Here is the list of people chosen to write the regulations for the new federal law, Every Student Succeeds Act. The regulations are crucial for interpreting the law.
Not everyone is pleased. Some see the hand of the Gates Foundation in the choices.
Interesting that Exxon Mobil gets a member of the committee, a Republican who served in the George W. Bush administration but is now education program director of Exxon Mobil. If you recall, the CEO of Exxon Mobil Rex Tillerson said that American schools were producing a “defective product” (our kids).
Diane Ravitch's blog 
One of the teachers is a Teach Plus “fellow,” adding to the Gates contributions to the committee.
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And a business person from Exon, one of this country’s biggest polluters?!
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Kerri Briggs is from the Bush administration.
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What happens to RttT? Is that obscenity still in effect?
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Joe,
“Race to the Top, abbreviated R2T, RTTT or RTT, is a $4.35 billion United States Department of Education competitive grant created to spur and reward innovation and reforms in state and local district K-12 education. It is funded by the ED Recovery Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and was announced by President Barack Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on July 25, 2009. States were awarded points for satisfying certain educational policies, such as performance-based evaluations for teachers and principals based on multiple measures of educator effectiveness (and are tied to targeted professional development and feedback), adopting common standards (though adoption of the Common Core State Standards was not required), adoption of policies that do not prohibit (or effectively prohibit) the expansion of high-quality charter schools, turning around the lowest-performing schools, and building and using data systems.”
The funds allocated to RTTT were expended by mid 2015. This grant program therefore is no longer active. During the six years RTTT was active the federal government spent $4.35 Billion on this grant program. At the same period K-12 public education spent about $3.6 Trillion. Therefore RTTT funds accounted for about 1/825th of the public school spending.
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To commentor above,
Nothing is more tragi-comic than an argue net that quantity of money negates the root of evil within the program by comparing a tree to the forest. And such-likeminded persons don’t even bother to think that replacing entire public school system to private schools across the nation will cost as much as US GDP, so they have to ask the World Bank for permanent loans. Pity the logic of mathipulator.
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I meant an argument. iPhone typo. Ugh.
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ESSA is a nightmare, and although supposed to replace RTTT it is still being reviewed. So the 1000 page Bill is still being re-branded and unless you vehemently opt out they will continue to roll over you with high stakes testing and worse.
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ESSA does not go as far as I would like. However, there are several steps forward. Of significance is the amendment that Senators Collins and Sanders presented allowing a pathway away from the test to innovative assessments.
5 states will be allowed to use this innovative assessment. This opens the door to one large step for mankind as once successful could mean the elimination of the testing mentality.
This isn’t perfect but we must realize that change is a process. Many, including BAT’s and Diane are correct in pointing out the disaster of NCLB, RTTT, Common core and even ESSA. But if you take a good look at each of these, because of their effort, there has been progress.
NCLB allowed us to look at all kids, Common Core takes us away from letter grades and now ESSA allows a pathway away from the big test. These were lousy bills but because of the efforts of Diane, BAT’s on the outside and Randi Weingarten swimming with the sharks to push for step by step change in the trenches, this thing is about to blow wide open.
What has been missing in the Network for Public Education is putting the primary emphasis on a vision for the future. When that happens, Katie bar the door!
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Exxon Mobil Educational Program. Well, ruthless power and control grabs are Standard with Oil. Looks like one of the kinds of oil the Rockefellers sell is that of snake.
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Take a minute to look up the frighteningly prophetic picture of a baby tattooed with a corporate (Exon Mobil) barcode at educatingthegatesfoundation.com. Don’t forget to think about the little hands holding onto the bars… (ciedieaech.wordpress.com: Two Tier Testing)
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They should take care of their problems before telling others what to do. Am proud of my brother who is an expert witness against big oil in New Orleans
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Wish we had teachers representing teachers.
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It looks like “computer adaptive testing” is a given unless I am not reading it correctly. What about the research that points to students’ performing better on pencil/paper tests?
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Neither is worth doing doo
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Agreed. Unfortunately, under ESSA there must be some type of standardized test. It is worse and more unfair if the only option administered on a computer.
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If you look at the Collins Sanders amendment (www.wholechildreform.com ) 5 States will be allowed to use innovative assessment in lieu of the test. I am told Maine and North Carolina will apply. This is only the beginning
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They don’t get it. It’s a corporate mind set
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Not many are paying attention. Thanks for the list and for the people who are disclosing the loaded deck.
