Betty Casey is an award-winning journalist and blogger in Tulsa.
In this post, she summarizes the multiple failures of the Billionaire reformers, who do not include a single educator in their ranks. The GatesFoundation, the Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation are seeking to transform America’s public schools, yet every one of their big ideas has failed. People line up to take their money because they have so much money.
Casey details the numerous failed Superintendents endorsed by the Btoad Superintendents Academy, and she only scratches the surface. Many communities know by now that hiring a Broadie spells trouble and strife.
She gives a valuable overview of the Lies That Reformers Tell to gain control of entire districts. She warns her fellow Tulsans against taking Gates money.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
HI Diane, could you please provide a link? Thanks!
LikeLike
Using the info in the posting—
Link: http://www.tulsakids.com/Editors-Blog/Web-2018/Its-Not-Just-Edison/
This online piece is well worth reading.
😎
LikeLike
The link to her post is missing!
LikeLike
Link fixed.
LikeLike
LikeLike
“In America, everyone K-12, has the right to an education.” – does not say anything about the quality of this education.
“Other countries don’t educate everyone.” – does she compare the U.S. with Afghanistan or Niger?
Does not mean, of course, that “closing existing schools rather than attempting to improve them, increasing class size, opening charter schools, imposing high-stakes test-based accountability systems on teachers and students, and implementing of pay for performance schemes” is the strategy in the interest of the general public.
Schools can and must be improved, not with market-based approach, but with a strong federal control.
LikeLike
You actually want Betsy DeVos to control your school?
LikeLike
Betsy DeVos just happens to represent a department of education at this point in time, it would be unwise to construct the country-wide education policy of a representative democracy based on a personality of the secretary of the department.
I want fewer testing, and more well-designed, unified curricula.
LikeLike
John,
I worked in the U.S. Department of Education. There are no educators there. Just bureaucrats, clerks, and political appointees.
LikeLike
Not “strong federal control”
Instead, bottom-up control starting with teachers and including interested students and their interested parents that want to be part of bottom-up.
I understand that’s how its done in Finland.
LikeLike
How do you imagine bottom-up control? The privates telling the generals how to plan an attack?
Google is your friend, for example The Finnish national core curriculum — http://curriculumredesign.org/wp-content/uploads/The-Finnish-National-Core-Curriculum_Vitikka-et-al.-2011.pdf
LikeLike
John Doe,
I was in charge of promoting national standard during the Bush 1 administration. It ended in a disaster. Learn your history. We are not Finland. This is a very big, very diverse country, where people have strong views.
LikeLike
The Finnish National Core Curriculum is not mandatory. IT is left to the discretion of teachers at each school what they focus on from that guide.
The key is in the word “Guide”.
And schools do not have generals. Children are not in school to learn how to become troops to fight in a war.
Page 15 from a report from Finland’s govenrment about Finland’s schools (I found this in seconds with help from a Google search)
National core curriculum leaves room
for local variations
The national core curriculum for basic education
is determined by the Finnish National Agency
for Education. It contains the objectives and
core contents of different subjects, as well
as the principles of pupil assessment, special
needs education, pupil welfare and educational
guidance. The principles of a good learning
environment, working approaches as well as the
concept of learning are also addressed in the
core curriculum. The national core curriculum is
renewed approximately every ten years.
The Education providers draw up their own
curricula within the framework of the national
core curriculum. Thus there
is room for local or regional
specificities. All local curricula
must, however, define the
values, underlying principles,
as well as general educational
and teaching objectives.
AND: There are no
national tests
for pupils
in basic
education in
Finland.
Assessment is part of daily schoolwork
In Finland the main type of pupil assessment is
the continuous assessment during the course
of studies and the final assessment. Continuous
assessment is provided to guide and help pupils
in their learning process. Each student receives a
report at least once every school year.
There are no national tests for pupils in
basic education in Finland. Instead, teachers
are responsible for the assessment in their
respective subjects on the basis of the objectives
written into the curriculum.
Click to access 146428_Finnish_Education_in_a_Nutshell.pdf
Even the private schools in Finland must follow the same ed code. They are not allowed to go their own way.
Like I said, in Finland, the final decisions are made at the bottom by individual teachers — not from the top.
LikeLike
@Lloyd,
“The Education providers draw up their own curricula within the framework of the national core curriculum.” – this makes it quite clear that there is the national core curriculum. There is no bottom-up, there is reasonable leeway left for implementation. A general gives an order to dig out a trench, but he does not care how exactly the trench will be dug, he trusts his subordinates to make reasonable judgments. Just like the Common Core, which does not prescribe everything, but contains core topics.
“AND: There are no national tests for pupils in basic education in Finland.” – visitors of this blog equate standards to tests, I am not sure why. I find high-stake tests pointless for students and teachers, but this does not mean I reject Common Core.
LikeLike
I have visited Finnish schools. In every school, teachers have broad authority to design their own curriculum. There are nO standardized tests until the end of high school. Teachers write their own tests. Go see for yourself. The schools were proudest of their arts programs.
LikeLike
John Doe, whatever you are, it is a waste of time to debate with you.
I am totally against top down.
I am totally against the Common Core Crap as it was created and implemented.
And, no matter what “you want” to think, Finland has a bottom-up education system where teacher professionalism is respected and supported. — THEIR PROFESSIONAL AUTONOMY IS SACROSANCT. The key word here is Autonomy.
Definition: “freedom from external control or influence; independence.”
“Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting. There are no inspectors, no exams until the age of 18, no school league tables, no private tuition industry, no school uniforms. Children address teachers by their first names. Even 15-year-olds do no more than 30 minutes’ homework a night.
