The Gates Foundation called for a two-year suspension of the high stakes evaluation of teachers–ratings and rankings tied to student scores—but not a moratorium on the testing. A reader writes:
“If there is a moratorium on the evaluations connected to the tests, then there is no point in continuing the tests either since the sole purpose of the tests was to attempt to measure growth for the purposes of the evaluations. The real reason the evaluations are being suspended is that there simply cannot be any remotely accurate growth measures to base them on while the CC$$ is being implemented. This moratorium is like saying we will suspend the use of nails but are still required to swing the hammers and hit the wood. And, once the CC$$ is being ramped up and many more teachers see it’s problems manifesting themselves, such as it being developmentally inappropriate for K-3, will the moratorium be extended while that and any other problems are being solved? How will they be solved, with the input of teachers as should have been the case from the beginning? Or not? Hard to say since it is a copy righted product.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The moratorium is just a cover for implementing everything even more rigidly in a couple years. Then they can say they used the moratorium time to thoroughly test and de-bug everything and they will assure us that all concerns have been addressed and that everything is working as smooth as cream pie and there’s no further room for debate.
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I think you are exactly right.
People have started to notice that Emperor Bill is not wearing any clothes and the Emperor is hoping to prevent a serf uprising by declaring a temporary hiatus on tax collections.
Of course, after two years, Emperor Bill’s collectors will come for tax plus interest (compounded at 300%), but (by the Emperor’s thinking) the serfs are too stupid to figure that out.
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panem et circenses
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Gates does not want the issue to interfere for the present time with his broader agenda with Common Core and Computers
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Don’t know if you-all saw this. None other than Raj Chetty was part of the “opening plenary” at the Clinton Global Initiative. He’s listed right beneath Bill and Hillary Clinton if the photo on Twitter is representative of the event. It’s amusing how lock-step all these critical thinkers are about this VAM theory. Boy, he better be right on his theory and the “guesstimates” that are being derived from it (fairly or not) because a lot of powerful people are certainly following along. Judges, current and former Presidents, Senators, etc.
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the Clintons are developing “digital badges” for education and the work place, that should put resume writers out of work, You will be digitally approved for a job (if there are any), or college admissions
based on if you still had trouble with toilet training in the Pre K Common Core Checklist.
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I love how lock-step it all is. If I want “critical thinkers” I don’t think I’ll turn to these people as “role models” for my 6th grader. I think he asks more and better questions than they do.
This is Arne Duncan from 2012 repeating verbatim what CEO’s told him:
” So we all have to — again, this isn’t a Republican or Democratic or — I could care less about politics and ideology. This is about we need an educated workforce. And it’s fascinating to me that in a really tough economic time like this, we have 2 million high-wage, high-skilled jobs that are unfilled because we’re not producing the employees with the skills that employers are looking for. I can’t tell you how many CEOs I’ve met with and the President has met with who have said, we’re trying to hire now; we’re not trying to export jobs, but you’re not producing the workers.
We don’t just have a jobs issue now; we have a skills crisis. We have a skills gap. We have to close that skills gap. The only way we do that is to have a lot more young people graduate from college and go on to — graduate from high school and go on to college.”
You know, Scott Walker in Wisconsin started this talking point because he promised jobs and couldn’t produce. The “skills gap” is questionable. There’s a lively debate about it (but not in DC, apparently). I think it’s baloney. The county where I live doesn’t change, the population and demographics don’t go up or down, and we have lots of skilled tradespeople. They were ALL looking for work in the economic crash. We had “welders” galore. We just didn’t have CEO’s who were willing to pay them more than ten bucks an hour.
Why does Duncan repeat this like gospel? This isn’t “critical thinking”
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‘he [Chetty] better be right on his theory..”
He’s not, of course, not according to American Statistical Association and many other science-based groups who have concluded that his conclusions are invalid (junk, basically)
But if you have politicians, judges, Presidents, Senators etc who know little or no science and base decisions on ideology and other voodoo supporting you, it doesn’t matter.
Chetty doesn’t need to be right because he is a very smart, creative fellow, “creating his own reality” (think of it as the “Chetty Chetty Bang Bang” theory of universe creation)
Here’s how it works:
“The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”[2] —The Reality Based Community
Well, not just to “study”, but actually live with the outcomes (family members coming back from Iraq in body bags, students taking endless tests, teachers being fired for teaching poor kids who don’t do well in school or on tests because they are hungry and traumatized by guns going off in their neighborhood )
But that’s just a minor quibble and I digress.
The real point is that the folks who “create reality” (the Masters of the Universe) do not suffer any negative consequences for their “reality creation” (and why should they? Should we hold God accountable for the Big Bang?) — and keep enjoying all the perks (money, positions of power,etc).
When someone (eg, American Statistical Association or New York Teacher’s Union) tries to hold them accountable, they simply “create other new realities” to keep the reality based community busy…and that’s how things will sort out.
