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The Fatal Flaw of the Common Core Standards

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2014 //
67

Across the nation, parents and educators are raising objections to the Common Core standards, and many states are reconsidering whether to abandon them as well as the federally-funded tests that accompany them. Arne Duncan, Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Business Roundtable vocally support them, yet the unease continues and pushback remains intense.

Why so much controversy?

The complaints are coming from all sides: from Tea Party activists who worry about a federal takeover of education and from educators, parents, and progressives who believe that the Common Core will standardize instruction and eliminate creativity in their classrooms.

But there is a more compelling reason to object to the Common Core standards.

They were written in a manner that violates the nationally and international recognized process for writing standards. The process by which they were created was so fundamentally flawed that these “standards” should have no legitimacy.

Setting national academic standards is not something done in stealth by a small group of people, funded by one source, and imposed by the lure of a federal grant in a time of austerity.

There is a recognized protocol for writing standards, and the Common Core standards failed to comply with that protocol.

In the United States, the principles of standard-setting have been clearly spelled out by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

On its website ANSI describes how standards should be developed in every field. The American National Standards Institute

“has served in its capacity as administrator and coordinator of the
United States private sector voluntary standardization system for
more than 90 years. Founded in 1918 by five engineering societies
and three government agencies, the Institute remains a private,
nonprofit membership organization supported by a diverse
constituency of private and public sector organizations.

“Throughout its history, ANSI has maintained as its
primary goal the enhancement of global competitiveness of U.S.
business and the American quality of life by promoting and
facilitating voluntary consensus standards and conformity
assessment systems and promoting their integrity. The Institute
represents the interests of its nearly 1,000 company, organization,
government agency, institutional and international members through
its office in New York City, and its headquarters in
Washington, D.C.”

ANSI’s fundamental principles of standard-setting are transparency, balance, consensus, and due process, including a right to appeal by interested parties. According to ANSI, there are currently more than 10,000 American national standards, covering a broad range of activities.

The Common Core standards were not written in conformity with the ANSI standard-setting process that is broadly recognized across every field of endeavor.

If the Common Core standards applied to ANSI for recognition, they would be rejected because the process of writing the standards was so deeply flawed and did not adhere to the “ANSI Essential Requirements.”

ANSI states that “Due process is the key to ensuring that ANSs are developed in an environment that is equitable, accessible and responsive to the requirements of various stakeholders. The open and fair ANS process ensures that all interested and affected parties have an opportunity to participate in a standard’s development. It also serves and protects the public interest since standards developers accredited by ANSI must meet the Institute’s requirements for openness, balance, consensus and other due process safeguards.”

The Common Core standards cannot be considered standards when judged by the ANSI requirements. According to ANSI, the process of setting standards must be transparent, must involve all interested parties, must not be dominated by a single interest, and must include a process for appeal and revision.

The Common Core standards were not developed in a transparent manner. The standard-setting and writing of the standards included a significant number of people from the testing industry, but did not include a significant number of experienced teachers, subject-matter experts, and other educators from the outset, nor did it engage other informed and concerned interests, such as early childhood educators and educators of children with disabilities. There was no consensus process. The standards were written in 2009 and adopted in 2010 by 45 states and the District of Columbia as a condition of eligibility to compete for $4.3 billion in Race to the Top funding. The process was dominated from start to finish by the Gates Foundation, which funded the standard-setting process. There was no process for appeal or revision, and there is still no process for appeal or revision.

The reason to oppose the Common Core is not because of their content, some of which is good, some of which is problematic, some of which needs revision (but there is no process for appeal or revision).

The reason to oppose the Common Core standards is because they violate the well-established and internationally recognized process for setting standards in a way that is transparent, that recognizes the expertise of those who must implement them, that builds on the consensus of concerned parties, and that permits appeal and revision.

The reason that there is so much controversy and pushback now is that the Gates Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education were in a hurry and decided to ignore the nationally and internationally recognized rules for setting standards, and in doing so, sowed
suspicion and distrust. Process matters.

According to ANSI, here are the core principles for setting standards:

The U.S. standardization system is based on the following set of globally accepted principles for standards development:*Transparency Essential information regarding
standardization activities is accessible to all interested
parties.* Openness
Participation is open to all affected interests.* Impartiality

No one interest
dominates the process or is favored over another.

* Effectiveness and Relevance


Standards are relevant and effectively respond to regulatory and
market needs, as well as scientific and technological
developments.

