While I was supposedly taking a break from blogging, the biggest story of the Christmas break appeared in Fortune and reverberated in blogs and on Twitter. It demonstrates how little business leaders know about public education and why they should spend their time creating jobs in this country and sticking to what they know.
The Fortune article is a fascinating account that begins with a dinner in 2014 between Bill Gates and Charles Koch of the infamous Koch brothers. Gates thought he could persuade Koch to drop his opposition to the Common Core standards. Koch was not interested. He told Bill to call someone in his office. Fail! Only a billionaire could tell off another billionaire like that.
The article shows something that it doesn’t mean to show. Businessmen know nothing about education. Neither does the writer. The article repeats every well-worn cliché about our “failing” schools and about how the Common Core standards will raise our test scores to the top of the world.
Let’s state a simple fact: there is NO EVIDENCE that Common Core will improve education or test scores. It was launched in 2010. It has been tested in many states, and test scores have collapsed. Why the stubborn insistence that it will raise American test scores compared to the rest of the world or prepare all students for college and career? There is no evidence for this stubborn belief. If businessmen acted this way in their own corporations, every one of their products would be untested. Their gasoline would cause engines to explode, their buildings would collapse, their software would be fraught with bugs, and their hardware would melt. And they wouldn’t understand why. They would keep insisting that we have to keep doing the same things over and over. At least their customers would have a choice, unlike American parents and children, who are forced to endure Common Core despite their protests.
First, our schools are NOT failing. Test scores on the NAEP are at their highest point ever, for all groups of students, including whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. Scores on NAEP rose steadily since the 1970s until NCLB went into effect; then the rate of gains slowed. But in 2015, the NAEP scores went flat or declined, when the full force of NCLB , Race to the Top, and Common Core converged. Repeat, our schools are NOT failing, but our policymakers have rained chaos and disruption on them since 2001.
Second, we have heard this claim about “our failing schools” since 1983, when the Reagan-era report “A Nation at Risk” was published to moaning and groaning. We have been warned again and again that the schools were harming our economy. Yet our economy has grown since 1983. The biggest harm to our economy has come not from our schools but from major corporations outsourcing jobs to other countries where labor is cheaper, not better.
Third, the article repeats the same tired litany about our terrible international scores, but those scores prove nothing, zero, zilch. Our nation has had low international scores since 1964, when the first international test was given, and those scores had no effect upon the economy. In fact, our economy has surpassed those nations with higher scores on TIMSS and PISA. The scores of 15-year-olds on standardized tests do not predict the future.
Fourth, there is no evidence whatever that the Common Core standards will improve education. None. It has been tried nowhere before it was imposed. Which of these businessmen would adopt a product without finding out how it works?
Fifth, it is absolutely false that there is no way to compare state academic performance without the Common Core tests. Remember NAEP? It compares states by test scores and disaggregates the scores by race, gender, disability status, free-lunch status, and other dimensions. It reports regularly on achievement gaps.
The best thing in the article is this quote from Bill Gates:
The Gates Foundation would help bankroll virtually every aspect of Common Core’s development, promotion, and implementation. “This is like having a common electrical system,” Gates told the Wall Street Journal in 2011. “It just makes sense to me.”
Yes, if children were toasters, they could be plugged into a common electrical outlet. If every teacher was a robot or was replaced by a computer, every child would get exactly the same lessons. Gates said the same thing to the National Board for Professional Standards. Why not have a common script for every teacher and every classroom in the nation? Children are not electrical appliances. Each is a unique person. Teachers think; they have minds and ideas independent of the script.
This article demonstrates why American business leaders are in the dark when it comes to education. Why don’t they demand that all American children get the same education they want for their own children? That would be real reform.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I would argue that schools may be a bigger failure now than they ever were in the 80’s. Based on the report Graduation Rates up, College entry down, school are producing high school students are not prepared to enter the world of higher education or even competent workers.
David, I disagree. The students who are doing poorly are the ones who used to drop out in 9th or 10thgrade. Plus students who don’t speak or read English.
The failure is not with our public schools or or universities.
The real problem is declining wages and the decline of work itself.
The worship of St. Milton Friedman has created the race to the bottom that was predicted—factories are only a memory in most towns, and
as long as Americans want better than 10 cents a day sans benefits, the factories can’t come back. Unless we ditch that free market fundamentalist religion.
it seems to me that the Republican party is actually going to have
to come to terms with the fact that its religious faith in St. Milton has destroyed the working class and is wiping out the middle class.
These people are, and will be, very very angry unless they see jobs coming back to their communities—and not fast food jobs. It’s harder and harder to find a job where you can make more than $20,000 a year and have benefits.
