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Nancy Bailey Writes a Letter to Checker Finn

By dianeravitch
August 24, 2016 //
12

Checker Finn wrote an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan (as did Marc Tucker and I, in large part to counter what Checker wrote).

Many readers wondered why anyone would write an open letter to the founder of Facebook and advise him what to do about reforming American education.

Nancy Bailey puts those concerns, that skepticism, and that sense of outrage into a post directed to Checker Finn.

Finn just wrote a letter to Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg for all of us to see, like we are the bystanders in their goofball, grand design of schools. Schools will no longer be public–other than they will still receive our tax dollars.

It is hard not to be struck by the arrogance of it all.

If one understands what a democracy is, and how it relates to public schools, they will be puzzled as to why Finn isn’t writing a letter to the American people–you know–the ones who are supposed to be the real owners of their schools.

But instead, he writes to Chan and Zuckerberg. He wants them to think about school reform. He sees them as the owners of America’s schools. They, like Gates and the other wealthy oligarchs, assume they know best how children learn because they made a lot of money and got rich.

She is especially repulsed by his reference to “personalized learning,” which is now a euphemism for sitting in front of a computer and letting the computer teach you. Some call it CBE, competency-based education, since the computer uses algorithms to judge your readiness for the next question or activity. The idea that computers might teach children with special needs is particularly troubling.

But real education is an exchange between people, not a machine and a person.

I have known Checker Finn for many years, almost forty. Our friendship was impaired when I left the board of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and publicly rejected school choice and high-stakes testing. I have always had a fondness for Checker and his family. But Checker went to Exeter, and his wonderful children also went to elite private schools. I don’t begrudge them that, but I think Checker really is out of touch with public education and with the work of teachers in public schools. I am not making excuses for him, just explaining why I think he really doesn’t understand the disastrous consequences of the ideas he has promoted and believes in–for other people’s children.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Special Education, Technology, Computers, Testing

Our Dam Poet on the Billionaires’ Burden

By dianeravitch
August 21, 2016 //
9

Our poet is missing. Poet, come back! We need your voice, your wit, your passion.

“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-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!

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Testing

New Jersey: Survey of Teachers Shows Negative Impact of PARCC Testing

By dianeravitch
August 16, 2016 //
16

Teachers in Middlesex County were surveyed about their views of PARCC testing. New Jersey is one of the few states that continues to participate in PARCC. Originally, there was a consortium with 24 states. Now there are five.

Here is the discouraging, but not surprising, findings:

Middlesex County Education Association Releases Findings of First-Time Survey of Teachers After PARCC Testing: Finds Significant Problems

June 2016

Some 1285 Middlesex County teachers and school professionals voluntarily and anonymously participated in a survey regarding the impact of the PARCC standardized test on students, schools, and instruction. In the most comprehensive survey conducted in New Jersey to date, the results showed serious issues for the new testing regimen. The major findings of the survey include:

• Feedback from the test was significantly delayed or not distributed to teachers.
• Conditions under which the PARCC test was taken draw into question the validity of the results.
• PARCC and related test preparation have negatively impacted many students and raised concerns for many parents.
• The new test is a significant drain of instruction time and a disruption to classes.
• As a result of the PARCC test, students have limited access to library media centers and computers as well as special services and programs.
• The testing/evaluation environment has had a negative impact on teachers and staff.

Delay in Receiving Feedback

In spite of the NJ Department of Education’s promises of rich feedback from PARCC testing to teachers to improve instruction, 34% of teachers of tested areas (English and Mathematics) did not receive their students’ spring 2015 test scores until January 2016 or later. Another 24% never received them. After the state spent $22.1 million dollars and local districts spent millions more to implement the PARCC, less than 2% of these teachers found the data collected from PARCC to be an improvement from past state standardized tests.