* Consensus
Decisions are reached through consensus among those
affected.

* PerformanceBased
Standards are performance based (specifying essential
characteristics rather than detailed designs) where
possible.

* Coherence


The process encourages coherence to avoid overlapping and
conflicting standards.

* Due Process
Standards development accords with due process so that
all views are considered and appeals are possible.
* TechnicalAssistance

Assistance is offered to developing countries in the formulation and application
of standards. In addition, U.S. interests strongly agree that the process should be:

* Flexible, allowing the use of different methodologies to meet the needs of different technology and product sectors;

*Timely, so that purely administrative
matters do not result in a failure to meet market expectations;
and

* Balanced among
all affected interests.

page7image15608

Lacking most of these qualities, especially due process, consensus among interested groups, and the right of appeal, the Common Core cannot be considered authoritative, nor should they be considered standards. The process of creating national academic standards should be revised to accord with the essential and necessary procedural requirements of standard-setting as described by the American National Standards Institute. National standards cannot be created ex nihilo without a transparent, open, participatory consensus process that allows for appeal and revision.

United States Standards Strategy
http://www.us-standards-strategy.org

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

When Bill Gates Told State Legislators What to Do and They Did It: UPDATE!

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2014 //
29

Mercedes Schneider came across a speech
that Bill Gates gave to state legislators in 2009. It
lays out the blueprint for everything that has happened in
education since then. Forget what you learned in civics class.
Gates gave legislators their marching orders. Duncan already had
his marching orders. Gates laid out $2.3 billion to create and
promote the Common Core standards. His buddy Arne handed out $350
million to test Bill’s standards. All the other pieces are there:
Charter schools should replace failure factories. He is a true
believer in charter magic. (We now know that charters get the same
results when they have the same students.) Longitudinal data
systems should be created to track students. (A parent rebellion
seems to have put this on the back burner for now, although
everyone seems to be mining student data, from Pearson to the SAT
to the ACT.) The teacher is the key to achievement (although real
research says the family and family income dwarfs teacher effects).
Here is the man behind the curtain, the man who loves data and
measurement, not children. Lock the doors, townspeople. Bill Gates
wants to measure everything about your children! Ask yourself, if
this guy made $60,000 a year, would anyone listen to him?

UPDATE:
After this blog was posted, two privacy activists–Allison White
and Leonie Haimson advised me that the collection of confidential
data about children is going forward, thanks to Arne Duncan’s
loosening of privacy rights under FERPA, the legislation designed
to prevent data mining. They write: “Actually at least 44 states
including NY are going forward with their internal P20 Longitudinal
data systems – as required by federal law – which will track kids
from cradle to the grave and collect their personal data from a
variety of state agencies.” Leonie Haimson is leader of Class Size
Matters and Prvacy Matters Allison Breidbart White is Co-author,
Protect NY State School Children Petition Please sign and share the
petition http://bit.ly/18VBvX2

ALSO: I transposed the numbers describing what the Gates Foundation spent on Common Core: it was $2.3 billion, not $3.2 billion. A billion here, a billion there, soon you are talking real money (I think I am paraphrasing long-gone Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, but who knows?)

Categories Common Core, Data and Data Mining, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Privacy and Privacy Rights, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Randi Warns State Chiefs Common Core Is in Deep Trouble; They Don’t Listen

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2014 //
84

A fascinating article in Education Week describes a verbal tiff between the Council of Chief State School Officers and the leaders of the two major teachers’ unions.

The Chiefs, as they are known, are the state superintendents. CCSSO received at least $32 million from the Gates Foundation to “write” and advocate for the Common Core, and no matter how much parents and teachers complain and demand revisions, the Chiefs “won’t back down.” They made their certainty and intransigence clear to the union leaders.

The AFT and the NEA also were paid millions by Gates to promote the Common Core, but the unions have members and both Randi and Dennis have vocally criticized the implementation of the Common Core. In some states, the rollout has been nothing short of disastrous.

Randi Weingarten was unusually outspoken in criticizing the rush to impose the Common Core, and she warned the Chiefs that the standards were in serious jeopardy. The article makes clear that while Randi is listening to teachers, the Chiefs are not. Their attitude on full display was “full steam ahead, the critics are wrong, there is nothing but anecdote on their side.” You would think they might have reflected just a bit on the terrible results of Common Core testing in New York, where only 3% of English language learners passed the tests, only 5% of children with disabilities, only 16-17% of African American and Hispanic students, and only 31% of all students.