Democrats don’t need to get smug here either—they have the same problem, it’s just not biting them as hard right now. Nobody seems to have anything useful to say.
(Well, Bernie does.)
Until the elites of both parties come to grips with the effects of the last 30 years of free market “creative destruction” (which has yet to create a replacement for
the industrial economy), we’ll stay in the same cycle of ineffectiveness.
(H/T mary helen)
The reason I believe that they may be a bigger failure is due the factors that Diane mentioned. We have more low achieving students remaining in school. In order to “make the numbers” look good we are just pushing them through the system without an true learning taking place, except test taking skills. That is why we are starting to see the decline in the number of students enter post-secondary education.
Yes the cost factor and the justification for attending college are out of wack. When they finish college there are not jobs available to pay for the cost of the education.
I realize that these are all factors, but I believe we are just pushing kids out the doors of high schools just to say they graduated, not ready for anything in life.
Competent workers. Read that docile wage slaves who tolerate arbitrary shows of power and lives of underpaid tedium.
I’m in agreement with jcgrim on this one. The loss of so many jobs and the reverence of Friedman’s failed (by his own admission) policies have set the scene for so many of the problems that we see today.
And it’s not just the Republicans. Remember Clinton, Carter, and Bush Sr on national TV, talking about the “New World Order” in order to sell NAFTA and GATT? “Just” blue collar losses, overseas (bad enough…but it ended up being white collar, too). Training programs for displaced workers.
There are will continue to be plenty of repercussions resulting from this major shift. I never voted for the “New World Order”. There was no vote. It was just kinda “agreed upon”.
There is no doubt in my mind that everything Diane Ravitch has said here has merit. If has been said over and over.
But where is our plan, our meaning those of us who have opposed so many reforms?
We have been fighting against specific and real programs. But where is the plan to build and support quality teaching? What, in fact, does good teaching look like?
The reforms have taken us backwards; just being in opposition doesn’t necessarily move us forward.
“What, in fact, does good teaching look like?”
I think we have to answer that question first before we can have a plan to implement it. One thing I do know is that it can’t be standardized, so it will be very difficult to have a “plan” to ensure “good teaching” by all teachers since it will look different from teacher to teacher.
I agree, Dienne. All physicians don’t do medicine the same way. But there are commonalities, even things they shouldn’t do.
My main point is that good teaching is difficult, complicated, and takes resources and support. As teachers, we know that. But it doesn’t even seem to be in the conversation. Instead, it’s assumed that anyone can just … teach.
Peter, if you look through the thousands of posts here on Diane’s site you will find many, many strong arguments articulating a vision. I nominate you to synthesize those posts into a strategic plan!
It’s actually been done several times. My point is that the vast majority of those opposing reforms (I’m one) on this blog and elsewhere very rarely talk about a path forward, much less about teaching itself, yet teaching is what we do.
Peter,
I have a principle. I am a historian, not a classroom teacher. I never tell anyone how to teach. I post comments by those who have the experience to express an informed opinion.
We educators have always known that learning never takes place in a socio-economic vacuum. Students who thrive in school thrive at home and in their neighborhoods. Poverty, poor nutrition, and economic policies which create poverty and austerity by cutting social safety net programs must be ended.
Countries such as Finland and the Scandinavian countries have strong social safety nets, and their students thrive. Read The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by Richard G. Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.
Neoliberal economics since 1980 and our many, endless imperial wars have perverted spending priorities here while costing lives, not only jobs. Reforming education must take place within reform of our political-economic system, which neither major political party wants to face.
But that is what we must do, especially in the face of accelerating climate disaster, which predatory global capitalism is incapable of halting.
“What, in fact, does good teaching look like?”
Not sure, but I am virtually certain it doesn’t look like this
In answer to your question, Peter, I’d say that good teaching mimics the good practice of medicine, in that, “First, (we must) do no harm.”
Children are vulnerable beings, and must be kept safe from those who would abuse or take advantage of them. Thus, this blog’s overwhelming focus on protecting children (and teachers, and society) from the harm that is being done to them by the so-called reformers.
Let’s drive the money changers from the Temple of Learning, and then educators can debate among themselves and other stakeholders how to repair the damage of the past twenty years, and create environments for all children to learn and be free.
Peter asks, “What, in fact, does good teaching look like?”
Huh? Did you lose your Danielson (or Marzano) rubric?
The better question is, “What does a good instructional program look like?”
The 10 components of good IP:
1) Teacher with content area expertise- and beyond
2) Organized, orderly, and structured – with set routines (yet flexible)
3) Fair, objective, and transparent grading system
4) Developmentally appropriate instruction and interactions
5) Clear, explicit, and understandable instruction
6) Fair, clear, and consistent classroom management policies
7) Professional rapport between teacher and their students
8) Interesting, positive, and maybe even inspiring
9) Substantial and challenging requirements; No “busy work”
10) Reasonably efficient use of instructional time; Do not waste student’s time
What about “good schools” instead of just “good teaching”? There is a WHOLE lot more to schools than teaching, per se.
