projected to increase to about $41 billion in 2013. For research institutions, federal research grants are a significant source of revenue as well. For colleges, it is much less significant.
How far back does the desire on Jeb Bush’s part to show that public schools are failing go? It seems to me that if enough people had thought public school a bad idea they would have stopped it long ago. Or do they consider it an experiment that failed?
I would like to the know the point of origin for the declaration that public schools are no good and then the waiting to prove it. . .how far back does that line of thinking go?
1983. A Nation at Risk. (from Wikipedia)
A Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform is the title of the 1983 report of American President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education. Its publication is considered a landmark event in modern American educational history. Among other things, the report contributed to the ever-growing assertion that American schools were failing, and it touched off a wave of local, state, and federal reform efforts.
Also, the Education 2000 Initiative from 1994
http://www3.nd.edu/~rbarger/www7/goals200.html
David Berliner wrote “the Manufactured Crisis” in 1994. Now, 30 years later we’re even deeper into the war on education.
October 4, 1957.
No panic regarding failing schools, but a definite call to action.
Not only did the launch of Sputnik spur America to action in the space race, it also led directly to the creation of N.A.S.A. through the space act bill. Sputnik also contributed directly to advancement in science and technology. This came about when President Eisenhower enacted a bill called the National Defense Education Act. This bill encouraged students to go to college and study math and science. The students’ tuition fees would be paid for. This led to a new emphasis on science and technology in American schools. Sputnik also created building blocks which probably led to the general establishment of the way science is conducted in the United States today.
I know about Sputnik and A Nation at Risk, but when did there actually become a political agenda against public school in general? When did there arise this understanding that it needs to go (among some)?
Is there a silent majority who thinks this way? Surely not.
The effort to replace public education can be traced to Milton Friedman’s important 1955 article proposing vouchers. http://www.edchoice.org/The-Friedmans/The-Friedmans-on-School-Choice/The-Role-of-Government-in-Education-(1995).aspx
He didn’t make much headway until the past few years. Now here are many sate and local voucher programs. None successful.
2001. NCLB act. The first use of standardized test scores to identify and stigmatize “failing” Title 1 schools.
Historically, not sure what else you mean???
Milton Friedman first called for privatizing public education in a 1955 article entitled, “Capitalism and Freedom,” He expounded on his neoliberal clap trap and included it all in a book of the same name that was published in 1962.
Sorry, Diane’s post was not here when I was writing mine.
I think the 1971 Powell Memo also played a huge role. When combined with the implementation of Milton Friedman’s neoliberal policies in other arenas by Reagan, two Bushes and Clinton, the stage was set for corporate control and the take-down of public education by Obama.
The Powell Memo helps to explain why corporate dominance and controlling higher education are so important to this administration: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
Thanks for this, I’ve never seen this before.
Vouchers are commonly used in higher education, though the grants only a portion of the cost of attendance at an institution like the one I teach for and a much smaller percentage of the cost of attendance at private schools like NYU.
NYT: what I mean, historically, is when did politicians begin to blatantly say, “we must end public education to strengthen our nation?” Or has anyone been that blatant in their words?
I have never been part of a circle of people who thinks public schools are a menace to society, so I had no clue until recently that such a mentality even existed. When was it first suggested, I wondered, that doing away with public schools would help the citizens of the United States. (Dr. Ravitch has offered an answer)—many have, so thank you.
And I wonder will blatant out-right statements of “we need to get rid of public schools” ever really become part of main stream conversation?
Cosmic:
I read it. Thanks for the link.
So, basically in 1971 a sense of things being too far left was detected, which was believed to put us at risk because of our market economy. And so now the pushback to things being perceived as too far left is coming to fruition and we perceive it as being too far right, and thus threatening the very essence of our foundation, which is democracy. The constant pendulum quest for balance in a Democratic Republic. I always thought the two could exist, should exist together, striking a balance that is America. Silly me.
Call me a musician, but all I could think of when I read the 1971 manifesto was Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid.”
The majority of parents like their public schools. many live where they do because of them. School districts (with good reputations) are one of the biggest selling points for realtors.