Validity of PARCC Test Questionable and Students Impacted Negatively

Nearly half of educators reported directly observing administration problems, technical or otherwise, which could have negatively impacted student test scores. In addition, 59% reported observing students refusing to take the test seriously, resulting in invalid scores. In spite of these issues, the state of New Jersey continues to use PARCC test scores as part of evaluations for teachers of tested areas grades 4 to 8 and these scores are projected to play a larger role for more teachers in the future.

PARCC testing has had a pronounced effect on many students. 57% of school teachers and support staff reported increased anxiety and depression among students related to testing and 42% reported increased negativity and loss of interest in school by students overburdened by testing. Only 14% reported no observed problems for their students. One teacher wrote, “My first graders are worried about future testing.” Another teacher noted “I recently looked at old yearbooks – ten years ago our kids did fantastic learning projects. Now, all we do is data driven instruction and testing.”

A notably high percentage, 60% of educators, reported parents expressing complaints, apprehension, or concerns about the PARCC test directly to them. This reflects the previously publicly reported concerns of parents shown by the tens of thousands of New Jersey children who opted out of the PARCC test last year at their parents’ request.

Impact of PARCC Testing on Instruction

In terms of lost instructional time to PARCC, 34% of teachers of tested areas (English and mathematics) reported spending 11-20 hours on PARCC testing this year and 35% spent more than 20 hours in PARCC testing. In addition, 38% of these teachers estimated spending another 6 or more instructional days on test prep, and nearly half of these teachers lost additional time to pre-testing to identify weak students before the PARCC test. Over 36% reported that their schools purchased commercially prepared pre-tests for use prior to the PARCC.

Educators widely reported that PARCC testing resulted in the closing of library media centers and loss of access to computers for extended periods of time, disruption of class schedules and routines, and loss of time for special services such as speech therapy and counseling. Advanced Placement teachers complained of the loss of valuable instructional time just prior to the AP tests for college credits. Other teachers commented that the guidance department, child study teams for special education students, and much of the school administration were barely available for up to a month for testing. A special education teacher reported that many special education students had substitute teachers for several weeks while their special education teachers administered the PARCC to other students in other grades.

Impact on Teachers and Professional Staff

As a result of the new evaluations for students and teachers, 91% of those surveyed reported an increased workload, primarily in the form of increased paperwork and documentation of work done rather than increased time working with students. Nearly 62% reported that PARCC testing has had a definite negative or strongly negative effect on themselves and their colleagues.

While 83% reported that 5 years ago they were either satisfied or strongly satisfied with their jobs, only 34% said they were satisfied or strongly satisfied with their jobs today. Representative of many of the comments in the survey, one teacher stated, “I have always loved my job, but the last few years with the implementation of the state testing and new teacher evaluation system, I am seriously considering retiring early and dissuading my own children from seeking this profession.”

Another teacher commented, “I wish I could just TEACH and do the things in my classroom that I know will lead to real learning based on the needs of my students and not on some politician’s ever-changing agenda. I am truly saddened by what is happening; the students are not being served. This is the first group of students I have had that have been working with Common Core standards their entire school careers, and I must say that they are the least prepared and have the biggest skill gaps of any
group I have had in decades. Rushing through developmentally inappropriate material in order to score well on a test that supposedly measures “deep” knowledge and application (on a timed test, yet!) does not do justice to our students or our profession.”

About the Survey and for More Information

The Middlesex County Education Association Research and Advocacy Committee collected data from 1287 Middlesex County educators who voluntarily responded anonymously to an online survey between May 9 and June 12, 2016. Respondents work in all major districts in the county including East Brunswick, Edison Township, Highland Park, Middlesex, Milltown, New Brunswick, North Brunswick, Perth Amboy, Piscataway, Sayreville, South Amboy, South Brunswick, Spotswood, and Woodbridge Township. Elementary school teachers and professional staff represented over 38% of the respondents; middle school composed 32% of respondents; and high school participants were 29% of the total. Just under 9% have been in the profession for less than 5 years, 20% had 5 to 10 years in the profession, 43% have worked 11 to 20 years in the profession, and 28% have more than 20 years in the profession. This breakdown is generally representative of the profession as a whole.