The advocates of Common Core claim that the new standards teach critical thinking and reflection, but there was no evidence of either critical thinking or reflection from the CCSSO or the other organizations paid to promote the standards.

Andrew Ujifusa writes:

“Anxiety over the Common Core State Standards was on full display Tuesday during the Council of Chief State School Officers’ annual legislative conference. Leaders of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, the nation’s two largest teacher unions, squabbled with state K-12 chiefs over how teachers and the general public perceive the standards, and how well they are being implemented in classrooms.”

Weingarten told those present that they do not understand how angry many parents and educators are. During the discussion, Weingarten “said that in cases like New York state, the poor rollout of the common core had led to “immobilization” among teachers and a distrust that those in positions of authority knew how to do the job right.

“Weingarten added that she expects that many of her members would call for outright opposition to the standards during the AFT’s summer convention, even though both the AFT and NEA support the standards and Weingarten said she wouldn’t back away from the common core.

“On the subject of transitioning to the common core, Weingarten told the chiefs, “The field doesn’t trust the people in this room to have their backs.”

“During the same discussion, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel, while he said the union remained squarely behind the standards themselves, also expressed concern that teachers were not getting enough time to learn the standards themselves, to find common-core aligned curricular materials, and to talk to parents as well as each other.

“Those remarks triggered an irritated response from Massachusetts K-12 chief Mitchell D. Chester, who said that the two national unions seemed to be “condoning” strident and vocal common-core foes “at the peril of those [teachers] who are moving things ahead,” an accusation Weingarten denied……

“Weingarten responded that attacking her for being the messenger of concerns about the standards missed the point, telling the state chiefs, “People think we are doing terrible things to them, parents and teachers alike.”

Kati Haycock of Education Trust defended the Common Core. The Gates Foundation paid Education Trust $2,039,526 to advocate for the Common Core.

Michael Cohen of Achieve, which helped to write the standards, strongly defended them.

Gates has paid many millions to Achieve to write and promote the Common Core:

“Gates money also flowed to Achieve, Inc.; prior to June 2009, Achieve received $23.5 million in Gates funding. Another $13.2 million followed after CCSS creation, with $9.3 million devoted to “building strategic alliances” for CCSS promotion:

“June 2012

Purpose: to strengthen and expand the ADP Network, provide
more support to states for CCSS implementation, and build strategic national
and statewide alliances by engaging directly with key stakeholders
Amount: $9,297,699”

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Common Core, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

KrazyTA Explains What Bill Gates Wants for His Own Children

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2014 //
79

The most famous line ever written by John Dewey was this:

“What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.”

Our frequent commenter KrazyTA has been exploring what our leading reformers–who see themselves as our best and wisest educational visionaries–want for their own children. After Bill Gates spoke to the teachers at the annual conference of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to explain why the Common Core was absolutely necessary and was the key to teachers’ creativity, KrazyTA inquired into the practices at the elite Lakeside School in Seattle, where Bill was a student and where his own children are enrolled.

This is what he found:

“Strangely, when I went to the Lakeside School website—you know, where Bill Gates and his children went/go to school—I found not a single mention of Common Core, standardization and electric plugs. Not to mention that they weren’t coupled with terms like “innovation” and “teaching.”

“Worse yet, not a single mention of how “college and career readiness” has been lacking there up until now either. Am I missing something? Anyway, let’s see what sort of institution crippled Mr. Bill Gates.

“Let’s start with “About Lakeside.”

First, their mission statement:

[start quote]

“The mission of Lakeside School is to develop in intellectually capable young people the creative minds, healthy bodies, and ethical spirits needed to contribute wisdom, compassion, and leadership to a global society. We provide a rigorous and dynamic academic program through which effective educators lead students to take responsibility for learning.

“We are committed to sustaining a school in which individuals representing diverse cultures and experiences instruct one another in the meaning and value of community and in the joy and importance of lifelong learning.

[end quote]

Second, “Mission Focus”:

[start quote]

“Lakeside School fosters the development of citizens capable of and committed to interacting compassionately, ethically, and successfully with diverse peoples and cultures to create a more humane, sustainable global society. This focus transforms our learning and our work together.

