Arne Duncan has embraced Bill Gates' vision of education. Bill Gates has had a hand in crafting the common core standards and has provided grant money to advance the implementation in schools around the country. It doesn't apparently matter to Arne Duncan these standards are unproven, untested and unconstitutional. It also apparently doesn't matter that Mr. Gates' previous dalliances into the education arena proved unsuccessful.Bill Gates has his vision and billions of dollars to start the wheels turning for common core and the data that accompanies the assessments critical to the common core plan. If he can get this implemented, his companies will make even more billions of dollars once the system is operational. He faces some hurdles such as changes in the law regarding student privacy, but Secretary Duncan is doing his best to relax privacy information the Department of Education can share with outside agencies and private companies.
If Bill Gates has the vision and the money for his educational plans, and the Department of Education is acquiescing its unconstitutional authority to set educational mandates for the states, then who or what is developing the standards and assessments to be used in the Common Core standards? One company's name keeps popping up and there is a direct involvement with Bill Gates: Pearson.
What is Pearson? From its website:
Pearson is the global leader in integrated education and technology publishing, offering educational products for children, schools, universities, adults, and corporations. To purchase any of these products online, please visit one of our e-commerce sites below.
Like Bill Gates , Pearson operates a business (Pearson Textbooks) and a foundation (Pearson Foundation). With the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Pearson Foundation has had significant input into crafting the Common Core standards for public educated students. From May 2011:
Two education foundations said Wednesday they are working to develop 24 new online reading and math courses that will be aligned with the common core national standards. The courses will be developed by the Pearson Foundation — associated with the major textbook company — and will include video, social media, games and other digital materials. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will provide $3 million for four of the courses to be offered free to schools. The initiative appears to be the most ambitious effort so far to align textbooks — online or otherwise — with the new standards and may position Pearson as a leader in the market. (emphasis added)
That last sentence says it all and folks who have been following this trail of Gates and Pearson taking over education have been joking that buying Pearson stock would be a wise bet and make you quite wealthy. The Gates and Pearson Foundations "donate" courses to schools, hook them into using them since they are aligned with the new assessments, and then the schools will have to pay for them in the future. It's similar to unfunded mandates set forth by the Department of Education. The states and schools have to pay for the mandates from the Department of Education crafted by Bill Gates and Pearson.
Pearson won't make money just in the Common Core standards in the United States. The mantra in the Department of Education is "globally competitive, globally competitive, globally competitive". All of the current (and recent past) educational jargon is wrapped up in global terms. Think outside our borders. Pearson certainly thinks globally:
BEIJING, Dec 5, 2011 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) --
Global Education & Technology Group Ltd.
GEDU
-0.28%
("Global Education" or the "Company"), the largest test preparation
provider for the International English Language Testing System ("IELTS")
and a leading provider of educational courses and related services in
China, today announced that it has issued a definitive proxy statement
in connection with the Company's merger agreement with Pearson plc
("Pearson"). Such proxy materials will be mailed to all shareholders and
holders of American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") representing the
Company's ordinary shares.
Global Education and Pearson entered into a definitive merger agreement
on November 19 under which Pearson would acquire Global Education for
$2.7515 per ordinary share (or $11.006 per ADS, each representing four
ordinary shares) in cash.
If the merger is completed, the Company will continue its operations as a
privately held company and will be beneficially owned by Pearson, and
as the result of the merger, the ADSs will no longer be listed on the
NASDAQ Global Select Market.
Pearson is driving assessments in the United States and now China. Pearson is based in Britain and also provides testing in other countries:
Our regional operations in Germany, Spain, France, Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland and Poland have developed dynamic local language programmes and are market leaders in their own right.
Pearson Plc, the owner of the Financial Times
newspaper, said it agreed to buy education- technology company Schoolnet
for $230 million in cash.
Schoolnet, which uses data to boost learning at
schools, is based in New York and serves more than 5 million students
from pre-kindergarten age through to 12th grade in the U.S., Pearson
said today. Through partnerships with districts and states, Schoolnet
covers a third of the country’s largest cities.
Pearson, which also owns the book publisher
Penguin, received about 80 percent of its earnings from education in
2010 and has been expanding through so-called bolt-on acquisitions with
proceeds from last year’s sale of Interactive Data Corp. in the U.S. for
$3.4 billion. Pearson, based in London, has made nine acquisitions or
offers for education companies in the past 12 months in countries
including the U.K., India, South Africa and the U.S.
A symbiotic relationship is a relationship between two entities which is mutually beneficial for the participants of the relationship. Thus there is a positive-sum gain from cooperation. This is a term commonly used in biology to explain the relationship between two entities that need each other to survive and prosper.
The Department of Education provides the legal symbiotic structure for Gates and Pearson. Private corporations are developing (and the Department of Education is mandating) educational programs taxpayers are required to support. It's nifty for Gates and Pearson, an easy job for Federal bureaucrats providing government job security and a complete travesty for taxpayers. You are paying into a system in which you have no voice. These companies are not elected and not answerable to any constituents except their stockholders.
You are paying into a system of crony capitalism based on unproven assessments and results that will make private corporations billions of dollars with taxpayer money. And remember, it's all for the children.
I hear fear in this voice. I hear a hatred of change in this voice. The government had over 100 years to get this educational thing right with their standards and it DID NOT WORK! Now they are broke and it's time someone else tried a revolution of education for the sake of the children.