Marc Tucker’s 1992 Dear Hillary letter provides insights to the neo-liberal Democratic agenda for public education, too:
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_tucker/
And don’t forget President Clinton’s Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994. This all started before NCLB.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Improving_America's_Schools_Act_of_1994
Susan Ohanian has written a stellar book tracing the history of the anti-public school factions. Try “Why Is Corporate America Bashing Our Public Schools?” published in 2004.
Jeb Bush embraced Milton Friedman’s radical ideas and, with his brother George W., planned to use public education as a springboard to their political ambitions.
When he was governor he was absolutely furious when the state teacher’s union (oxymoronic in itself since Florida is a “Right to Work” state with no protections for unions outside of the right to bargain when management is agreeable) convinced the public that the Class Size Amendment was a good thing. They passed it and it became part of our state constitution despite expensive and heavy opposition from Bush.
When he tried to ignore the law and repeal it, claiming that the cost was impossible, the state Supreme Court smacked him down and the voters passed the law again with a clear directive that the state could not fudge it, as Bush was so fond of doing with other laws.
He vowed revenge against the FEA. Then the FEA convinced the voters and enough legislators that the original VAM/merit pay law was a bad idea and it went down to defeat. Bush went ballistic.
The FEA joined with parents and successfully pushed back the parent trigger law for 2 years in a row and Bush vowed and overwhelming pushback again.
He succeeded in giving us a politically manipulated school grading system that overwhelmingly harms the poor, immigrants, and children of color and their teachers. He put in place a ridiculously flawed and unfair testing system that has harmed children for over a decade. He has funneled billions of dollars to political donors through vouchers, “opportunity scholarships”, charter operations with no oversight, etc.
His minions and associates are spread around the country in positions of power now. He has people in the US DOE and has met and been lauded by Arne Duncan and Obama repeatedly. He has a think tank associated with Harvard.
Here is an article by Fund Education Now that outlines his Friedman-inspired voucher plan in Florida and its spotty history:
http://www.fundeducationnow.org/resource-room/voucher-school-programs/
Joanna, Jeb is a rightwing ideologue who doesn’t like public schools. He would regulate them until they are strangled while promoting unregulated, unaccountable, unsupervised charters, vouchers, virtual charters.
Here is another good source from Rethinking Schools (Miner, 2002) that is very succinct: http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/righpro.shtml
Eliminating (or privatizing) public ed is also part of the ALEC agenda, which Diane has documented. Here’s a snippet:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/03/01/kappan_underwood.html
So much of the anti public education verbiage out there is just well constructed propaganda, going back decades now. Isn’t Jeb Bush just another well-connected conveyor of such, who also stands to benefit?
Having a bit of fun searching around…
Here are two somewhat recent reads to add to this discussion:
http://capitalismmagazine.com/2013/03/abolish-public-schools/
http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2012/05/jase_bolger_theres_no_republic.html
Notice the amusing counterpoints!
Monica thank you for the links
I wouldn’t be surprised if, regardless of how students perform on these tests, the scores always go down. The politicians and their cronies at Pearsons are in cahoots anyway so why not rig the system even more? This way all public schools can eventually close and their other friends, the hedge fund guys, can open charters. Everyone wins!
Greed. There’s big money in education. Anyone that understands that understands what is going on. Very sad ending to the rest of the story. It will take major parent push-back to stop this.
Flolindy, you are right. The cut scores are arbitrary. They can be adjusted up (progress!) or down (failure!) to achieve the desired results.
Jeb Bush will find that Common Core has become a politically toxic brand. I will not be surprised if he either goes mysteriously silent on the issue or carefully walks back his support. Ask Andrew Cuomo how the CC issue is working for him. And remember we’re the only state that is two years ahead of the curve.
Jeb has gone too far out in support of Common Core to walk back his support. Also he has close ties to the corporate sponsors. However don’t be surprised if you hear him talk about “poor implementation.”
His behavior on CCSS will certainly be interesting to watch.
If he sticks with it, he can have it. One more nail in his political coffin.