[end quote]

Link: http://www.lakesideschool.org/podium/default.aspx?t=120812

“Academics Overview” with the subtitle “A Commitment to Excellence”:

[start quote]

“Lakeside’s 5th- to 12th-grade student-centered academic program focuses on the relationships between talented students and capable and caring teachers. We develop and nurture students’ passions and abilities and ensure every student feels known.

“The cultural and economic diversity of our community, the teaching styles, and the approaches to learning are all essential to Lakeside academics. We believe that in today’s global world, our students need to know more than one culture, one history, and one language.

“Each student’s curiosities and capabilities lead them to unique academic challenges that are sustained through a culture of support and encouragement. All students will find opportunities to discover and develop a passion; to hone the skills of writing, thinking, and speaking; and to interact with the world both on and off campus. Lakeside trusts that each student has effective ideas about how to maximize his or her own education, and that they will positively contribute to our vibrant learning community.

[end quote]

Link: http://www.lakesideschool.org/podium/default.aspx?t=120814

“Let’s switch gears—or at least websites. Even more strangely, I found that stuff like class size matters:

[start quote]

“Finally, I had great relationships with my teachers here at Lakeside. Classes were small. You got to know the teachers. They got to know you. And the relationships that come from that really make a difference…

[end quote]

“More of this nonsense [?] can be found in the link below, like the fact that Lakeside School has a student/teacher ration of 9:1 and average class size of 16.

Link: http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/bill-gates-tells-us-why-his-high-school-was-a-great-learning-environment/

“Well, I could on and on but I fear we need to rescue the little tykes in the Gates family from such horrors as, well, feast your eyes on this bit of barbarity regarding the Study Year Abroad:

[start quote]

“Since 1964, School Year Abroad has sent high school juniors and seniors to study abroad in distinctive cities and towns throughout Europe and Asia where their safety and security is a priority. Widely considered the ‘gold standard’ of high school study abroad programs, SYA’s rigorous academic curriculum, paired with complementary educational travel and varied extracurricular activities, ensure students are in an optimal position to return to their home schools or proceed to college.

[end quote]

Link: http://www.sya.org/s/833/index.aspx?sid=833&gid=1&pgid=1001

“Nuff said. Will you be joining Eva M and the pro-charterite/privatizer commenters on this blog for the upcoming “Save the Children of the Poor Millionaires & Billionaires Rally: A New Civil Rights Movement For The Truly Downtrodden” — catered, don’t you worry, by Wolfgang Puck.

I hope the above will put you at ease.”

😎

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Class size, Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

The Mess That Race to the Top Inflicted on Connecticut’s Schools

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2014 //
4

What a mess in Connecticut!

Robert A. Frahm writes in the Connecticut Mirror about how teachers and principals are struggling with the state’s test-based evaluation system. Teachers waste time setting paperwork goals that are low enough to make statistical “gains.” If they don’t, they may be rated ineffective.

Every principal spends hours observing teachers—one hour each time—taking copious notes, then spending hours writing up the observations.

Connecticut, one of the two or three top scoring states in the nation on NAEP (the others are Massachusetts and New Jersey), is drowning its schools and educators in mandates and paperwork.

Why? Race to the Top says it is absolutely necessary. Connecticut didn’t win Race to the Top funding, but the state is doing what Arne Duncan believes in. Stefan Pryor, the state commissioner, loves evaluating by test scores, but that’s no surprise because he was never a teacher; he is a law school graduate and co-founder of a “no excuses” charter school chain in Connecticut that is devoted to test scores at all times. The charter chain he founded is known for its high suspension rate, its high scores, and its limited enrollment of English learners.

Researchers have shown again and again that test-based accountability is flawed, inaccurate, unstable. It doesn’t work in theory, and it has not worked in five years of experience.

The article quotes the conservative advocacy group, National Council for Teacher Quality, which applauds this discredited methodology. NCTQ is neither an accrediting body nor a research organization.

Our nation’s leading scholars and scholarly organizations have criticized test-based accountability.

In 2010, some of the nation’s most highly accomplished scholars in testing, including Robert Linn, Eva Baker, Richard Shavelson, and Lorrie Shepard, spoke out against the misuse of test scores to judge teacher quality.

The American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education issued a joint statement warning about VAM.

Many noted scholars, like Edward Haertel, Linda Darling Hammond, and David Berliner, have warned about the lack of “science” behind VAM.

The highly esteemed National Research Council issued a report warning that test-based accountability had not succeeded and was unlikely to succeed. Marc Tucker recently described the failure of test-based accountability.