ReplyDeleteSo bill gates will do it right? Do you remember the "Smaller High Schools are better" movement? That was Bill Gates at his finest. There is no proof that his education policy is any better than what we already have. No Research to back it. Bill Gates is not doing this because he is a good guy and wants to help. This is a market based plan. Pearson is a business. These common core standards are a business. Why should we be forced to support his business over any other. You say "The government had over 100 years to get this educational thing right with their standards and it DID NOT WORK! Now they are broke and it's time someone else tried a revolution of education for the sake of the children." What gives you or anyone else the right to give away our rights Americans, to decide what kind of education our children will have?
DeleteAgreed.
ReplyDeleteSome other entity should try a revolution of education for the sake of the children.
But should public tax dollars be paying for private companies' ideas of education? Then it's not "public" education, is it? Would your argument be, then, that public education should be abolished and it should all go private and everyone pay for it our of their own pocket? No more public taxation for privately run education systems?
Why should taxpayers be paying into a system run by private organizations? There's no fear or hatred of change in this voice. There is a realization that taxpayers and school districts have no control over how/where taxpayer money is spent in "PUBLIC" education.
When did private companies begin to tell the government how their educational services would be structured, what the standards would be, what assessments and what assessment companies be used, etc. That's not a government for the people and by the people. That's a government run by special interests. No fear. Just facts.
Gretchen-- Gates and Friends bought the right to control education when they started funding Obama's career. I know so far this election cycle Gates has and/or his companies have bundled 190,000 for Obama
ReplyDeleteThe comment by anonymous is a tad creative (shall we say) change from the typical ed reformer narrative on having to do something for the "sake of the children." If US education had been such a failure for the last 100 years, I wonder how US accomplishments ever occurred over that time period.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, parents, community members, and taxpayers reject the notion that non-public non-profit entities fueled with corporate dollars have the solutions that are required. And fortunately, the last time I looked we were still living in a democracy and not ordered about by "royals."
We have challenges, but that the notion we have failed is a myth, started by the federal government. The solutions offered by ed reformers hand in hand with the government will not make improvements. All signs that these expensive, experiments will make things much worse.
No, the myth was started by people like Bill Gates and the some of the think tanks he belongs to.
DeleteMyth No.1 Americans can't compete because of our education system. Truth- Americans can't compete because our corporations took all the jobs overseas in order to get a bigger profit.
Myth No. 2 America does not turn out enough technologically educated people to do the jobs that require science and math.
Truth is that American colleges and universities are the preferred destination of people around the world and our graduates are still well educated. Problem is that while Gates and his cronies are claiming that this is not so, they are laying off engineers here and sending the jobs overseas. Sorry, but in Silicon Vally, people in tech jobs were asked to train people from India and then let go so that the jobs could be sent overseas. The people doing the training knew how to do their jobs, but industry figured out they could get a higher profit if they went overseas. Not the problem of the education system here. It was big business and people like Bill Gates.
Stlgretchen,
ReplyDeleteCan you tell me how Pearson and Bill Gates are connected? What do you know about America's Choice? I enjoyed your article and many of us are trying to make noise to get our State out of Common Core.
Hi Nellie,
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing. The article was about Gates' push for Common Core and Pearson being the hand selected vendor for the standards Gates wants. He benefits from the technology portion; Pearson benefits from the service of curriculum material. Pearson has been buying smaller competitors of educational text and they are positioned (if they are not already) to be the largest provider of education material world wide.
Here's one important message in the article: "The Department of Education provides the legal symbiotic structure for Gates and Pearson. Private corporations are developing (and the Department of Education is mandating) educational programs taxpayers are required to support. It's nifty for Gates and Pearson, an easy job for Federal bureaucrats providing government job security and a complete travesty for taxpayers."
No longer does the public have a voice in public education. It's been hijacked.
Here's the connection between the two: "Like Bill Gates , Pearson operates a business (Pearson Textbooks) and a foundation (Pearson Foundation). With the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Pearson Foundation has had significant input into crafting the Common Core standards for public educated students. From May 2011:
Two education foundations said Wednesday they are working to develop 24 new online reading and math courses that will be aligned with the common core national standards. The courses will be developed by the Pearson Foundation — associated with the major textbook company — and will include video, social media, games and other digital materials. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will provide $3 million for four of the courses to be offered free to schools. The initiative appears to be the most ambitious effort so far to align textbooks — online or otherwise — with the new standards and may position Pearson as a leader in the market."
Gates can't exist without Pearson and Pearson can't exist without Gates. America's Choice will provide the information and materials schools need to become compliant with the Common Core standards. A private company (Pearson) is now providing the educational content that PRIVATE companies are crafting (CCSSI and NGA) and in which Gates had input. The bottom line is: public education is only public in that public (taxpayer) money funds it. That's it. It's being directed by private corporations unaccountable to taxpayers.
There is something fundamentally wrong with this scenario. Here is a link from Google tying Gates and Pearson together:
https://www.google.com/search?q=pearson+and+bill+gates+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Would love to find out more about your state fighting ed reforms. Please message me at stlgretchen@gmail.com
The only person who sounds fearful is you Anonymous- too scared to come up with a name that would suit you well like Crustation99.
ReplyDelete