Of course there is more.
Look, my sons a cardiologist. There is more to the success of his practice then what he knows.. The BUSINESSMEN who ‘help’ the hospital to run, must look to costs, BUT the limits to their authority ends when the issue is one of KNOWING WHAT THE HECK NEEDS TO BE DONE when a patient is sick.
He is SUPPORTED, not undermined by the hospital directors — who for the most part are in the MEDICAL PROFESSION, TOO. He does not have to supply the surgery with instruments or medicines, or bandages or whatever. If a patient presents problems, he is assisted in determining the best procedures and outcomes, and not TOLD WHAT HE MUST DO BECAUSE BIG PHARMA IS PUSHING A DRUG…. and he is not blamed when the hospital causes some problem. or a patient is beyond help. He is not a magician.
Look, I say this often here (and my bio is at Oped where I write) http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
BUT YOU SEE, I was THE NYC CLASSROOM COHORT (Manhattan District 2) in the Pew National Standards Research third level research, which they did in 12 districts and thousands of classrooms across Americas!
It was not the NCLB crap about TEACHING– it was ALL but ABOUT the Principles of LEARNING- what must be in place for kids to learn.
It was the effort based education thesis of Lauren Resnick, out of Harvard.
IT WAS part of the Clinton 2000.
OH YEAH — CLINTON HAD A REAL EDUCATION INITIATIVE…which has disappeared!
All we hear is the Bush rant.
In the nineties, NYC (Manhattan District 2) was part of the Pew National Standards Research– which was actually THIRD LEVEL research (it must work everywhere) in 12 districts and thousands of classrooms across Americas. It was called “The Principles of Learning” – the effort based education thesis of Lauren Resnick — out of Harvard!
I was the classroom cohort! sometimes I think I was dreaming… if I did not have a shelf full of the PERFORMANCE STANDARDS FOR LEARNING IN ALL SUBJECTS.
DOES ANYONE OUT THERE WANT TO SEE real -authentic- genuine standards for LEARNING MATH (and all subjects… what must be in place for learning of age appropriate objectives to be met? I GOT ‘EM! all teachers got the eEXPENSIVE BOOKS… SOME COMPANY MADE A LOT OF MONEY PRINTING THIS FOR THOUSANDS OF TEACHERS!!!!
OKAY…JUSTATEACHER…let me explain why you are so CORRECT!
The PRINCIPLES (i.e standards that support ALL learning) that MUST APPEAR IN ALL SCHOOLS, have 4 PRINCIPLES for teachers, and 4 PRINCIPLES for ADMINISTRATORS WHO MUST SUPPORT LEARNING.
YUP. The guy at the top works for YOU and the kids… not for Pearson and Gates, or Arne
PRINCIPALS AND ADMINISTRATORS are responsible for
1- the physical plant — the site — an environment that is safe, healthy AND QUIET!
Defunding the schools, accomplished the end of this.
YUP! Teachers must get staff support so they can run their professional practice. If a teacher is treated like a trained servant and put into chaos, they will fail…and with this inherent failure the school FAILS, too, and can public ed can be privatized
2- Supplies, books, and all materials, and technology that supports the classroom practice must be available to the professional in the classroom.. Defunding the schools, accomplished the end of this.
3- Organization and programs that support the classroom practitioner… the school must be staffed and run well — small classes, support staff, programs that supplement the classroom, etc.
4- Hiring. The administration must hire educated, dedicated professionals who know their content, and also the psychology of childhood learning. Valid licenses are obligatory, and experience counts… Novice TFA hires get to assist classroom teachers and learn on the job, WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE. WLLL was the mantra of the standards’ staff developers like Vicki Bill, who worked with me. Does anyone know Vicki, or Lauren or anyone in the 12 districts chosen by Pew that got MILLIONS of dollars for the research?
Poof.All gone!
I have an American Educator in my possession which lauds NYC’s participation and actually promotes the superintendent at the time…the charlatan who took credit for what I did.
I say here, and everywhere TO NO Avail AND MUCH AMUSEMENT… that I WOULD NOT KNOW THIS research EXISTED…if I had not spent 2 YEARS as the data-based researcher,–he COHORT IN NYC — chosen to be studied by Pew and Harvard, AND TO ATTEND the LRDC seminars (Univ. Of Pittsburgh), as the city received MILLIONS FOR BEING SELECTED BY PEW…
You ask — What were the principles (the things teachers must show/do) in order that learning is ENABLED AND FACILITATED?