I agree with Diane. One thing Jeb Bush is not good at is admitting mistakes or changing his mind about anything. He is convinced of his own superiority and always smacks down opponents with ridiculous ad hominem attacks that never debate the issues or allow for dialog.
He won’t back down on CCSS. He will work behind the scenes to buy or otherwise ensure their use. It’s how he rolls.
Two toxic political brands too many will doom his presidential aspirations:
1) Common Core
2) Bush
Hold on: Jeb Bush can’t wait for Common Core to expose public schools as absolute failures? After so many states followed HIS recipe for reform? The same reform he’s been touting as an unqualified success while he cruises toward his inevitable run for the presidency?
My head hurts.
It is such a pity that all of the reformer, politicians and successful business people of the world had to overcome inadequate teachers and poor school systems in order to be successful. Oh thats right…they haven’t lacked success because most of them have come from good families, good neighborhoods, they have had proper nutrition and plenty of rest, they weren’t crack kids or preterm babies. From their first breath they have had an advantage. They did not have to endure the challenges and difficulties that children of poverty have to contend with day after day and still be expected to be successful at school.
Diane Ravitch has demonstrated in Reign of Error how the problem with education isn’t the teacher, the problem starts before children even come to school. Lack of achievement can be directly related to poverty and until we address poverty in our country we will not be able to increase achievement. Although, it was refreshing to know that test scores and graduation rates are at an all time high. I also found it interesting that the notion that we are preforming so far behind other countries is misrepresented.
The key to successful students begins with early childhood education and making sure before school children are receiving quality nutrition, health care and living in an environment that supports learning. Once students enter school, class size counts. The price we pay for increasing class size in order to save money is lower achievement. Also we need to stop wasting time testing and spending more time teaching.
In the end, zip code does matter in the success or failure of a school. It is not an excuse it is a reality. I realize my experience and knowledge is limited, however I don’t think I am aware of a district in an affluent neighborhood that has inadequate schools or poor test scores.
A sage observation. How do we guarantee each kid is born into a family in which learning is valued?
Have you seen that the Repubs are touting Jeb for president in 2016? Can America stand another Bush in the white house?
Also, the sad part is there is an end game to common core; the nationwide (world wide?) testing, and Pearson writing the curriculum and the test, and getting paid to give the results. Monopoly. Ka-ching. This doesn’t even tap into the privatizers profiting on charters and glomming up buildings for $1.
The means to achieving the end are to break up public schools by any way possible. Bust the unions, eliminate certified teachers, etc. Smear their reputations, etc. As Michael Jackson sang “the lie becomes the truth.”
Why is America farming its educational printing and testing to England?
All public districts that are able to self-govern should just say no to Common Core and Pearson and National Standards that were only suggested to funnel money to the profiteers. But here is the kicker – if you want some federal funding, you have to play to get paid. I am certain that the local players across the nation didn’t have a clue how deep the evil is rooted.
We hear the rhetoric. Our eyes are opening now. The people have to say…enough. No.
I am early to this game. I do not write so eloquently or well-informed as some of you, but if I can see it now, and others can see it now, it becomes a movement.
States should go back to their own standards, and work with local publishers of their textbooks and test content. Am I naive?
Say no to Jeb in 2016.
This report from NBC hints at, if not actually stating outright, the very troublesome legacy of Jeb Bush and education reform:
http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/27/15485391-jeb-bushs-reputation-as-education-reformer-gets-a-second-look
He is supported by the usual suspects in reform land. His ethics are questionable, at best.
Oh Chris, that is certainly worth a read. I just have to paste this bit in here. 4 teachers for 225 students–not that is the key to good education per Jeb. Ugh. And tho the data shows its bad, they opened another online school in Indiana. Also, online school operators count on Bush’s foundation to remove obstacles to their grown, such as state laws that require students to put in time in a physical classroom. Are you kidding me?
“In particular, Bush often talks up an Arizona charter school called Carpe Diem, which uses the E2020 online curriculum, employing just four teachers for 225 students because the kids do so much work online. Bush has flown policy makers from across the country to admire the school’s innovation and cost cutting. That has brought more clients to E2020, Factor said.