Questions regarding this survey can be directed to Ellen Whitt, Middlesex County Education Association Research and Advocacy Committee, whitt.ellen@gmail.com or 732-771-7882.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Industry, New Jersey, Teachers, Testing

Leonie Haimson: Will CAP Convince New Yorkers to Love Testing? Will a Scandal-Plagued Computer Company Rehab Its Image?

By dianeravitch
August 15, 2016 //
8

Leonie Haimson can always be counted on to look beneath the surface of the news. In this post, she describes a forum that will be held tomorrow in New York City, where the Center for American Progress will unveil its latest attempt to persuade New Yorkers that standardized tests and the Common Core are swell. CAP is Gates-funded, of course, and so are most of the other participants in the forum. No opt out representatives were invited to participate. So the forum will not learn why 250,000 children did not take the state tests this past spring. And we learn too that New York City will soon have its very own outpost of Education Trust, the Gates-funded advocacy group for standards and testing. If you open the blog, you will get to see a short pro-Common Core video that was ridiculed by many for its condescension towards parents and quickly withdrawn.

The afternoon session of the day’s event features a discussion of technology, and one of the participants comes from a company that contracts with the Department of Education and has been at the center of various scandals.

Leonie writes:

Emerging Trends in Education: City and State moderates a panel of officials, experts and academics on improving tech access in and out of classrooms, STEM learning in NY schools, and how to make NY more competitive across the globe! The session will connect educators, administrators, and other staff to new ideas, best practices, and each other.

The panel includes Josh Wallack of DOE, CM Danny Dromm, chair of the NYC Council Education Committee, a dean from Berkeley College, and two corporate reps, one of them named Vlada Lotkina, Co-founder and CEO of a company called Class Tag, which has a particularly awful privacy policy. The other member of the panel is Cynthia Getz, descried as the NYC Account Team Senior Manager at Custom Computer Specialists.

Custom Computer Specialists is infamous for having participated in a multi-million dollar kick-back scheme with a DOE consultant named Ross Lanham, who was indicted by Preet Bharara in 2011 and sent to jail in 2012. CCS had not only gotten inflated payments through the scheme, but the President, Greg Galdi (who is still the CEO) had started a Long Island real estate company with Lanham called “G & R Scuttlehole.”

In February 2015, I noted in the PEP contract listing that CCS was due to get a huge $1.1 billion contract from DOE for internet wiring Reporters for the Daily News , NYPost and Chalkbeat wrote about this egregious deal, and overnight the DOE cut back the contract to $635 million, without changing any of the terms, showing how egregiously inflated it was in the first place. The Panel for Education Policy rubber-stamped it anyway. Later, City Hall decided to reject the contract, probably because of all the bad publicity, and it was rebid at a savings of between $125M and $627M – the latter compared to the original contract price of $1.1 billion.

I think the cancellation of the CCS contract actually saved the city up to $727 million, because if the DOE had signed up with CCS, they would have lost any chance to get $100 million in E-rate reimbursement funds from the feds, since the FCC had cut NYC off from all E-rate funds because of the Lanham scandal since 2011.

Subsequently, we discovered that DOE signed a consent decree with the FCC on December 31, 2015 in which the city was ordered to pay $3 million in fines, and relinquish claims to all E-rate funding requests between 2011-2013, which were frozen after the Lanham indictment in June 2011. The DOE also had to withdraw claims to any E-rate funding from 2002-2010. Juan Gonzalez speculated that this meant the potential loss of $123 million, based on a letter sent to the DOE by the Comptroller office in 2014.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Testing

How Melinda Gates Became an Education Expert

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2016 //
20

Melinda Gates, like her husband Bill, believes that the Gates Foundation has the answers for the problems of American education.

She has never taught. She never attended a public school. Neither did Bill. Their children do not attend public schools.

What is the source of their certainty? They are very rich, probably the richest people in the world (Carlos Slim of Mexico might be richer). They are so rich that they think they know what is best for everyone’s children.