(STANDARDS JARGON FOR TEACHING”)
1- clear expectations. ( I Met all 21 indicators for this one, in a unique way)
2- rewards for achievement ( I met all indicators for this in a unique way without giving a single test!)
3- A complete knowledge of the content
4- The credentials, experience and education that supported classroom practice.
IN 1998, I was the NY State Educator of Excellence because I was one of six educators in the research whose work met the standards in a unique way. I was, at that very time, removed from my classroom and charged with incompetence. It took Randi Weingarten to rescue me… but THAT is a story…one that is THE story of why YOU, dear ‘onlyateacher’ is experiencing such dismal support. it is the story that took out a hundred thousand of the best practitioners, whom they labeled bad ‘teachers’ and threw our of the schools
It began in the nineties and I was not alone. Th chidden story is OUT THERE FOR 2 DECADES!
http://www.endteacherabuse.org
http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
I could not teach today. I could not write my lessons, or choose my readings.
I would get no support from administration and in fact be condemned for insubordination of refusing to bring anti-learning materials into my PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
That was the plan of the EDUCATIONAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
it worked.
A systematic dismantling of a proven successful educational delivery plan. How messed up is that?
I can relate, Susan. You mentioned Clinton’s education initiative. As a special ed teacher working with kids who had severe emotional problems, motivation was key and, sometimes, not so easy to create. I was very fortunate to find out about and attend multiple workshops, funded by the Clinton administration, focusing on a memoir based writing system.
It was, far and away, the best instructional writing system that I’ve ever learned and had the pleasure to work with.
David Coleman stated that personal narratives such as memoir writing were useless because, “…nobody gives a sh$t what you think or feel”. Wow! What a contrast. The concept behind the system I learned was that it’s IMPORTANT what a student thinks and/or feels. This motivates the student to WANT to write. To keep a small personal notebook in which to jot ideas (they really dug that part). And then to get those ideas onto paper in sentence/paragraph form. Followed by editing and revision. It was a very clever and comprehensive system that served as a springboard to writing in other genres as the student’s writing skills and confidence grew.
Two years after having completed the workshop and utilized it with great results, we were told to ax it and focus, instead, on narrative texts and summations of informational/non-fiction texts. My students interest waned and, as a result, so did their writing skills (editing and revision, especially). A shift from children learning to value their intuitions and opinions to having to extract and spit out information from a dry text. It was, basically, putting the cart before the horse.
How incredibly naive of Mr. Coleman to think that writing occurs in a vacuum that only travels from point A to point B. Typical of someone who knows nothing about education in the classroom.
A systematic dismantling of a proven successful educational delivery plan. One that taught children to value themselves and, as a result, learn how to effectively write. It would almost make one think that the perpetrators of this massive shift do not want our public ed students to think for and value themselves, but to, rather, just learn compliance and how to read and follow the directions. No leaders. Just followers.
Wonder where the leaders are going to come from…?
Thank you for taking the time to explain so clearly what went wrong. Your response here show you grasped what I knew about teaching writing.
I,too, experienced astonishing success, when I adapted Nancy Attwell’s tool, a reader’s letter, to my seventh grade curricula.
These weekly letters about what they were reading, expanded to personal journals about what they were thinking, and it was easy to move on to the next step. I told the kids, that there were, only 3 steps in writing.
I could help them with the first step, GETTING THE IDEA but could not do it for them.
Step 2, was GETTING IT DOWN, and I showed them how to JUST WRITE. Double entry journals helped, too. (This is what I read… This is what I think about what I read.
Step 3, GETTING IT READY FOR A READER, was the part that entails real work. Editing meant thinking about the audience for what was written.
The conversations and Fishbowls that we held generated words and ideas, as we read great stories, with fine, often lyrical language — literature which I SELECTED by writers like Steinbeck, Bradbury and Poe, we watched movies where characters used words to unveil intentions, and plots were character driven, I explained what a classical well-made story required.
I had absolutely no assistance, not even a curriculum guide when I was hired to teach in a brand new Magnet school, on the fifth floor of a public school on York Avenue, in Manhattan.
Seriously, they gave me a room and a student list. Not even a blackboard.
I provided all the books and materials –, xeroxing stories from literature books which had been mine when I subbed in East Ramapo.
I bought books at garage sales and spent $3000 at Barnes & Nobles that first year to put some YA novels on my shelves.
I gave the kids 15 minutes to read at the start of every class, longer when we had double periods. They moaned and groaned when I made them stop. As a result, they took books home to finish them. They read over 100 books, and talked to me ON PAPER , each week in those letters ABOUT WHAT THEY READ AND THOUGHT.