Arizona data shows Carpe Diem test scores have fallen sharply over the past two years, a drop founder Rick Ogston attributes to a new curriculum and the sudden death of the principal.
That has not slowed its momentum; after visiting Carpe Diem on a trip paid for by the Bush foundation, Indiana officials urged Ogston to apply to open a branch there. The head of the state charter school board, Claire Fiddian-Green, says the school’s “fairly strong track record” impressed her despite the recent slip in test scores. The new Carpe Diem campus in Indianapolis opened this fall.
Ogston said he and other charter and online school operators count on Bush’s foundation to remove obstacles to their growth, such as state laws that require students to put in time in a physical classroom.
“We come to them to say, ‘These policies are in the way, and it would be great if you could change them,'” Ogston said. “That’s what they do better than anyone.” “
He has ethics?
To answer your first question:
Absolutely Not!
That’s be like surviving skin cancer and bone cancer and then succumbing to pancreatic cancer eight years later.
That would be. . .
Dang, I’m so upset, my post is full of typos.
Reblogged this on SD Educators United.
I suggest two background sites that make it clear which “side” drives the reform. 1. Google search” 1981 Project on Alternatives in Education, Sizer Goodlad NEA. Not a rightwing group . Charter/Choice route to privatization begins to take shape here.
2.,www.crossroad.to/excerpts/chronologies/NEA.HTML
NEA,CHARTERS ,CHOICE… the Trojan horse that seeks to enter the gates of public education. Aided by $$$ from corporations, Foundations, Hedge funds, Philanthropists,. Less and less local “elected” control.
When profit is the motive, privatization is the only option. That’s not a right or left thing but they sure have us fighting each other don’t they? Think bigger. UN.. UNESCO GATES SOROS. NEA. COMMON CORE. DATA COLLECTION, that feeds the assessment system which seeks to make us all “equal” .
The TOP is higher up than Washington DC.
You are reading conspiracy theory propaganda promoted by the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Fox News et al.
It was educators who first thought of charters, but their purpose differed greatly from what we are seeing today. As Diane wrote, “The original purpose of charters, when they first opened in 1990 (and when I was a charter proponent), was to collaborate with public schools, not to compete with them or undermine them. They were supposed to recruit the weakest students, the dropouts, and identify methods to help public schools do a better job with those who had lost interest in schooling. This should be their goal now as well.”
http://www.alternet.org/education/diane-ravitch-charter-schools-are-colossal-mistake-heres-why
Communities should demand a perp walk for the state politicians, delivering taxpayers’ money to Pearson, Milken, Microsoft, et. al.
Don’t discount the money making opportunity in this – look at little Bush and how much money he conveniently made of his computer aided technology after the implementation of the NCLB Act.
Public education isn’t the problem. Neoliberalism is.
“Next time I tell you someone from Texas should not be president of the United States, please pay attention”.
My favorite quote from Molly Ivins:
There’s an important component missing in the “failure of public education” debate: Parents. They are the child’s first teacher and many of them are failing at this task.
Reading is fundamental to learning in all academic areas. If parents would follow the VERY simple task of reading to their children from birth throughout early elementary years they would boost the level of their test scores because 1) Their involvement and example of love of learning 2) The child’s reading ability and comprehension would SOAR.
Not reading to one’s child is akin to having a car and never putting air in the tires. Then seeing the tires go flat and wondering WHY the car won’t move down the road. And then, (wait for it) BLAMING the mechanic (teacher) for the problems!
“. . . they would boost the level of their test scores. . . ”
Couldn’t care less about “boosting the level of test scores”. Boosting test scores is another educational malpractice that is so culturally ingrained and that very few challenge even though the whole educational standards and standardized testing regime is so rife with epistemological and ontological errors that any conclusions drawn are “vain and illusory”, that is, COMPLETELY INVALID and cause much harm to students. To understand why read Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Is Jeb Bush using CCSS supporters and the billionaire “reformers” as a stepping stone to the presidency? Texas and the nation already suffered through the disastrous reign of George W., so just thinking about the rise of another privileged Bush in that role paints a very bleak picture.
