Leonie Haimson, executive director of Class Size Matters, board member of the Network for Public Education, and expert on student privacy, pulls together some interesting threads in this post.
If Biden wants schools to reopen soon, she says, he should make sure that every teacher gets vaccinated so schools can safely reopen. Instead, he has broken his promise to get rid of the federal testing mandate and turned responsibility for the decision over to a junior staff member. She wonders who is making decisions at the Department of Education.
Why prioritize standardized tests over vaccinations for teachers?
The decision to restart testing was advanced recently by EdTrust. She shows how much money each of the signers has received from the Gates Foundation over the past decade. The total is at least $200 million.
Is the Biden administration dancing to the Gates’ tune?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Leonie Haimson is EXACTLY RIGHT. DUH …
Why do people listen to GATES? He’s a thief and a baffoon with bad ideas re: education. Bill Gates ain’t no teacher and I certainly don’t want him and his lame ideas near any kid.
Besides, the rich don’t raise their own children … someone else does … the nannies.
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As a general rule, I would not trust anyone with a minor who had met with Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction for “procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18”.
But apparently, a lot of people didn’t care about Epstein’s background because many (including Gates and a bunch of folks at MIT) met with Epstein after his conviction.
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By the way, do you suppose a k-12 teacher who had met with Epstein after his conviction would be allowed to continue teaching?
I seriously doubt it.
But most of the university profs (at MIT and elsewhere) who did so are still teaching.
In fact, the only person I am aware of who lost his job is Ito, who was the fall guy at MIT to cauterize the wound and stop the bleeding.
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One only needs to look at the funders of EdTrust to connect these dots. Why, America? As always, cui bono?
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So the big idea of the ed reform “movement” for Covid recovery is the same standardized testing they push every year?
Seems like schools don’t need them at all. We know how to test students. It’s all we’ve gotten for the last 20 years.
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Here’s a good one, under the title “Standardized tests are a go, but Maryland scales them back amid pandemic” (WaPo 2/25): “State officials cut the length of the test by two-thirds, but math testing will still take 2.6 hours and English language arts 4.6 hours.”
For context, MD has had less in-person teaching during the pandemic than any other state. That’s not just inner cities. E.g., their huge suburban district, Montgomery County, has been closed since last March, and will soon begin a 6-week phase-in to hybrid [3/15-4/26]. So for those families returning their children for hybrid learning, these “shortened” tests will monopolize 3 – 4 of what will be 18 -20 total in-person days of the entire school year.
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The greatest oxymoron in education is Common Core Standardized Testing. Common Core is supposed to highlight critical thinking and prepare students for college and the workforce. A standardized test is a multiple choice test (with extreme bias) that evaluates lower levels of thinking.
If the Gates Foundation (and other members of education reform) were so concerned with our children’s ability to think critically, they would be in an uproar over standardized testing. But then again, Pearson might have an issue with that.
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You hit the nail on the head. An oxymoron indeed.
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At its core, the Common Core was always intended as a lowest common denominator, so despite the hyped claims by people like Bill Gates, David Coalman and Jason Zimbot , it was never meant to do more than light up a few neurons in the reptilian part of the brain.
Gates and the others are reptiles, so it should not be surprising that their baby (abortion?) Is reptilian as well.
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Educationally….knuckled-headed.
Ethically….wrong.
Politically….stupid.
Save the schools not the phony reformers.
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I got my vaccination Thursday. First Moderna. I sure hope it works. I have felt like heck for two days.
I bet Bill Gates would put a stop to testing if he had to put up with taking one of those tests
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Gates probably liked taking tests because he was good at it.
If we are to believe his wikipedia page, he got a perfect score on the SAT.
Who brags about their SAT score half a century later?
Bill Gates , that’s who.
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“The Bell Curve Boys”
The Bell Curve Boys
Just love the tests
Like favorite toys
They tout their bests:
“A perfect score on SAT
Is what I got in school, you see
And how successful I’ve turned out
The Test tells all, there’s little doubt”
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I’d brag about my SAT score a half a century later if I could remember what it was. I do remember being rudely awakened by my mom early on a Saturday morning to get ready and go take it. I was so hungover I could barely see the test. Took both the “big” tests and didn’t give a damn about what the scores were.
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“Teachers’ unions are holding fast, insisting on mass vaccination as a pre-condition. [This] prompted Megan Bacigalupi…to form a new group this week, Open Schools California.” No surprises, Megan’s a Wall Street shill. I Tweeted @meganbaci: Investor’s already overflowing portfolios will benefit from reopening. Is being married to a stockbroker the impetus for your impatience? Or is it your years with “tell teachers to suck it up” Mike Bloomberg?
https://www.radio.com/kcbsradio/news/local/parents-form-open-schools-california-to-reopen-classrooms
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