Here are some questions that the Gates Foundation should answer:

Does the Lakeside Academy in Seattle use the Gates-funded Common Core standards?

Does it test all students every year with standardized tests?

Does it use either PARCC or SBAC?

Does it evaluate its teachers by the test scores of their students?

Just wondering.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Testing

Melinda Gates: We Won’t Back Down in Face of Opposition to Our Education Reforms

By dianeravitch
August 12, 2016 //
81

Melinda Gates told the National Conference of State Legislatures that the Gates Foundation has no intention of backing away from their agenda of Common Core, teacher evaluations that include test scores, charter schools, and digital learning.

No matter how controversial, no matter how much public pushback, they are determined to stay the course. For some reason, she thinks that the foundation is a “neutral broker,” when in fact it is an advocate for policies that many teachers and parents reject. She also assumes that the Gates Foundation has “the real facts,” when in fact it has a strong point of view reflecting the will of Bill & Melinda. There was no reference to evidence or research in this account of her position. Her point was that, no matter what the public or teachers may say, no matter how they damage the profession and public education, the multi-billion dollar foundation will not back down from its priorities. The only things that can stop them are informed voters and courts, such as the vote against charter schools in Nashville and the court decision in Washington State declaring that charter schools are not public schools.

The question that will be resolved over the next decade is whether the public will fight for democratic control of public schools or whether the world’s richest man can buy public education.

Melinda Gates said she and her husband, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, learned an important lesson from the fierce pushback against the Common Core State Standards in recent years. Not that they made the wrong bet when they poured hundreds of millions of dollars into supporting the education standards, but that such a massive initiative will not be successful unless teachers and parents believe in it.

“Community buy-in is huge,” Melinda Gates said in an interview here on Wednesday, adding that cultivating such support for big cultural shifts in education takes time. “It means that in some ways, you have to go more slowly.”

That does not mean the foundation has any plans to back off the Common Core or its other priorities, including its long-held belief that improving teacher quality is the key to transforming public education. “I would say stay the course. We’re not even close to finished,” Gates said.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has helped shape the nation’s education policies during the past decade with philanthropic donations that have supported digital learning and charter schools and helped accelerate shifts not only to the new, common academic standards, but to new teacher evaluations that incorporate student test scores.

The Obama administration shared and promoted many of the foundation’s priorities, arguing that they were necessary to push the nation’s schools forward and close yawning achievement gaps. Now that a new federal education law has returned authority over public education to the states, the foundation is following suit, seeking to become involved in the debates about the direction of public schools that are heating up in state capitals across the country.

Speaking here at a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures, Melinda Gates told lawmakers on Wednesday that the new federal education law, the Every Student Succeeds Act, gives them a chance to grapple with whether “we are doing everything in our power to ensure that students are truly graduating ready to go on to meaningful work or to college.”

“I want the foundation to be the neutral broker that’s able to bring up the real data of what is working and what’s not working,” Gates said in an interview afterward.

She went on to say that the foundation would continue to pursue its priorities.

“I think we know what the big elements are in education reform. It’s how do you support the things that you know work and how do you get the whole system aligned behind it,” Gates said. “I’m not telling you it’s going to be easy. There are now 50 states that have to do it, and there isn’t this federal carrot or the stick, the push or pull, to help them along.”

The agenda she described is not one that everyone considers neutral. It includes supporting the Common Core standards and developing lesson-planning materials to help teachers teach to those standards; promoting personalized learning, or digital programs meant to target students’ individual needs; and, above all, improving the quality of teachers in the nation’s classrooms, from boosting teacher preparation to rethinking on-the-job professional development.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Resistance, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, U.S. Department of Education, VAM (value-added modeling)

Leonie Haimson on the Political Use and Misuse of Test Scores

By dianeravitch
August 9, 2016 //
14

Leonie Haimson, founder of Class Size Matters, is a major figure in New York City education circles.