Here is my latest warning about the harmful impact of CCSS. I wrote this following my resignation in protest of the punitive authoritarian environment for children that has resulted from the obsession with testing. Politicians and the “reformers” have failed to pay attention to warnings from mental health professionals, educators, and child development specialists, so, I wrote the same message in a format they will understand:
I will send a copy to Jeb Bush.
Joyce Murdock Feilke: nicely done.
😎
Thank you KrazyTA,
….Just one more way to get people to pay attention to the harm being done by CCSS.
This is an interesting theory of why Jeb Bush is for Common Core. If he was a true conservative, which he is not, he would not support Common Core and announce the US Dept of Education be disbanded.
I believe Bush is saying what he believes. We should have a national standard which is competitive with the most successful nations.
I also believe Bush believes in charter schools and vouchers to provide parents the power all “customers” should have, to have
choices when displeased with traditional education.
Jeb Bush can be of both opinions, and he is not alone.
And, since we veered into choice and vouchers here is a suggestion; rather than bitch about them….turn to traditional public schools, admint the flaws and offer suggestions to improve the, ajbruno14 gmail
Common Core (the 3-haded monster) is the LAW of the LAND in nearly every state in America. Until ESEA is re-written in a way that is favorable to such suggestions, and NCLB waivers/RTTT wind up on the ash heap of failed reform, all of this discussion is moot.
Thanks for comment. Some states are now deciding to end Common Core standard. The realization the ‘dog and pony’ show and the ‘fear’ of not using it is now being challenged as the public is learning the flaws this untested standard.
We are seeing the education “industry” which depends on the continued implement are in full attack mode against anyone, teachers, parents and educators who want it ended.
Common Core will be one additional education bureaucracy guided by the US Dept of Education to dictate public education via a national standard which will determine the curriculum and testing.
Public education was better when each state’s own DOE was fully responsible, before being coerced through federal funds being withheld unless complying with dictates from the US DOE. ajbruno14 gmail
I have some prime Florida swampland I would be happy to sell you, ajbruno14. You seem like an astute judge of . . . .
Nope. That’s why I can’t ever be a reformer. I just can’t lie to myself and pretend I’m telling the truth to others just because it suits my world view.
Jeb Bush is not honest and has never had the best interests of anyone but the Bush family on his priority list. I’ve lived under his governorship.
A good example would be the very recent doublespeak spewed out by his foundation’s spokesperson when asked how paying to fly legislators to his summit’s, wining and dining them at the most elite venues, and providing access to them for the people who paid for the trips doesn’t violate Florida’s ethics laws.
He can be your hero. Me, I’ll keep my eyes on everything that is not nailed down while he is around.
Oh, and double points for trotting out the “One True Scotsman” (read: conservative) straw man. I haven’t seen that in about 24 hours or so as an excuse for political dishonesty.
Hey ajbruno14 ,
You need to educate yourself on the Bush family history beginning with Prescott Bush, who was a Nazi, to Jeb’s wife, who was arrested for trying to smuggle in foreign goods from Europe without paying taxes. Every member of that uber Narcissistic family is flawed and corrupt, and Jeb is the personification of evil.
Do I need to say more.
Where do you get the idea that tea party people are against Public schools? I consider myself tea party and I send my children to public schools….I also volunteer many hours in our public schools…I am also against common core for many reasons….the current administration brought common core to our schools…..period. If you have a problem with that deal with them and leave the tea party out of it.
Look at where the money came from for the establishment of the Tea Party, the Koch brothers. Look at what else their money supports, including the ALEC agenda and the privatization of public education. Here’s an example:
The Tea Party is astroturf, not a grassroots movement, which was formed by a coalition of big businesses, including the tobacco industry and the Koch brothers, who are against integrated schools and public education. Many Tea Party members have spoken out about their aim to dismantle public education, including this one:
“Tea Party Speaker Says Privatize Public Schools”
http://palmer.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/tea-party-speaker-says-privatize-public-schools
“Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaire Koch Brothers”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/study-confirms-tea-party-_b_2663125.html
“Pro-Voucher Tea Party Group Admits It Wants To ‘Shut Down Public Schools And Have Private Schools Only’”
http://thinkprogress.org/education/2011/07/11/265663/voucher-tea-party-go-away/
Bush has not a chance in hell of becoming president BECAUSE he has been an instrument of the Common Coring of the United States.
