Yohuru Wiliams and Marla Kilfoyle explain here why reformers today are not entitled to claim the legacy of the civil rights movement. Their essay was written to mark the 50th anniversary of what was known as Freedom Summer, when advocates for civil rights risked their lives to advance the cause of freedom and equality.
They begin their essay:
“One of the more disturbing narratives employed by corporate education reformers, who support both Teach for America and the Common Core, is the claim that they are cast in the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement—specifically in the use of education as a tool to challenge economic and political inequality. The larger claim of the Common Core defenders is that it will close the achievement gap. Their rhetoric is that CCSS will increase “rigor” and make children “college and career ready.” The idea that a set of standards can erase child poverty, systemic racism that continues to exist in our educational system, and squash the rise of classist privilege is beyond absurd. To do this in the name of Civil Rights is insulting. Have the CCSS really leveled the playing field? Are they really doing what the corporate reformers say they will do.”
Williams and Kilfoyle go on to describe significant differences between then and now. One that matters is that none of the contemporary “reformers” are risking their lives. They are making monetary contributions in hopes of raising test scores. They are advancing the privatization of public schools. They are seeking to strip teachers of their rights. It is impossible to confuse the current movement–funded by the richest people in the nation–with a movement for freedom and equality.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hey, Civil Rights are Next Big Thing, and anybody, absolutely anybody, can play. Witness famed civil rights activist Ted Nugent:
Wow.
My coffee just curdled.
And you hadn’t even put cream in it yet.
There are so many despicable things the so-called reformers are doing and have done, but trying to hijack the legacy of the Civil Rights movement while profiteering off the destruction of a bedrock democratic institution is off-the-charts dishonesty and evil.
When they mess with the legacies of MLK, Rosa Parks, et. al. they are taking their chances with the Gods of Kharmic Retribution. Big time.
Thought I would mention the new group “Higher Ed for Higher Standards”. From their website http://higheredforhigherstandards.org/about/principlesmission/ :
“Higher Ed for Higher Standards is a growing coalition of college and university leaders from across the country who believe that college- and career-ready standards, including the Common Core State Standards, are critical to improving student success in K-12 and beyond. We are a project of the Collaborative for Student Success, a grant-making initiative created with the pooled resources of a diverse group of regional and national education foundations committed to improving public education.”
The founding Chancellors wrote a remarkably clueless article in the Chronicle
http://chronicle.com/article/Use-the-Common-Core-Use-It/147007/
that addresses almost none of the surrounding issues. “We’re for higher standards and better assessments!” is about the size of it. Studies cluelessness is how they got to be where they are, I suppose.
Does this maen that Bill Gates should cancel his “I Have a Scheme” speech?
TAGO
TAGO!#2
😎
Make that three TAGO’s
Privatization Is Austerity. Thank you Diane because that sums it all up. They are doing evil because they are subscribed to this King Midas austerity atrocity. Even the legacy of Amzie Moore and Fannie Lou Hamer is up for exploitation. There are no limits to what they will get up to if we allow it to go forward. Our teacher colleagues in Spain, Portugal, Greece, Mexico and beyond got it and then organized accordingly.
Let us not wallow in the valley of school failure, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a scheme. It is a scheme deeply rooted in the Plutocratic, neoliberal, dream of the snake oil salesman.
I have a scheme that one day this nation’s education reformers will rise up and live out the true meaning of their creed: “We hold these marketing opportunities to be self-evident, that a sucker is born every minute.”
I have a scheme that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a computer adaptive, Microsoft, standardized test station.
I have a scheme that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of ineffective, lazy teaching, sweltering with the heat of the soft bigotry of low expectations, will be transformed into an oasis of common core standards and punitive test based reform.
I have a scheme that all little children (except mine and Arne’s) will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the number of their zip code, but by the scores of their third grade PARCC assessments.
I have a major money making scheme today!
– Billy Gates
NYS Teacher:
“Laughter is poison to the pompous.”
😎
“Laughter is poison to the pompous.”
O-o-o-o! I like that one.
Well done NYS. It is very sad what education in our country has become. I can no longer teach because my knowledge and ability to observe students and help them make progress is not valued. My concern for the “whole child” is ignored in favor of tests and mandates created by those who have never stepped into a classroom nor have likely met families and children with life situations that are drastically different than their own.
Yes! Like when Bill Gates talks about his eighth grade teacher telling him to work harder. He seems to think that is the only thing a teacher needs to do in order to motivate a student: Raise the bar. I imagine living that upper class lifestyle can be quite enervating! Not to be snarkey since privilege does not generally figure in the path to truly great accomplishments. More to the point is his implied comparison to all other students, many of whom have more important basic issues impacting their lives than trying harder in school.
Thass a rousing good parroty …
How bout you try your hand at BAT Scratch Fever?
The curruption of language is part of the process of “engineering consent’ for absurditites.
It is sad to see that the higher education communinity has given little or no critical attention to policies for pre-K to 12 education.
I suppose many of the administrative class in higher education, especially in public universities, have not yet felt the full force of Gates-style accountability complete with national league tables on the earnings of graduates in various degree programs, and inevitable demonizing of studies in the arts and humanities as poor investments.
It’s kind of like rationalizing that African Americans were better off with slavery because then there was no animosity towards them by whites. White people were free to be nice to their slaves, but buddy if they’re free we’re not going to like them.
Same here. Teachers will do a better job for children if they are following a script and can be easily hired and fired and they are better off this way because society won’t like them otherwise and that’s better for children!
A nice teacher who can follow the script and be easily hired or fired will be better for that child.
Huh?
Academics are really dangerous to idealogues because they have this annoying habit of thinking. One must train the intelligentsia to follow the party line in order to control the peons. One must make them understand that their job is to serve the will of the overlords or be crushed. How can we possibly train the next generation if we don’t embrace the program ourselves?
Of course they didn’t even the playing field. The artificial gap is broadened simply by putting more emphassis on the test. The test measures lower level or “B” level achievement rather than what a child can do. It is used because it is easier to fail kids that way and thus keeping a people down.
Factor in the choice movement which allows more parents to “get away” from the “other” kids and white fligh will be at an all time high.
CC is simply not edeucationally sound. Details in my soon to released book at http://www.wholechildreform.com
Civil rights– is not a good education one of those rights? I may be wrong, but exactly how do you all propose to measure how our educational system is stacking up? Will the test of educational efficacy be an opinion or will it be backed by data, data that comes from assessments? I agree, these billionaire “reformers” are not heroes by any stretch of the imagination. They are however, at least doing SOMETHING about the state of affairs in education. Summative assessments along with formative assessments have their place in education. It is clear that the system we have now does not work for everyone. Perhaps CCSS is not the enemy, perhaps the testing of children is the real enemy. The way I see CCSS is as a framework for how to deliver instruction and provide more real world expectations for what students produce during the course of their edification. I do by no means confuse Bill Gates with MLK. The whole child does not have to be neglected as a result of CCSS, the whole child does need to know how to navigate the world in order to have success. Success is not only measured monetarily, but in terms of fulfillment, satisfaction and accomplishment of one’s goals.
Reblogged this on TN BATs BlOG.