Blogger Louisina Educator writes of the combination of forces fighting for Common Core:
“These heavily promoted standards pushed by an alliance of so called education reformers such as the Gates Foundation, The Broad and Walton Foundations, the Pearson education publishing conglomerate, and the Obama administration are also supported by the Charter School Association, big business interests LABI, CABL, the Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce and two astro turf groups (phony grassroots organizations funded by the big foundations). All of these groups will also be fighting hard to kill HB 21 and 340 that would only modestly curtail the expansion of New Charter schools in Louisiana.
“The dedicated and informed parents and educators who oppose Common Core and PARCC testing are so outgunned by the privatization and Common Core promoters that the battle this week could be compared to confronting an Abrams tank with a BB gun.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Viral Capitalism is licking its chops at the prospect of converting a public institution into a yet another commercial cash cow.
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I noticed how everything is Big these days: big education, big government, big pharma, big ag, …….can’t we have small anything?
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Where/what is the “big education”?
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I’d like to see an analysis of the “support” for Common Core among these groups. I’d like to see exactly how much they have invested in public schools to support the standards- not the tests- the standards.
I’ll believe they “support” the Common Core standards when I see their money spent in public school classrooms. Until then, I consider it marketing another unfunded ed reform mandate.
Ed reformers are big on making demands of public schools, teachers and students. What they’re NOT big on is funding for their mandates.
I wish states had gotten dedicated Common Core funding prior to accepting the mandate. They need to get the funding upfront or they’ll never get it.
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Pearson rep came to Ohio and said they may be able to cut the time for Common Core tests in half. The one and only reason he was called to testify is the parent and teacher opposition to so much testing. Lawmakers felt political pressure so they seated a panel.
If Pearson can cut the testing time in half to keep the contract in Ohio why were the tests so long in the first place?
Thank goodness someone objected, huh? Our kids would have been spending twice as much time testing, time that was apparently unnecessary and just accepted without question.
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time for some creative strategies!!Slingshots??
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More public awareness of the twisted agenda in the alliance of the vampires of unbridled capitalism is needed. Minorities and the poor must understand that they are the appetizers, and the middle class are the main course.
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Atlantic Monthly now funded by Walton Family:
“All of which is important context for spotlighting a grant of $550,000 made last year by the leading philanthropic proponent of charter schools, the Walton Family Foundation, to the Atlantic Monthly, a storied magazine that’s been commanding attention from the nation’s educated elite for a century and a half. The grant was made as part of Walton’s effort’s to shape public policy, with the foundation describing its goal in this area as catalyzing a “national movement demanding choice and accountability.”
That’s funny because we have been told repeatedly there IS a national movement “demanding” choice and accountability. Apparently it needs paid cheerleaders to “catalyze” the public. It’s called “creating demand”.
http://www.insidephilanthropy.com/home/2015/5/11/whats-up-with-that-big-grant-to-the-atlantic-monthly-from-th.html
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If you enter Gates foundation website put in the key words Achieve standards you get over 200 hits for grants awarded,some of these multiple grants to the same organization.
There is a dark money channel for all foundations. They send money to Rockefeller Financial Advisors and that outfits puts into designed programs forgedby the donor. You can find out how Gates uses that channel.
The pursit of common standards was let by the CEO of IBM beginning in the late 1980s. From the get go this was a corporate CEO initiative with governors as shills and worker bees. The CEOs and governors set up Achieve, INC. a non profit with staff and money to push the common core into existence withthe help of the Council of Chief State School Officers and staff from the National Governors Association.
The present CCSS originated within the American Diploma Project, the first big push to have a common set of high school graduation requirements with the idea that these standards would also function as career readiness standards.
The CCSS ended up shoving college expectations down to grades 9 and 10. The writers tried to back map all of the prerequisites for those targets to be met…all the way to kindergarten, pure folly but the model is straight out of corporate and military training programs for adults. The implicit “theory” is that kids are just miniature adults and that education is not different from training. This mental construct helps to explain the rigid grade by grade structure, the verbitim use rule, and the hope for all of the content to be delivered in modules on the internet, with assessment embedded in delivery.
The history at the Achieve website is informative. Best of all,Mercedes Schneider has a new tell-all book on the CCSS coming out in early June.
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It’s really disturbing that all these paid advocates “for students” just accepted Pearson’s assertion that 3rd graders needed to take the equivalent of the Ohio bar exam.
The minute Ohio teachers and parents pushed back a little, all of a sudden we find out that the length of these tests ISN’T a requirement after all.
Faced with opposition on the tests, ed reformers don’t demand the contractor come up with concessions, instead they go after the teachers and parents who oppose the tests. How is this “advocacy” for students? If Pearson said the tests had to be twice as long would they have accepted and defended that too?
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I agree – it’s the ‘going after those who oppose’ that is particularly disturbing.
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error key phrase is “common standards”
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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jb2
May 12, 2015 at 9:23 am
I agree – it’s the ‘going after those who oppose’ that is particularly disturbing.
They did the same thing with the privacy concerns. They completely dismissed the idea that anyone can ask anything of the testing contractor.
Sure we can. Parents can demand Pearson meet any number of conditions before they hire Pearson, and Pearson will have to meet those conditions if they want the contract.
Are they advocates for students or advocates for contractors?
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Without a moral compass (philosophy), democracy is just fascism with a smile.
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I spent a year looking at the enemy and the weapons they are using against us… Here is the website with my findings and my book. http://weaponsofmassdeception.org/ We wake up, speak out, and demand change in our legislatures and we win.
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