I wrote the entire curricula. The letters went from 50 words in September, to 1000 words and more …in June. Put into each student’s folder, there was a portfolio of their progress and growth as writers. Each week, I responded to each letter with a personal commentary about what I enjoyed in the letter– Harvard said this personal response was THE REWARD for doing a good job.
I also attached a ‘skills sheet’ each week, identifying writing problems that appeared in the letter. Parents, signed the sheets each week.
I wrote a PARENT LETTER each week, too, explaining the week’s objectives.
I wrote a weekly letter to my students, too explaining what was expected that week. The “Dear Boys& Girls” became famous during the standards research when I was the cohort, and I had a book offer to write about how I did this., which disappeared when I disappeared into the rubber room, and was charges with incompetence.
IN September I accepted letters about 100 words that were pure summary of plot. BY January, the letters contained analysis of plot and character, and reflected appreciation of the lyrical passages. When I “taught” irony (using stories by O’Henry, Saki, and De Maupassant) the kids identified ironic passages in their books… and noticed irony in their lives.
They began to write long passages about their lives. One parent did a master’s thesis on the positive value of personal connection in teen lives, to a role model– using the letters that her daughter and friends wrote to me,
The standards research teams said that this was the key to CLEAR EXPECTATIONS, which was the 1st PRINCIPLE of LEARNING — Principles of learning (the standards for learning) WAS the objective of the Pew research.
REWARDS for performance was the 2nd principle. The reward was my responses to their hard work.
Within 2 years my students were at the top of the citywide tests on reading and 3rd in the state when th new ELA writing exam was introduced.
Forty students vied for every seat in the school, and parents rising my class would say, “I wish I could be in your class.”
But in the end, the principal harassed me not a rubber room at the districtt office, and then she stole all my materials, and re-distributed them to other classrooms.– including the art materials (I integrated art into my communication arts curricula.) .
She gave my art materials to the art teacher, MY UNION REP, who had been part time, (teaching pays ed –out of license-).Now , full-time with my demise, she got my ‘stuff.’
Amen to the UFT, which let them find me ‘guilty of corporal punishment,’ ( a girl said I cursed at her…and this made her frightened…. oh my, oh my.. With no charges put forth , no hearing and no knowledge on my part of anything, as my LAWYER POINTED OUT WHEN I filed a lawsuit because the union backed the principal, I was returned to the school, to teach 5 students each period, in a storeroom with no supple.
Now I was deemed incompetent.
I was one of 5 teachers at the end of the research who was celebrated for meeting all the standards in a unique manner.
THIS, did not stop the corrupt critter at the top of District t2 from pursuing her agenda to remove me and prove my incompetence.
MY story is THE STORY of all of us, and of the process!
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
THE TRAGEDY OF WHAT HAPPENED TO US is found in every city where schools failed.
http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
It was so easy to BAMBOOZLE THE PUBLIC
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
But it is 16 years since I experienced the assault on teachers and all the finest were sent out of the schools.
And no where is the real truth told… how they did it…with the complicity of the unions.
We must have UNIONS.
We are chopped meat without unions
But we need NEW leadership, and a clear understanding of HOW THIS WAS ALLOWED TO HAPPEN.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/lausd-and-utla-collude-to-end-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-teachers-part-2.html
Nowhere in the media is the story told, but there are books out there that are clear
http://www.amazon.com/Bravery-Bullies-Blowhards-Lessons-Classroom/dp/0991309936/ref=cm_sw_em_r_dptop_dn1Avb040EW4Q_tt
Have you ever had a good/great teacher? I bet you have (teachers and not). What did they do to make it so positive? Do you have a colleague who is a great teacher? What do they do? Are YOU a great teacher or becoming one? What do YOU do that works and what do you do that doesn’t work?
The teachers that I’ve respected the most are funny, strict, relaxed, knowledgeable, great communicators, improvisers, and a whole lot more. They know themselves and know how to gauge the needs, strengths, and weaknesses of their individual students and how to juggle them with the needs of the full class and the school as a whole. Someone who knows how to and is allowed to work WITH the administration. For me, a great teacher or one who aspires to be one must have a good sense of metacognition in order to monitor and balance what does and doesn’t work both for the individual and for the whole.
I see this kind of professionalism every day. I think it’s a shame that we’ve come to the point where we would ask, “What does good teaching look like?”. Both teachers and those outside of the field. This signals a partial victory for the reformers in that they’ve had control for so long that we feel the need to even answer it…as though it’s not self evident from what we’ve actually seen, day in and day out, throughout our lives. It comes close to putting forth the supposition that we’ve never seen good or great teaching, in which case: yes, education reform is necessary.