But the carefully researched views of our nation’s leading scholars were tossed aside by Arne Duncan, the Gates Foundation, and the phalanx of rightwing groups that support their agenda of demoralizing teachers, clearing out those who are veterans, and turning teaching into a short-time temp job.

The article cites New Haven as an example:

“Four years ago, New Haven schools won national attention when the district and the teachers’ union developed an evaluation system that uses test results as a factor in rating teachers. Since then, dozens of teachers have resigned or been dismissed as a result of the evaluations. Last year, 20 teachers, about 1 percent of the workforce, left the district after receiving poor evaluations.”

Four years later, can anyone say that New Haven is now the best district in Connecticut? Has the achievement gap closed? Time for another investigative report.

Categories Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations

Susan Ohanian: Bill Gates Is Running Scared

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2014 //
105

Think of it: the richest man in the world poured over $2 billion into the creation of national standards, and he is out on the media-power trail, fighting for their survival. Gates is worried about the pushback against the standards and the testing in a score of states. In some states, the very term “Common Core” has become so toxic that they are called something else, rebranded.

And don’t forget that Gates said not long ago that it would take at least ten years to know whether “this stuff” works. Some people wonder if it is a good idea to turn the nation’s schools upside down while we wait those ten years.

Susan Ohanian here tracks his efforts to save his foundering pet project of the moment. She notes his numerous media appearances and joins it with a speech in which he raised doubts about raising the minimum wage. Why raise the minimum wage when we could have CCSS to solve all problems? Why, once everyone is on the same page, thanks to Bill Gates, everyone will learn the same things at the same rate, and the achievement gap will close. And think of the savings when everyone takes the same tests, online of course, and teachers’ evaluations are firmly anchored to student test scores. That is when schools can fire the weakest teachers, raise the salaries of those that remain, increase class sizes, repeat again next year and every year, and watch for wondrous improvements.

Imagine that: having bought off the U.S. Department of Education, having given millions to almost every “think tank” and advocacy group in DC, he is now on the defensive about his big bet. Why? Because he didn’t buy everyone. He can’t understand why the nation is not singing his praises. Certainly the media fights for his time and presence. And on March 13, he dined with 80 of 100 Senators. Is there anyone other than a head of state who would get this reception? Certainly not a Nobel-prize winner or a celebrated poet.

Gates can’t understand why parents and locals are not fawning over him like everyone else. Why the pushback? He and Arne think it must be the Tea Party. They can’t understand why people like Anthony Cody, Carol Burris, Stephen Krashen, and Susan Ohanian are not on board. He ignores them.

Gates knows he can count on Arne and the President. He knows he can count on Jeb Bush, Bobby Jindal, Mike Pence, Rick Scott, and the other hard-right governors. They are on his side. He can count on the media to repeat his claim that only the Tea Party opposes CCSS, without wondering why so many hard-right governors are fighting for them. He can count on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. Who knew these corporate titans cared so much about children when they have outsourced so many of their parents’ jobs overseas. Oh, yes, they want the children to be global competitors. Can they really be global competitors with countries that pay workers $5 a day? $20 a day?

Maybe the pushback comes from people who don’t understand that the Common Core is like a standardized electric plug, as Bill Gates told the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards last week. Maybe those parents (they are not billionaires, why does anyone listen to them?) don’t see their children as “human capital” that must be standardized and upgraded. Maybe the opposition comes from people who don’t understand how the federal government took charge of state and local education, thanks to Bush and Obama. Maybe it comes from teachers who think that fiction is no less valuable than informational text. Maybe from kindergarten teachers who think children need play more than math.

Whatever.

Susan Ohanian thinks he is running scared. He is. This is still a democracy. Gates can buy the governors. He can buy organizations. He can buy the Beltway crowd. But he can’t buy the people.

Categories Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

An NBCT Listened to Bill Gates and Reacts Here

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2014 //
82

Bill Gates lectured the Nationally Board Certified Teachers on Friday about the joys of Common Core and why standardization unlocks creativity. Not being a NBCT, I was not there to hear him, but this teacher was there.

She writes:

“As a high school English teacher, one of the first things I taught my 11th grade students was to know their audience when speaking and writing; knowing about the expertise, hopes, fears, vision, etc. of the audience is essential for getting one’s message across and engaging in dialogue that can foster learning and evoke meaningful change.

“As an NBCT who came to the Teaching and Learning Conference to engage in meaningful dialogue to evoke change in the teaching profession, I was insulted to see that Bill Gates did not seem to “know” the expertise represented in the audience.