“The national curriculum is confined to broad outlines. All teachers take five-year degree courses (there are no fast tracks) and, if they intend to work in primary schools, are thoroughly immersed in educational theory. They teach only four lessons daily, AND THEIR PROFESSIONAL AUTONOMY IS SACROSANCT. So attractive (some might say cushy) is a teacher’s life that there are 10 applicants for every place on a primary education course, and only 10-15% drop out of a teaching career.”
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2013/jul/01/education-michael-gove-finland-gcse
LikeLike
“In every school, teachers have broad authority to design their own curriculum” – which must comply with the national core curriculum. And I did not say anything about testing in Finnish schools. It is you and everyone else who is fixated on testing. I am fixated on common curriculum.
LikeLike
Oh, please. The Finnish curriculum is a set of very broad guidelines. No one is told what % of their time must be devoted to informational text or fiction. The Common Core is deeply flawed. It attempts to be both standards and curriculum and it was purposefull designed to align with tests, which Duncan funded.
LikeLike
The Common Core is flawed. But instead of acknowledging that it can be amended you reject it outright and keep saying that it will never work. I sense resentment.
LikeLike
I didn’t say that it will never work. I said that it has already failed.
I consulted with David Coleman before it was written.
I met with top White House staff and urged them to field test it before imposing it nationally. They said it had to e in place by 2012, the election, no time for field testing.
I have no resentment of the Common Core. I don’t take medicines that have not been approved by the FDA after field testing.
LikeLike
You sensed wrong — not resentment — ANGER, because I was a public school teacher for thirty years (1975 – 2005) and during my first few years I experienced what it meant to work in a rewarding, positive school environment managed from the bottom up and then for the rest of the 30 years I experienced what it was like to work in an oppressive, stressful, environment managed from the top down where everything … EVERYTHNG!!!!! … was driven by statewide standardized tests that slowly gave way to national standardized tests by the time I retired.
I enjoyed teaching, especially during the bottom up years, but I learned to despise and hate the top-down system that was littered with micromanaging, autocratic, sometimes brutal Trump types filling top administrative posts.
LikeLike
Common Core has been tested on live unsuspecting subjects for at least half a decade. I think it works. I do not feel that it failed. The approach to math is better than drill-and-kill. Obviously, you need teachers who themselves understand why you need to carry a number when doing stacked addition. When the teachers are clueless, you get resentment and rejection.
LikeLike
What does “worked” mean?
After adoption of Common Core by most states in 2010, national scores in math on NAEP were flat or went down. Is that what “works”?
LikeLike
Common Core was a flawed fraud from the start. Common Core was part of the long-term goals of the corporate privatization agenda to take over the public schools and it has never had anything to do with improving the education of children.
At the time the national Common Core was cranked out in secrecy, California had its own standards that had been developed over a period of several years and included many stakeholders as part of the process (even parents and children). There was no secrecy and no bribes (Bill Gates calls his bribes, grants, but bribes are bribes when the money is meant to force an agenda on the people without the people knowing anything about it) spread across the country. The California State Standards were publicized and there was no secrecy in their development.
The national Common Core curriculum was designed and written in secret to be a profit generating machine for corporations like Pearson and a weapon in the dismantling of community-based, demcora6tic, transparent, non-profit, unionized traditional public schools.
LikeLike
Lloyd, what you experienced was standardized tests, not national curriculum. I don’t know why people keep confusing two different concepts.
Diane, you say that kids are overtested, that tests are evil and do not make sense, yet you use test scores as a measure for success or failure of Common Core.
As a parent, I see that Common Core math makes sense. Common Core authors did not intend it to be used as curriculum, they wrote in those pieces just for those clueless teachers who do not know math themselves. It was never supposed to be used as rigid curriculum, but instead it was imposed by districts onto teachers. If anyone is evil and lazy here it is districts, not the Common Core creators.
LikeLike
John Doe,
It is very annoying that you hide behind a pseudonym. If you won’t give your real name, I won’t post your comments anymore.
I value NAEP because it has no stakes attached. It has a trend line stretching back at least to 1992.
It shows that wealthy kids systematically get higher scores than poor kids, like all standardized tests, but no one gets rewarded or punished for NAEP scores. No one knows who will take the tests. No student takes the entire test.
Common Core was designed specifically to be tested. That’s why the contracts for the tests were awarded by the US Deprt of Education at the same time the CC was released. It was meant to be not just national standards but a national curriculum, aligned with tests, teacher training, teacher education, curriculum materials. It was the embodiment of “systemic reform.” I don’t want to debate you anymore because you are so ill informed. Go read my last two books and get back to me. But not until then. Adios.
LikeLike
John Doe,
If you use your real name, you will also have a correct email address and IP.
LikeLike
BTW, I read your “The Death and Life of the Great American School System”, it sits on my bookshelf. Did not read the Reign of Error though.
LikeLike
I hope this Tulsa-based writer will dig deeper into the role philanthropist George Kaiser plays in Oklahoma. Although he funds many wonderful projects, he is probably also the leading “reformer” not just in Tulsa, but in all of Oklahoma. He stays behind the scenes, and his fingerprints are harder to trace, but I suspect he and his money are driving much of these changes, including bringing Superintendent Gist to Tulsa. His foundation is one of those listed that just won the big charter grant for Oklahoma City schools to expand charters there.
LikeLike
This article describes the collateral damage caused by the scripted lessons imposed by Broad Academy’s Deborah Gist: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/education/tulsa-public-schools-loses-percent-of-its-teachers-in-two/article_c714f36d-f8cb-5447-9dfa-2b2c0cfc0dd9.html
Ah, reform!
LikeLike