All the best teachers have one thing in common, besides education and intellect… they GRASP that the KEY to engaging children is MOTIVATION… and thus, in places where they still have the professional AUTONOMY to plan their own lessons and write the curricula based on genuine , age-appropriate LEARNING OBJECTIVES… the kids love to learn.
At the crux of the utter disaster of the CC, IS THE REMOVAL OF MOTIVATIONAL TOOLS FROM THE TEACHER’S ARSENALS because of TOP-DOWN MANDATES that allow charlatans to tell the professional practitioner in the classroom, what they MUST DO in their OWN classrooms to the poor kids sitting there… OR ELSE.
case in point http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/01/the-new-preschool-is-crushing-kids/419139/
Got my vote, Susan. Standardized tests which standardized teachers are told to prepare the standardized students for in standardized schools.
I know teachers who used to receive stellar ratings, year in and year out, who are now being told they are “developing” or worse because they aren’t fitting the strict mold. These are excellent, experienced teachers who are loved by the kids and have worked well with the administrators in the past.
I don’t remember who she is, but there’s a retired public ed administrator who goes on speaking tours specifically to educate people on what the Common Core standards really represent and how they’ll shortchange the children of our country. How it’s dumbing the public school system down in order to “level the playing field”. The fact that the people who are hawking it’s wonders send their kids to private schools with no ties whatsoever to the CCSS speaks volumes.
Great teachers flourish when they’re nurtured, mentored, and encouraged to. Education reform, as we see it, squelches that growth. The reformers can talk all they like…but they really don’t want “excellent teachers”. They want compliance and read the scrip. The script that they control and deliver.
“This is like having a common electrical system,” Gates told the Wall Street Journal in 2011. “It just makes sense to me.”
“Plugging (into) the Common Core”
Common Core makes lots of sense
— And lots of dollars too —
Some may think that Gates is dense
But plug in’s what he’ll do
The FORTUNE article says,
“In truth, Common Core might not exist without the corporate community.”
No, really? You think?
“The nation’s business establishment has been clamoring for more rigorous education standards—ones that would apply across the entire nation—for years. It views them as desperately needed to prepare America’s future workforce and to bolster its global competitiveness. One measure of the deep involvement of corporate leaders: The Common Core standards were drafted by determining the skills that businesses (and colleges) need and then working backward to decide what students should learn.”
What an absolutely asinine way to create standards and a curriculum. Nowhere in this article are the opinions of educators or professors in education sought, either by the creators of COMMON CORE, or the even the writer of this article.
I would actually be okay with me if “business leaders” want to weigh in on public education. They have as much right to weigh in as anyone else.
I think the problem arises when 1. they buy a much, much bigger megaphone than everyone else, and 2. they get exclusive access and what is really undue influence with lawmakers.
The Gates and Broad and Walton agenda for tens of millions of public school students SHOULD NOT look exactly like the US Department of Education agenda, and it does.
They simply have too much clout. There has to be some mitigating force or energy tempering their huge influence, and there isn’t, because government has climbed into bed with them.
I wish I could have been a third guest at that dinner table.
“I got a question, Bill. If Common Core is so great — so great, in fact, that you spent $2.5 billion to create Common Core and then bribe various governmental and non-governmental organizations to adopt it — why do you annually spend tens of thousands of dollars on expensive private schools (Seattle’s LAKESIDE and others) so that your own children are taught with standards, testing, and curriculum that are diametrically opposed to Common Core in every way? If it’s so great, why aren’t you barging into the offices of these private schools demanding that that they adopt these great Common Core standards, curriculum and testing you create and are pushing for 99% of U.S. children—lest your kids and their well-to-do classmates miss out on your $2.5 billion dollar creation? I’m sure you don’t want your own kids to miss out on the products of Common Core creators like this (actually its main architect):
Yeah, that’s the guy I want to create curriculum, standards, and testing on our children.
The same goes for other 1 %-er Common Core cheerleaders — Arne Duncan, who moved back to Chicago, where his kids now attend the Chicago Lab School; Campbell Brown, whose kids now attend the private Jewish school Heschel; and countless others.
These 1%-ers meddling in education want one kind of schooling for their own kids — one that is as far from Common Core as it can possibly be — and another one (Common Core) for the 99%, or for “other people’s kids.”
It is frustrating that the truth about public education cannot reach the general public. That is why I cross post some of Diane’s blog to friends and former colleagues. Unless we can garner more support for public education from policymakers, we may reach a tilting point in funding public schools. We already see this in Pennsylvania, and we may see this in Los Angeles, if Eli Broad has his way. How much continued reduced funding will students be forced to endure? Larger classes and loss of the arts are not the answer. “Personalized learning,” another bad idea from billionaires, is another distraction doomed to fail. We need to get rid of our truly ignorant and corrupt representatives so our young people can have a fair chance.