She wrote this post about the reporting of the state test scores. First, the public learned that the test scores were up. Next, those who bothered to read Commissioner Elia’s statement that accompanied the release learned that this year’s scores were not comparable to previous years’ scores. But then they saw Commissioner Elia and the media celebrating the test score gains that were not comparable to previous years.

What you will learn from her post is that there is almost always a political slant in reporting scores, especially these days, when so many politicians want to claim credit for rising scores. If officials want the scores to look good, they will magnify gains. Or they can change the passing mark to create artificial gains. Or they can convert raw scores to higher scores. When they first get started, they want the scores as low as possible so they can claim gains afterwards.

Leonie provides the historical context that was absent from reporting on this year’s scores. We have seen this play before. We saw the scores go up and up and up from 2002-2009. Then an independent team of researchers studied the tests and the state acknowledged score inflation. And the scores came crashing down. But not until after Mayor Bloomberg was safely re-elected to a third term, based in large part on the historic improvement in test scores (that disappeared in 2010).

It is time to admit that the scores are malleable. What do they represent? One thing for sure is that the kids with the advantages are always at the top, and the kids without the advantages are always at the bottom. No matter how often we test, no matter what the test, the results are unchanged year after year.

Maybe it is time to step back from the incessant testing and to focus instead on interventions that might change the life chances for children and the educational outcomes as well.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Reform, Testing

New Jersey Mandates PARCC as High School Graduation Requirement

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2016 //
19

Governor Chris Christie made a big deal of pretending to get rid of Common Core, but he tenaciously stayed with PARCC, the federal test of the Common Core standards. Now the state board of education has voted to make PARCC a high school graduation test, starting in 2021.

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/south-brunswick-cranbury/sections/education/articles/south-brunswick-opting-out-of-parcc-testing-no

This is insane.

To begin with, no standardized test should be a high school graduation test. They are normed on a bell curve, which guarantees a high failure rate. The children who do not receive a diploma will disproportionately consist of children of poverty (most of whom are African-American and Hispanic), children with disabilities, and English language learners.

Next, it is clear that the PARCC test produces high failure rates. Most students in New Jersey failed it last year. Only about 25% passed the algebra and geometry tests; only 40% of high school students passed the 11th grade ELA tests.

http://www.nj.com/education/2016/08/new_jersey_parcc_results_2016_released.html

What plans has the state made for the tens of thousands of students who will not get a high school diploma?

Please, ACLU and Education Law Center: Sue New Jersey to stop this travesty, this injustice towards children.

Categories Common Core, Education Reform, High School Graduation, New Jersey, Testing

Delaware: Funny Business in State Auditor’s Office re Charter Schools

By dianeravitch
August 5, 2016 //
7

Blogger Exceptional Delaware smells a rat in the State Auditor’s office. An employee named Kathleen Davies was a tad too eager to audit the charter schools’ finances, especially their petty cash. Davies mysteriously was placed on administrative leave. This is the audit you will never see.

It seems Davies was too diligent. She discovered too much. She had to stop. And she was given an extended vacation to stop her investigations of charter school spending. The deal seems to have backfired since her removal is not exactly a secret.

Bear in mind that Delaware is a very reformy state. It won Race to the Top money and is Gung-ho about all Arne Duncan’s bad ideas. Governor Jack Merkell is one of those governors like Cuomo (NY) and Malloy (CT) who embrace corporate reform. He loves the Common Core and charters.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Tom Ultican: Now THIS Is What a Gates-Funded Teacher Conference Looks Like!

By dianeravitch
August 4, 2016 //
20

Since I posted this without the link yesterday, I am re-posting so readers have the opportunity to read Tom’s post in full.

Tom Ultican, a teacher of high school math and physics in San Diego, accepted an invitation to attend a Gates-funded conference for teachers last week. Having attended the bare-bones Network for Public Education, Ultican immediately spotted the differences in meals, facilities, staff, and other provisions.