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Really good piece on where the term “digital native” originated. None of you will be surprised it came from an ed reform consultant rather than the ‘digital natives” themselves 🙂
“I wonder, did people talk about “industrial natives” and “industrial immigrants”? Were kids who grew up working in factories just “industrial natives” who were at home amongst the machines? (I actually posed these questions to a few technology historians, to no avail.)”
http://www.thebaffler.com/blog/2014/07/the_digital_native_a_profitable_myth
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My own personal opinion on CC testing (and I’m not an expert!) is that middle school age children will have the toughest time. The younger children will accept it as part of the status quo (as my middle schooler does not with the constant testing of NCLB-it’s all he knows) and the older students will have the capacity to adjust because they’re more sophisticated and mature but middle schoolers will really get hammered. It seems unfair to me. I think I would have started with one lower grade a year and then follow that first cohort and add younger, but then I am a careful person and I try to avoid “ripping off bandaids” just for kicks 🙂
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Duncan said this? “We don’t just have a jobs issue now; we have a skills crisis. .. We have to close that skills gap. The only way we do that is to have a lot more young people graduate from college and go on to — graduate from high school and go on to college.”
Well, we have kids going to college and not being able to find employment. How is that working for you, Arnie? What exactly are the skills that aren’t getting learned? There is a glut of lawyers and a glut of teachers; many can’t find work (but the TFAers have positions handed to them on platters, with extra perks).
There s a glut of electricians and carpenters, many who wait on a call from the union hall to go to a job that lasts a few months, then they return to the wait list.
When you’re unemployed, the biggest “back to work course” is medical coding/billing – and my friend’s kid went for that, and there was no job afterwards waiting for him.
So what we need to know, the question that begs to be asked is – what are the needed skills for the waiting jobs? Perhaps Arne and Obama should clue the public in so we can get to work.
Instead, they blame the teachers and create loopholes for charters. I guess there is no big public tax grab in any other occupation for them to target. They already screwed the hospitals and the prisons.
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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz you are 100% correct. Let’s look at the job market.
I did a little “reality-check” on 24 kids I know from my upper-middle-class NJ suburb, who graduated between 2011-2014. Here are the facts:
5 were STEM BA’s: two w/BS engrg doing fine; 1 math/physics major [h.s. teacher] saving for engrg masters (not happy w/ed-reform changes & has to live at home); 1 undergrad premed no $ for med school; joins 1 math/computer brother in small computer-repair biz (can make enough to share apt)
3 w/biz-fin BA & MBA OK, straight into steady accounting & marketing jobs [latter enough to raise fam w/PT golf-pro house-husband]
6 in social sciences: the only one doing OK double-majored at a DC-area college in public policy/ environmental; employed by fed gov. 3 have been making do w/low-paid therapy-camp work; one of them just got MSW, we’ll see if that helps. Another lived at home while lo-paid McPreschool teacher; getting MSW. Last one (in phys-ed/sports science) likewise made do w/rescue camps, now admin asst in health biz [relocated to cheap area]
Community College: 3 spent 2 yrs getting core courses, both while working. 2 have made career of PT work (contruction/ heavy mach, & UPS delivery) & relocated w/same-ed, lower-pd wives to cheap areas to raise family. Other continues at retail, saving for engr BA.
3 in music: 2 have humanities-audio tech degrees; career path so far is 2 yrs working pt in field while doing unpaid internships, then almost-full-time, almost-OK work in field (enough to pay 3/4 expenses); the one w/conservatory-ed major doing OK in teaching but has to live at home.
4 in humanities BAs (history, engl): 2 went into teaching & doing OK but pay poor & living at home; 1 ended up raising family as real estate broker in growth area; another bouncing job to lo-pd job (bartender, waitress, teaching aide) & now getting advanced degree.
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You can see that the only kids thriving w/a BS are those in engrg; finance seems good if you go for the MBA. Of 6 in social sciences, only 1 got a [DC] job & thrives, the others struggle. W/o exception the humanities majors either struggle in teaching or (1 case) relocate & find something different. Those w/2-yr community college may be able to survive in unrelated blue-collar jobs. I have too little data in law & med; just judging from the 2 kids I know in these fields: med people arrive late to workforce w/incredible debt & need 2-career to be independent (kids? much later); law seems good but not what it once was (fewer ops; perhaps glut on market?)
Lest one conclude that the current generation is singularly doomed: I know a fair number my age (near retirement) who were dumped from transp & utility R/D-&mgt [victims of deregulation] as well as retail mgt [victims of big-box response to globalization] over the last 20 yrs, who have survived due to spouse job or relocated/ down-salaried to cheaper area.
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Conclusion: the barrage of ed jawboning & policy changes emanating from DC in recent decades seem little other than an obvious attempt to distract middle-class baby-boomers (the majority of voters) from the steep decline in job opportunities for themselves and their children.
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