I would issue a challenge to lawmakers and other public employers regarding the ed reform billionaires- show us your independence. Show the public that government isn’t completely captured by these people. The way to do that would be for someone in government to publicly contradict or disagree with Gates or Broad or Walton(s).
If ed reform lawmakers are NOT being led around by the nose by these people they should have no problem publicly defying them, right?
Let’s see a high profile public disagreement or criticism from an ed reform elected official to a Gates or a Broad or a Walton. That way we’ll know they’re not captured by this “special interest group”.
Wait. Are you calling for politicians to speak out against their owners? I’m shocked.
Referencing the above post: one of the foundational documents on which current corporate education reform is based is A NATION AT RISK (1983).
The reality behind the rheeality, from the late Gerald Bracey’s READING EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH: HOW TO AVOID GETTING STATISTICALLY SNOOKERED (2006, p. 2006, pp. 24-26):
[start excerpts]
“There was a steady decline in science achievement scores of U.S. 17-year-olds as measured by national assessments in 1969, 1973, and 1977.” This is probably true. We can’t say more than “probably” because the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was not initially designed to provide longitudinal data, in spite of the presence of the word progress in its name. In 1977, NAEP officials decided that such trend data would be useful, and the 1973 and 1969 results were recalculated using only the items those two assessments had in common with the 1977 assessment. Thus the data points the commissioners saw were backward extrapolations in time using only some of the data that had been collected in 1969 and 1973.
Beyond that, and more important, we should ask why the commissioners selected only science and why they selected only seventeen-year-olds to make their point. NAEP also tests nine- and thirteen-year-olds. NAEP also tests reading and mathematics at those three ages. So if the decline is widespread and awful, why weren’t the other ages and subjects included?
If we look at all nine trend lines (three subjects tested at three different ages), as shown in Figure 2, we quickly see that the science trend for seventeen-year-olds is the only one that shows a “steady decline.” It is the only one that will support the report’s crisis rhetoric and it was the only one mentioned. (Terrell Bell, the secretary of education who commissioned A Nation at Risk, was quite candid in his memoir The Thirteenth Man about how he had hear many stories about the terrible state of public schools and had convened the commission to document the stories.)
[end excerpts]
Now remember the rheephorm miracles of New Orleans and Detroit and Chicago, and iPads and MISIS in LAUSD, and 100% charter school graduation rates, and a rheephormista heroine taking “her” students from the 13th to the 90th percentile, and all the other legerdemain of confusing scales and rates, and confounding CRTs with NRTs [CriterionReferencedTests/NormReferenced Tests] and the beat goes on…
Self-serving lies to push toxic eduproducts come easier and easier with practice. The rheephormsters have had decades and decades to hone their “craft.”
But no matter how many times they repeat the same lies, no matter how much they ‘double down on whatevers’ [re NJ Comm. of Ed.], their rheephorm alchemy can’t change the base metals of falsehoods into the gold of genuine teaching and learning.
Go figure…
😎
I want to suggest a correction:
“The article repeats every well-worn cliché about our ALLEGED ‘failing’ schools and about THE FALSE PROMISES AND LIES that the Common Core standards will raise our test scores to the top of the world.”
High stakes bubble tests are not going to motivate children to become avid readers, stop playing video games, end hunger, end child abuse, end poverty, end the endless BUSH wars, stop watching TV, stop texting, do homework, read assignments, work in class, cooperate with teachers, etc. The only things these bubble tests do is make profits for the corporations that manufacture this product and steal learning time from children while punishing public school teachers and hijacking the public education system to make more profits.
Exactly. Why do we bring up any kind of test scores to prove our schools are not failing when we fight against tests?
What’s the word to describe the situation when teachers and kids are burnt out from all the test prep, endless homework, grading?
We bring up test scores to prove the failure of reforms that claim they boost test scores. None of those reforms have any other purpose and undermine real education.
I feel that if we are talking about tests, we are on our reformer buddies’ turf.
It’s like arguing with a burglar who claims he only took my TV but he, in fact, also took my computer: instead of trying to point out to him that he lied to me about not taking my computer, I think I should put all my energies into arguing against the whole burglary.
I suspect that all these arguments about increasing or decreasing test scores don’t say much to the general public. All they hear is “test scores” repeated on both sides many times.
Well, perhaps they should hear about what their ears are more tuned to: what we offer as alternatives to tests, alternatives to SAT, ACT, PARCC, TCAP.
We really need to emphasize, in each subject we teach, what cannot be measured via tests, but which nevertheless clearly is essential.
We should make these much more concrete than just “you cannot measure love, beauty, true understanding”.