He writes:

“On Friday, July 29, National University hosted the San Diego “Better Together California Teacher’s Summit.” I like National University and have nothing but praise for the wonderful job Dr. Judy Mantel and her excellent staff did. However, the conference underwriter was the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. That gave the proceedings a darker hue.

“During the 2016 NPE conference in Raleigh, North Carolina, Diane Ravitch mentioned how much easier it would be if we got a deep pocket sponsor for our movement, but she jokingly lamented that Anthony Cody would not stand for it. When I arrived at the Town and Country Convention Center in San Diego’s hotel circle, I saw what she meant. They had breakfast prepared for all 700 of us. The ballroom was plushly appointed and there appeared to be hotel staff everywhere. Twenty event staff were already on duty when I arrived.”

“Unfortunately, I had not read the agenda closely enough and had already eaten. I was only hoping for free coffee.”

Actually, I would be very happy to find a non-conformist billionaire or two to help NPE fight for public education and the public interest. Where Anthony and I disagreed publicly was on the wisdom of accepting corporate sponsorship. I would gladly take money from corporations to help us out and sponsor our conference. Anthony would not. Since we operate by consensus, NPE has no corporate sponsors and a tiny budget.

Not so with the conference, Tom Ultican attended. Common Core and testing were mentioned often and positively.

“Better TogetherVideo link connected us with a simultaneous event being held at California State University, Fullerton. Three massive screens projected keynote speaker, Ernie Hudson who was in Fullerton. Besides being a popular actor, Hudson is a wonderful speaker. His speech was moving and entertaining.

“However, I wondered if an accomplished professional educator speaking would have been more appropriate. For example, I will never forget the address Professor Yong Zhao gave at NPE Chicago but then he didn’t blame teachers for his son’s problems and he doesn’t support standards based testing. Hard to imagine Gates’ money being spent on a speaker that does not support Gates’ ideology.

“The Sponsors

“The money came mainly from the Gates Foundation, however, the official sponsors were AICCU, the California State University and the New Teacher Center. The sponsors page of the Better Together California web presence lists many corporate supports including: TFA, The S.D. Bechtel Foundation, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the California Charter Schools Association, Chevron….

“The New Teachers Center seemed to be the key organization overall in charge. Their funders page lists the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation as $10,000,000 plus patrons. Thirty listed entities are credited with donating between $1,000,000 and $9,999,999 including: Carnegie Corporation of New York; The Joyce Foundation; The David and Lucile Packard Foundation; SeaChange Capital Partners; The Goldman Sachs Foundation; Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust; National Education Association; and NewSchools Venture Fund.

“In addition to New Teacher’s Foundation, Edcamp was another major force present at the summit. Started by the George Lucas Foundation Edcamp has a small presence in communities across the country. There are two Edcamp groups in San Diego County according to the Edcamp representative from Baltimore.

“On his Edutopia internet page Lucas is quoted, “When I was in high school, I felt like I was in a vacuum, biding time. I was curious, but bored. It was not an atmosphere conducive to learning. Once I had the means to effect change in this arena, it became my passion to do so.” Sounds like another rich guy education “expert” with no training or experience, but he has a boat load of money so his opinion is important.

“On the good side, Edutopia and George Lucas do not appear to have a pecuniary interests in privatizing public education.

“I realize many people may wonder why I am not pleased that all of these rich people love kids so much. There is an insidious side. For example, instead of questioning the idea of adding engineering standards to basic science education, the conversation is shaped so all we discuss is how to best implement engineering principles into science education.

“Before students reach approximately their junior year in college, they are not ready to study engineering. I am for shop class, cooking and pottery projects, but these are not engineering. There is no useful purpose in confusing teachers and students by larding a bunch of inappropriate engineering standers onto seventh graders. Unfortunately, there appears to be no room for dialog that does not support the philosophy of the wealthy CEO that demanded engineering standards.”

You will enjoy Tom’s reflections on this high-powered gathering. I would love to know what the budget was.

Categories Common Core, Corporate Reformers, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privatization, Testing
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