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More of the Peter Principle at work.
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nothing will really change until we in education stand together and do the right thing, no matter what this next blue ribbon commission comes up with. We as educators have been so quiet and compliant that we have really given the corporates the room to run all over education. we could just say no to them, yes to our kids, and they could then figure out what to do with all the public school teachers in the country, however many there are of us. watiing for any good-for-kids results that comes out of a department headed by john king is worse than waiting for godot….
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“. . . and do the right thing. . . ”
Until teachers practice civil disobedience and refuse to participate the insanity will continue. The teacher work force is made up of about 95% GAGA* teachers and 99.99% administrators more accurately known as adminimals.
*Going Along to Get Along (GAGA): Nefarious practice of most educators who implement the edudeformers agenda even though the educators know that those educational malpractices will cause harm to the students and defile the teaching and learning process. The members of the GAGA gang are destined to be greeted by the Karmic Gods of Retribution** upon their passing from this realm.
**Karmic Gods of Retribution: Those ethereal beings specifically evolved to construct the 21st level in Dante’s Hell. The 21st level signifies the combination of the 4th (greed), 8th (fraud) and 9th (treachery) levels into one mega level reserved especially for the edudeformers and those, who, knowing the negative consequences of the edudeformers agenda, willing implemented it so as to go along to get along. The Karmic Gods of Retribution also personally escort these poor souls, upon their physical death, to the 21st level unless they enlighten themselves, a la one D. Ravitch, to the evil and harm they have caused so many innocent children, and repent and fight against their former fellow deformers. There the edudeformers and GAGAers will lie down on a floor of smashed and broken ipads and ebooks curled in a fetal position alternately sucking their thumbs to the bones while listening to two words-Educational Excellence-repeated without pause for eternity.
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My 12 year old jokes about politicians being required to wear sponsor patches like NASCAR drivers, he calls it truth in campaigning. Would the Exxon Mobil senator yield to the Goldman-Sachs senator….So these are the ignorant folks that will lead education policy. Keynes had it right, Capitalism is the astounding belief that the wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. I am just so sure they mean well……God help us, no one else will, get ready to fight.
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‘Would the Exxon Mobil senator yield to the Goldman-Sachs senator?”
Fat chance.
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There’s a New Yorker cartoon in your son’s observation. Do you mind if I pass it on to someone who might be able to use it?
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I’m glad to see NOBODY from the Delaware DOE made it on this list. I’m sure there is a lot of corporate education reform on this list, but it saves me from writing an article to call one of our ed reform nutjobs out!
This will be where we find out exactly what ESSA was meant for. All the Easter eggs in this are going to hatch.
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Exxon Mobil? Really? The only company ever to receive a negative score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. Only last January did they revise their policies to prohibit anti-GLBT discrimination. Oh, boy…
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I too applied, having used performance assessments and computer adaptive technology, as well as written state benchmark standards and standardized assessments. But I’m also active in a local group that is critical of high stakes or poor quality standardized tests. No surprise I wasn’t chosen for the Rulemaking Negotiating Committee either.
But it’s great to see that Diane was able to conduct a dialogue with Senator Lamar Alexander’s Chief of Staff, David P. Cleary. Is this an open door for feedback from qualified commentators who aren’t Gates indoctrinated? Or am I only dreaming?
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Before the days of corporate de-form, computer adaptive technology was a creative way to periodically vary instruction or track monthly or quarterly progress. At least that was the intention of one of the original CAT designers I worked with. Neither he nor I support chaining kids to a computer as a substitute for real instruction.
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Diane, I can’t tell you how happy I am that you pointed out ExxonMobil’s contributions in the fields of education.
– Why in 2014 alone, the ExxonMobil foundation contributed over $95M to the field of education alone.
– And just like you advocate for helping children from all backgrounds, especially black and Hispanic minorities, more fully participate in the American dream, ExxonMobil targeted much of those funds at minority programs including the National Society of Black Engineers, Society of Women Engineers, Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers and the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering
– But most important to me, ExxonMobil is trying to inspire more students to pursue STEM and more talented candidates to become STEM teachers. As you said, it can be challenging to get the most talented STEM majors into teaching (“Change the Equation”) and ExxonMobil is clearly doing its part to make that a reality. Their Mickelson teachers academy has helped prepare 3600 teachers instructing over 230K students.