This was THE BIG MISTAKE of his political career. There is much, much that he could have done to position himself as the education governor and then the education candidate for president. But people don’t like their schools being turned into test prep factories, their kids being subjected to narrowed and distorted lessons modeled on standardized test questions, the endless standardized testing, the relentless teacher bashing, placing authority over K-12 education in the hands of an unaccountable centralized Common Core Curriculum Commissariat, having their children’s private data sold to corporations without parental consent, having their schools stack ranked according to crude and invalid measurements, and so on.
They don’t like this AT ALL.
The Education Deformers travel in an echo chamber, and teachers and administrators are, for the most part, AFRAID to speak out, and so the Deformers dramatically underestimate the strength of the opposition to Education Deform.
This opposition is the most potent potential force in U.S. politics today. In the coming elections, the people who tap into that opposition will win, handily. I have no doubt about this.
I can see the campaign commercials now.
If Hilary Clinton is going to be the democratic nominee, she had better think carefully about positioning herself in opposition to Education Deform, for her opponents will dig up Bill’s central role in getting Ed Deform off the ground when he was head of the NGA. Once political operatives realize how strong the resentment of the testing craze is in the country, they are going to recognize that opposing the Bush/Obama education policies will be the surest way to win elections.
If the Republican Party nominates Jeb Bush despite his central role in the Education Rheeformation, they will be committing political suicide. It’s highly doubtful, on this issue alone, that he would survive the primary process.
Unless Jeb has a Saul on the road to Damascus moment about Education Deform, he is finished politically. It’s astonishing that some political pundits don’t recognize this yet.
Ed Deform should be a natural issue for the Republicans. They have an insanely Democratic Deformish president to oppose, and they have a traditional aversion to top-down, centralized government micromanagement of people’s affairs. IF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY SEIZES UPON OPPOSITION TO EDUCATION DEFORM AS ITS CENTRAL ISSUE, it will be unstoppable.
And the Democrats had better be thinking about that. If they stick with Obama on this, they are toast.
no TRUE conservative will vote for Jeb Bush!!! and certainly no tea party person will vote for him!! Bob is absolutely correct about the next election.
With all due respect, not everyone who has read the Constitution (esp. Section I Article 8) and is opposed to RttT/CommonCore, desires to abolish public education, though I would agree that in addition to dealing with the unions w/o actually having to deal with the unions, is the very short-sighted goal for the “big-name” R’s like Bush & Kasich, who support it.
RttT/CommonCore = FedEd + CorporatEd
A for-profit federal cage built and managed by big business.
Many of us don’t want the federal government OR Corporate America involved in education, namely because neither has done such a bang-up job – unless of course, you are uber wealthy and can afford the likes of Sidwell Friends, whose students will not only get the privilege of operating outside of the federal cage, but will be trained to shove those not born into money, inside the federal cage….they will be the “next generation” (no pun intended) of cage-keepers.
So only the uber rich will escape…the very opposite of the ostensible intent.
Education – REAL “education” – should be in the hands of an autonomous, and local group of parents and teachers. Only then will innovation & best practice models have a chance to raise the level of learning for ALL students. Yes, solutions are needed for our most at-risk kids, but I would suggest that 1) no one-size-fits-all federal cage can elevate our most at-risk students w/o putting the rest at-risk, and 2) we cannot legislate/compensate for irresponsible or absent parenting, w/o punishing the responsible, present parents (see Newton’s Third Law of Motion).
We may disagree on how to walk that out, but please don’t paint all of us with such a wide brush. Many parents want/need thriving conditions in ALL educational environments depending on the individual needs of their children, and should be able to patron those environments w/o punishment or strings.
Consistency is the key, and frankly, I don’t see it any more on the left than I do the right.