“I didn’t need to hear a history of, or plug for, Common Core standards. I know them backwards and forwards. The standards are actually pretty good – the demoralizing high-stakes strings attached, and the reason they came to be, not so much.

“I didn’t need to hear more about the miracles of the Khan Academy. I saw the TEACH film during the pre-conference where it was plugged plenty. I get it: technology is a useful teaching tool. Duh.

“I didn’t need to hear more about what a flipped classroom was. That’s called Tuesday in room 741.

“What I *needed* was a flipped-conference in which NBCTs could broadcast *their* expertise out to people like Bill Gates.”

Categories Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teachers and Teaching

Mercedes Schneider Takes Bill Gates to the Woodshed

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2014 //
22

Mercedes Schneider was not at all pleased that Bill Gates lectured teachers about teaching at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards annual conference. He has never taught but he thinks he knows how to teach. Messing with education is his hobby.

Why was he invited? Schneider thinks he bought the platform by donating millions to the NBPTS.

She takes him to the woodshed and gives him a talking to or a paddling, I am not sure which.

Categories Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teachers and Teaching

Julian Vasquez Heilig: How Billionaires Co-Opt Minorities to Promote Corporate Reform

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2014 //
14

Half a century ago, as the civil rights movement grew in strength and intensity, “school choice” was understood to e a synonym for segregation. Leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., fought for a democratic and equitable public school system. But, oh, how times have changed. Now there are organizations led by African Americans who want vouchers and charters to escape the public schools. No matter that such schools promote segregation. These 21st century leaders want school choice.

Why?

Julian Vasquez Heilig explains here how billionaires have co-opted minority groups to join their campaign to fight unions, fight teachers, and demand privatization.

The answer will not surprise you.

”

“Under the mantra of civil rights, billionaires such as Eli Broad, Bill Gates and the Koch Brothers and the powerful corporate-funded lobby group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) are using venture philanthropy and the political process to press for school reforms in the United States.

“The ongoing Vergara law case in California in which nine students are suing the state over teacher tenure laws, is backed by Student Matters, a non-profit that has received donations from the Broad Foundation and the Walton Foundation, run by the Walton family that founded supermarket chain Wal-Mart.

“The driver behind the case is a campaign to loosen labour rules in order to make it easier to fire “bad” teachers, under the argument that their presence discriminates against disadvantaged children. Opponents of the case argue that it is a blatant attempt to change the conversation from the realities of California’s divestment in education — the state is 46th in the nation in spending per student in 2010-11, and 50th in the number of students per teacher.

“What these organisations and other others such as the the Koch brothers, Bradley Foundation, Heritage Foundation, Students First and Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education – all supposedly supporters of school reform – have as a common denominator is a vision of a profit-based market approach to education.

“School vouchers are one of the primary education reform policy approaches pressed by the billionaires and the business lobby. Voucher programs, which provide public funding for students to attend private schools, have become more popular in the US in the past several decades.”

He adds:

“….these special interests are supporting vouchers and other neoliberal reforms contrary to the interests of students of colour. In doing so they will shift the US education system to maximise corporate profits, while limiting democratic control of public schools.

“These same billionaire “reformers” have co-opted the equity discourse by offering a carrot to minority groups. This can sometimes be in the form of millions of dollars as in the case of the Black Alliance for Educational Options and Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina. But all this hides the inequity that profit-based approaches to education foment.”

Categories Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Segregation , Racial Isolation and Integration, Vouchers, Walton Foundation

Cuomo Panel Urges End to inBloom Data Project

By dianeravitch
March 11, 2014 //
26

Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed a panel to study the state’s botched implementation of the Common Core standards and tests.

In its report, the panel recommended that the state halt its relationship with inBloom, the data collection project created by the Gates Foundation and Carnegie Cotporation at a cost of $100 million. It would have collected confidential and personally identifiable data about every child and stored it on an electronic cloud created by Rupert Murdoch’s Wireless Generation and managed by amazon.com, with no certainty that hacking would not happen.

The US Department of Education loosened regulations governing student privacy in 2011 in the FERPA law to make inBloom and other data mining projects possible.

Parents have loudly opposed such invasion of their children’s privacy.

The committee concluded that the issue distracted from the important task of implementing CCSS.

Categories Data and Data Mining, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, New York, Privacy and Privacy Rights
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