Peter Greene writes here about the “moonshot” to transform American education, co-sponsored by the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the allegedly liberal Center for AMERICAN Progress. Peter points out that this collaboration demonstrates that both sides of the DC Establishment endorse corporatedceducarion reform (despite its manifest failure for the past 25 years).
He compares their competition to education’s version of the self-driving car.
He writes:
Do you mean something that’s promoted relentlessly but is still far off in the future? Or do you mean a program that faces major obstacles that tech-cheerleaders just sort of gloss over?
Perhaps you meant a tech-based solution that strips all participants of power and agency and gives it instead to a bunch of programmers? Or did you mean a new tech initiative that promises to make a bunch of people rich?
Or do you mean something that can fail with really catastrophic results?
All their goals are stated as measurable results.
And he notes:
These goals are all about changing numbers; they are an open invitation to apply Goodhart’s or Campbell’s Laws, in which focus on a measurement leads to that measurement being rendered useless. This is about coming up with ways to make better numbers. Yes, one way to improve numbers can be (though not always) to improve the underlying reality those numbers are supposed to represent. But those techniques are hard to scale, expensive and not easy to devise. There are always simpler methods.
If you want a piece of this action, the group is open to submissions of 500 words until the end of the month. But remember– this is not about coming up with a self-driving car. It’s about coming up with a marketing package that makes it look like a self-driving car has been perfected. It’s about doing a good job of using modern CGI to fake your presence on the moon without all the hard work, expense and challenge of actually getting a rocket up there.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Gag me.
When I first saw this, I thought someone should put together a proposal to give students a large sum, $1000?, per grading period. The evidence in your proposal would be the overwhelming evidence that this would improve outcomes.
Apollo 13?
Another wonderful, darkly funny piece from Mr. Greene! Here are my proposals for the moonshot:
Eliminate the federal standardized testing mandate
Require astroturf Ed Deform “think” (hee hee ha ha ho heeeee haaaaaa–please stop, it hurs) tanks like the Fordham Institute to reveal, up front, the original sources of their funding
Make it illegal to divert public education funds into charter schools and “academic scholarships” that can be paid to charters or private schools, including religious ones
America loves magic bullets that often just figure out ways to game the system. It is easy to understand why CAP can team with Fordham as they are “birds of a feather” despite political affiliation. As Greene states, “When it comes to education, some progressives are just free market conservatives in sheep’s clothing.”
All the preoccupation with testing undermines any level of accuracy the results may have. I can recall as an ESL teacher when the state moved the exit criteria from the 35% to the 40% on a standardized test. The goal was to give ELLs a better foundation before proclaiming them “proficient.” When cut scores on tests can be manipulated to achieve a desired result, there is no end to the manipulation that can result, and the labels attached to so-called results.
Both CAP and Fordham are seeking faster, more efficient magic bullets. However, learning is a process that takes time and effort. Both of these corporate backed groups seek greater “efficiency” and economies of scale. As Elizabeth Warren pointed out the other day in her rebuke of standardized testing the other day, students are not widgets than get processed along an assembly line at the same rate with the same result.
amen
Bill Gates opined for 6 years that new miracle energy sources would solve global warming. It provided convenient cover for the unbridled greed of the Koch’s.
Education reform–either the Republican or Democratic variety–treats students as objects to be manipulated, rather than as human beings whose development cannot be predicted, but whose growth can be shaped by genuine relationships with teachers. Thinking of students as “factors of production” (the raw material of human capital, like mines of mineral ores) will always fail to educate kids. But “reform” can hold out the prospect of turning kids into compliant workers in corporations owned by Republicans and Democrats, just as new computers are supposed to increase profits.
Fordham, and Petrilli in particular, has devoted a lot of [hot] airtime lately to the question of where we go from here now that standardized testing hasn’t panned. The magical elixir of high-stakes standardized testing hasn’t cured cancer, eliminated the common cold, brought about world peace, given Trump a brain, improved educational outcomes, or closed achievement gaps. VAM and school grading are a bust. Charters don’t outperform traditional public schools but do divert public funds into private profits. Students are driven quietly insane by the drivel in depersonalized education software. So, all this troubles Mr. Petrilli’s sleep–though not as much, I imagine, as would losing funding from Gates and other oligarchs. And so Fordham is looking for another fine deformy cure-all that will rescue the test-them-till-they-drop and teaching them with machines oligarchical program. I guess that Fordham is Waiting for Superman. Or a Moonshot. Or Mr. Magicos Traveling Medicine Show–for anything that will keep the great green river flowing. This “moonshot” thing is an S.O.S. Save Our Sop.
cx: panned out; Mr. Magico’s
“Charters don’t outperform traditional public schools but do divert public funds into private profits.” So clearly said. It reminds me of a similar line by a critic in our distinct which goes something along the lines of, Charter schools are the solution to a fictitious problem.
“Peter points out that this collaboration demonstrates that both sides of the DC Establishment endorse corporate education reform (despite its manifest failure for the past 25 years).”
Meanwhile, where does the DC Establishment send their kids to school? Sidwell Friends? Or schools on this list?
Instead of a “Moonshot” approach, why not use the resources of the wealthiest nation on earth to ensure that children’s essential needs are met? (i.e.: address poverty). When parents must work multiple jobs to meet basic costs, that robs families of the abilities to strengthen the bonds that we need to function as a society. Haven’t we all been told in our PD sessions that relationship-building is key to academic success?
I believe that CAP and Fordham are just looking for a magic formula to train the children of others. Truly educating is appropriate only for the offspring of the elites. (Their view, not mine). Requiring as few live teachers in the classroom as is possible is likely one of the criteria for a winning entry.
What will CAP and the Centrist Dems do if their dream to shrink the pool of unionized public school teachers becomes so small that there aren’t enough “boots on the ground” left to elect another pandering Centrist president who will cave to the charter industry?
The illusion that CAP and Fordham aren’t vipers in the same nest is media’s fiction.
CAP has as its board chair, Tom Daschle, who has a bi-partisan lobby shop for wealthy clients and, CAP’s founder had a bi-partisan PR/ influencing firm for clients with money, Duh- what prevents CAP from steering Democratic messaging for the public and media so that Repub and Dem politicians agree on legislation that serves the deep-pocketed?
Look at CAP’s funders i.e. Gates who sponsored part of the new higher ed initiative at Daschle’s lobby shop.
And, look at Fordham’s funding detailed by Non-Partisan Education Review.
Why don’t we “moonshoot” all these people off the planet?!
A better idea, here: read the recent (&,of course, brilliant) The Borowitz Report about deporting all the billionaires!
Oh no, I just found an article about robot teacher assistants in India. They use Amazon. Oh no!
https://m.timesofindia.com/india/miss-alexa-and-tara-are-helping-civic-school-kids-bridge-learning-gap/articleshow/70070607.cms
They are for students of poverty, of course. Ugh.