Steven Singer: Meet Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage

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1. retired teacher says:

   July 22, 2018 at 10:43 am

   Singer infuses his post with just the right sarcastic tone. These two are the deadly duo responsible for imposing bad policy on the rest of us simply because they have so much money. What is worse is the government aids and abets the destruction.

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2. Laura H. Chapman says:

   July 22, 2018 at 10:56 am

   both grinning from ear to ear.

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3. Educator says:

   July 22, 2018 at 11:04 am

   We may need to remind everyone that the use of Common Core is used to identify a school’s low performance. The reformers have continued to use the scores as their basis to “reinvent” education. As a double whammy, imagine what schools could do with the funding that is now spent on Common Core and the related costs of computers for testing.

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   • Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

     July 22, 2018 at 8:01 pm

     Common GORE…

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4. LeftCoastTeacher says:

   July 22, 2018 at 1:46 pm

   full-time public school saboteur – no background, no education, no experience, no references necessary. autocratic tendencies preferred. submit application to no one.

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5. Ed Johnson says:

   July 22, 2018 at 2:00 pm

   “His [Gates’] new plan – spend $1.7 billion over five years to develop new curriculums and networks of schools, use data to drive continuous improvement, and give out grants to high needs schools to do whatever he says.”

   One need only consult Beverly Hall’s CEO-minded legacy to learn how Gates’ new plan to “use data to drive continuous improvement” can lead to godawful perversions – and even indictments.

   Two so similar words – continuous and continual. Yet two so dissimilar meanings.

   Continuous improvement – always success, never failure. Never missteps, always forward. Learning not required. History can be ignored. Accountability required when reality shows up as failure. Achieved only by dumb luck or astounding genius or, most likely, faking and cheating.

   Continual improvement – sometimes success, sometimes failure. Missteps happen, sometimes one step forward, two steps back. Learning required. History is essential for understanding why and how to get more success and less failure. A never-ending journey.

   Continuous improvement echoes the CEO mindset that demands, for example, ever-higher quarterly profits. In the case of Beverly Hall, ever-higher standardized test scores.

   Misunderstanding continuous improvement versus continual improvement can be like playing with fire. But then maybe Mr. and Mrs. Public School Sabotage’s aim is indeed to play with fire, so as to finally and completely torch public education.

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   • KrazyTA says:

     July 22, 2018 at 3:44 pm

     You have well described the magical thinking that animates rheephorm heavyweights.

     All in service to keeping themselves comfortably ensconced in their happy places, protected from any unsettling doubts or disturbing self-reflections that might spoil their sense of noblesse oblige.

     It’s such a burden being a self-sacrificing billionaire…

     🙄

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     • SomeDAM Poet says:

       July 22, 2018 at 5:57 pm

       I know you’ve seen this before, KrazyTA, but for any who have not.

       “The Billionaire’s Burden” (based on “The White Man’s Burden”, by Rudyard Kipling”)

       Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
       Send forth the tests ye breed
       Go bind your schools to test style,
       To serve his market’s need;
       The weight of heavy VAMness,
       On captive folk and mild—
       Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
       Half teacher and half child.

       Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
       In patience to abide,
       To veil the scheme for teach-bots,
       The prime intent to hide;
       With coded speech of Orwell,
       You really must take pains
       To make a hefty profit,
       And see the major gains.

       Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
       The public schools to fleece—
       Fill full the days with testing
       And Common Core disease;
       And when your goal is nearest
       The end that you have sought,
       Destroy the Opt-out movement
       Lest work be all for naught.

       Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
       A tawdry rule of Kings,
       The toil of IT keeper,
       The sale of software things.
       The data ye shall enter,
       On privacy to tread,
       To make a “decent” living,
       Until they all are dead.

       Take up the Billionaire’s burden
       And reap his old reward:
       The blame of those ye better,
       The hate of those ye guard—
       The cry of hosts ye humour
       (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:—
       “Why brought he us from bondage,
       From stupid blissful night?”

       Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
       Ye dare not stoop to less—
       So fulminate ‘gainst Apple
       To cloak your Siri-ous-ness;
       And strategize in whispers,
       For all ye leave or do,
       Or silent, sullen peoples
       Shall weigh Diane on you!

       Take up the Billionaire’s burden,
       Have done with childish ways—
       The Kindergarten playing,
       The test-less former days
       Come now, to join Reform-hood,
       The pride of Duncan years
       Cold, edged with Gates-bought wisdom,
       The plan of Billionaires!

       I would just add that Cathy O’Neil (aka Mathbabe) has reached the same conclusion as Steven Singer.

       “Here’ how not to improve Public Schools
       The Gates Foundation’s big-data experiment wasn’t just a failure. It did real harm.”

       https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-27/here-s-how-not-to-improve-public-schools

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   • retired teacher says:

     July 22, 2018 at 6:49 pm

     Gates will monetize students with endless data mining. All of this data mining will result in social engineering. Algorithms will decide who is ready to sit at the right hand of Bill Gates and who belongs in the dustbin. We all know what great predictors algorithms are for human behavior! Heaven help us.

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6. carolmalaysia says:

   July 22, 2018 at 5:22 pm

   “I’m rich and that makes me better than you.”

   DeVos, Gates and how many others in the 1% think the same thing? It gets tiring when they have no idea what they are talking about. Their ideas destroy and we are supposed to sit and clap? 😡

   As KrazyTA says, “It’s such a burden being a self-sacrificing billionaire…”

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   • Ohio Algebra II Teacher says:

     July 22, 2018 at 9:39 pm

     It certainly makes many think they are smarter than you. And they are absolutely more powerful than you. Deadly combination.

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7. SomeDAM Poet says:

   July 22, 2018 at 6:12 pm

   With apologies to Emily Dickinson

   I’m a billionaire. Who are you?
   Are you a billionaire too?
   Then there’s a pair of us!
   Don’t tell! they’d attack us – you know!

   How dreary – to be a teacher
   How public – like a Frog –
   To gripe and complain – the livelong June –
   On educator’s blog!

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   • LeftCoastTeacher says:

     July 22, 2018 at 8:29 pm

     Ahh, the blog Poet is back again after a break! Hooray! Bill Gates might see me as a frog, but more likely as an ant. Regardless, though, he has too much control over the temperature of my atmosphere — he boils the water if I am a frog and holds the magnifying glass if I am an ant.

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8. Linda says:

   July 23, 2018 at 8:58 am

   The spawn of Betsy DeVos and Bill Gates could be Republican legislator Rep. Paul Mosley from Arizona. He is a “Policy Advisor” at the Heartland Institute (paid?). Heartland keeps its donors secret, while it promotes the same agenda that the Koch’s do.
   Mosley thinks a woman’s place is at home. He thinks “freedom” calls for the elimination of compulsory education. He thinks education is a “privilege”, in other words, a product that the richest 0.1% should profit from (the Gates and Z-berg schools-in-a-box?) He claims he has the legal immunity of the powerful.
   The “freedom” schtick is well trod ground for Heartland. The tobacco industry used the same PR to sell cigarettes. Now, it’s used to sell oligarchy.

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