To get us going, lemme just say the following concrete things about current math education: math “vocabulary” exercises are nuts, not needed except for tests; kids endlessly practicing multiplication of two 4 digit numbers is nuts, not needed except for “no calculator” tests; kids’ learning about all 6 trig functions, millions of trig identities, is nuts, not needed, except for tests, etc.
The reason math appears to be more testable than other subjects is because the material put into the curriculum is testable. But it’s mostly not math what they have in there. No wonder, 90-95% of the population thinks, they learnt mostly forgettable stuff in math.
It’s not one word. It’s two words. The United States is in the middle of its own “Cultural Revolution” but this one is not led from the bottom like Mao’s bloody, brutal Cultural Revolution in China where he took everything from the top 5% and gave it to the bottom 95%. That has all been reversed in China today and the rich and powerful are back but with new faces and names.
America’s Cultural Revolution is being led from the top. Mao’s Cultural Revolution went after the capitalists and stripped them of their power and wealth. The U.S. Cultural Revolution is taking as much as possible and then some from 90% or more of the people and giving it to the top 10% who have the most power and wealth.
There is only one way this will end and it will be horrid and bloody. The psychos addicted to wealth and power at the top running this show have been corrupted by their own wealth and power and if history teaches us anything, they seldom if ever back down.
History shows repeatedly what people around the world have had to do to stop them.
Mother Jones revealed the results, so far, of America’s Cultural Revolution in this piece:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph
And the next article will repeat the same lies… because, the EIC owns the media, and as you know, TEACHERS HAVE NO VOICE in the discussion of how learning is enabled! The system is owned by the EIC
Click to access eic-oct_11.pdf
Just one more reason teachers must become more vocal and educate the public. Gates and the Koch brothers have no right dictating what is being taught and how it’s taught.
Possibly this is a sign that support for Common Core is really teetering. It seems to be an attempt
to prop-up a weakened DOE policy with a brand name that has long been considered THE best in the
oil industry. (“McKinsey” – at least as it was considered thirty years ago – would be a variation on the same theme.)
Time-Life has long been an outlet for all kinds news, but I think it’s highly unlikely that Exxon ever cut-off
campaign contributions to politicians who support the oil industry — for any reason.
Reread the second paragraph of the posting—an accurate recap from the linked article.
Then look again at the title of the posting. It is a sober and realistic description of the shot callers in the self-styled “education reform” movement.
If Gates had followed through, it would have looked something like this—
[start]
Koch: Talk to my staffer. Gates: Ok, I’ll have my staffer talk to your staffer.
{end of “discussion”}
[finish]
Why don’t the heavyweights of corporate education reform know what they’re doing? Because they quite casually and openly don’t care to know what they’re doing—that’s for their subordinates to worry themselves about.
At the top level it’s all about vanity projects and happy thoughts and MSM pats on their backs.
Multibillionaire self-esteem movement gone wild.
That’s why factually correct and logical and honest criticisms of their toxic policies and mandates make them feel “swarmed.”
Noblesse oblige is just so, you know, under appreciated by the hewers of wood and drawers of water aka the vast majority.
Rheeally!
But not really.
😎
We do have to acknowledge, though, that our public schools are in poor health: more and more kids, teachers are unhappy, bored, burnt out.
The class size at my university has doubled in the last 20 years. More and more of our students need to work full time to be able to support themselves while in college. As a result, students are not doing as well in their studies as 20 years ago.
All you have to do is look at who has been directing education for the past fifteen years (to be honest the changes have been happening for much longer). It is no secret to most of us why both teachers and students are unhappy, bored and burnt out. Corporate efficiency has certainly controlled the costs of university education, hasn’t it?
One of the two reasons I started reading this blog was because I wanted to find out why my kids had to be busy with school 10 hours a day. Because of this enormous amount of busy work, they’ve had no chance of being inspired by any particular subject.
Yeah, they will be able to take the ACT or SAT, score high enough, but that shows nothing about college readiness. They’ll just join most other kids in college who have no idea what they want to do since they had no time to think about it.
When Diane writes ” our schools are NOT failing”, I flinch. I don’t think our teachers survive very well this latest onslaught on their academic freedom. Why claim otherwise?
Good post Diane. It infuriated me, too.
Business magazine calling out clueless billionaire business leaders. More of this, please!
“This article demonstrates why American business leaders are in the dark when it comes to education.”
Isn’t it all psychological? If you are told that you are the most important class of people, you start to believe it, and with this belief comes the idea that you know what this country needs—since you need it: you need an obedient, hard working, fearful, cheap workforce.
If Ohio readers think Bernie is better for the nation’s leadership, tonight (Jan. 5), at 6:00, is when delegates to the Democratic convention are elected. The Ohio Democratic Party website, tab, “Join a Caucus”, provides the voting locations, which are based on Congressional districts.