I can’t tell you happy I am to see you honor the contributions that ExxonMobil and its thousands of scientists and engineers are providing to our entire educational system.
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“Here’s the story so far. We have the chief legal representatives of the eighth and 16th largest economies on Earth (California and New York) probing the biggest fossil fuel company on Earth (ExxonMobil), while both democratic presidential candidates are demanding that the federal Department of Justice join the investigation of what may prove to be one of the biggest corporate scandals in American history. And that’s just the beginning.”
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/20/its_not_just_what_exxon_did_its_what_its_doing_partner/
You’d have to profoundly gullible or incredibly cynical or even plain evil to pretend that Exxon Mobil throwing a few dollars at charities mitigates or undoes the evil the corporation has done and continues to do.
Buying future scientists and others to support their pseudoscience in service of greater profits Earth and her inhabitants be damned is about as low as it goes.
No surprise you cheerlead though; it’s indicative of your character.
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Providing oil to the billions of consumers ranks right up there with the most righteous acts anybody could perform. The ability to move goods and people around the world so cheaply has prevented so many more deaths than any ambiguous effects of future climate change.
In any case, Exxon only ranks 5th on the list of oil producers in the world, so pretending that Exxon is the cause of continued oil production is quite ridiculous. If/when solar and wind becomes cheap enough to produce and store to supply our homes and cars with energy, then the world will naturally shift off oil. Until then, these companies are critical to maintaining our way of life.
Exxon needs thousands of highly trained STEM workers. Their technology is among the most advanced in the world. To claim that Exxon wants poorly trained workers for its business is to fundamentally misunderstand the very core of oil exploration. But why let your ignorance stop you from making baseless observations now?
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I’m afraid they will over-rely on the computer adaptive testing because it’s cheap and easy to administer.
This is a photograph of a class schedule in Rocketship charter.
http://gettingsmart.com/2015/12/parent-power-fuels-rocketship/
They use canned computer programs and constant online testing. These kids aren’t “creating” anything with this online work. They’re running through canned programs over and over until they pass the test. I don’t care if the program throws up different questions based on the prior answer. Human beings do that too.
It’s just a cheap way to drill them and then test them which they’re selling as more “personalized”. They must do this ALL DAY, looking at that schedule. They’re not “creating” anything- the private sector has used programs and tests like this to train lower tier workers on the cheap for at least a decade. It’s not even new.
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Ohio online school sales person calls product “cash cow”, confesses they’re “not sure they’re educating anyone”
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/03/06/charters-officials-operator-at-odds.html
Ed reformers will expand “online learning” next legislative session, like they have done every session prior for the last decade, despite every single bit of evidence that ALL points against it. No one wants to kill this cash cow.
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“Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, pediatrician Priscilla Chan, have launched a new, multi-pronged effort to use their massive fortune to reshape public education with technology. Observers from the fields of education, technology, venture capital, and philanthropy are watching closely.”
I love that there are now absolutely no questions around one billionaire and his wife “reshaping” public education with their “massive fortune”.
This is swallowed whole as a great thing. Two people “reshaping” he day to day lives of tens of millions of children, based solely on the fact that they’re wealthy.
Gosh I hope they’re “good people” and also “the best and the brightest”. They’ve been handed an an enormous amount of power, no questions asked, and they’re accountable to no one.
I wonder if my son will like the Zuckerberg’s vision for his public school. I wonder if one of the thousands of people I’m paying in government could possibly weigh in on “public” education or should we just let these two handle education for the lower and middle classes?
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“Exxon Mobil gets a member of the committee”
Everyone now knows how well Exxon Mobil ‘educated’ the public about climate change.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…
Ha ha ha ha ha!.
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They might want to slow down a little on the rush to invest billions in online assessments:
“Test your students on paper, get an A.
Test them on online, get an F.
That’s what happened most of the time on last year’s state tests, the first time Ohio gave most of them online, a survey of two thirds of the school districts in the state shows.
School districts that tested students online were whacked with F grades on a key state report card measure nine times as often as those that used paper and pencil, according the survey that will be released statewide today.”
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2016/03/school_districts_got_a_grades_on_paper_tests_but_f_grades_online_survey_shows.html
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We are definitely on the same wavelength here; I always felt that as blindly punitive reformer after blindly punitive reformer slithered through our district and invaded our lowest-income schools, we had all left Kansas far, far behind!
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Thanks, Diane!
DEFORMERS are busily at work destroying public schools. Gross!
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