Do Common Core Standards Dictate the Necessity for a National School Board and National Superintendent?

This is from the chief architect of Common Core standards & new leader of The College Board.

Anngie wrote yesterday how the Republican legislators voted to expand charter schools across Missouri.  This is even as a 2010 study, "Charter Schools in Missouri: Student Achievement and Best Practices" by Missouri senators came to a conclusion on page 3/40:

The diversity among charter schools and traditional public schools does not provide evidence to allow a confident or accurate assertion that one type of school consistently outperforms the other.

What's changed between 2010 and 2012?  Charters will now be under the same common core mandates as traditional public schools, so that pesky diversity argument can be cast aside.  Since all the schools are "common", maybe Missouri taxpayers can begin the grand experiment of charters and the results will provide sufficient evidence on the grand experiment of the success (or not) of charters compared to traditional public schools.  

Currently the verdict is not in on whether charters make gains over traditional public schools.  However, it is a fact that Imagine Schools had to close in St. Louis for dismal test results, regardless of any diversity that existed between Imagine schools and the St. Louis City schools.

The Republican legislature voted overwhelmingly for charter expansion.  They have bought  into  the StudentsFirst premise that charters are a magic bullet.  They will be the panacea to failing students.  They are "choice" for parents.  They may be "choice" to get your child out of a terrible school setting into a school demanding more discipline and signed contracts for parents/children for behavior/expectations checklist, but the education will be the same as the traditional public school.  The educational delivery will be different but the education will be the same due to common core standards.

I've asked this question to some folks who like the charter school option:

Is anyone concerned on this thread that local districts have little to zero control over WHAT your child is learning? Even though you are forced to pay taxes into that local district? That educational power has been given to a 26 state consortia controlled by private interests. For instance, is it okay that your child learn the global warming "theory" is all due to man? Is it okay with you that if your child can't learn math in the manner the assessments are structured, your child is just out of luck? Does it bother anyone just a little bit that your child's educational decisions by private corporations cannot be held accountable by taxpayers? Does it bother anyone that this is really the educational version of Obamacare or Solyndra? Government money has been given to private organizations to direct our life choices in health, energy and now, education?

Is anyone concerned WHAT is being taught to children OR is all about "choosing" a school that teaches the same material as the traditional public school?

The point is, while we are spending money on yet another educational model of charters, when we don't even have enough money to fund the existing model, the transfer of power of education is occurring from union domination to corporatist domination.  As my buddy Van tweeted yesterday about our charter post:  

The choice to choose what govt/biz-partners chose for you to choose -aint the choice of a Free Market fb.me/1R7e8369Z 

When will folks understand the people who are paying the taxes and sending their children are paying into a system they can't access in terms of decision making?  That's not choice, that's just more of the same of what we have now, except other power brokers are taking our tax money and making the decisions for us and for our children. 

I don't want to spend much more time on writing about the charter school argument because that's not the elephant in the room.  This honor belongs to David Coleman, chief architect of the common core standards.  He sold his company to McGraw Hill which now stands to make millions of dollars on the standards Coleman wrote. What did Coleman's company provide which made it so attractive to McGraw Hill in terms of providing text for common core?

Grow Network (Grow.net, Inc.), a privately held company...is a leading provider of assessment reporting and customized content for states and large school districts across the country

Coleman, with help from Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee and others have coerced most states into these standards using financial threats and promises of reform based on unproven and untested standards.  Just a handful of states did not sign onto the standards, so how can this group of elitists complete the plan of the takeover of education?  Mind you, I didn't label this takeover of just "public" education.  Coleman and company are in effect taking over public, private and homeschooling education.  How?

Coleman was recently named as head of the College Board, which is responsible for constructing the SATs. According to EdWeek:

Coleman told Education Week that he hopes to align the SAT to reflect the common standards, a move that would help ensure, he said, that students who do well on the exam possess the skills that colleges and universities are seeking.

Aligning the SAT with the common core would touch on a piece of the college-readiness formula that higher education's support of the common assessments does not reach, and it's a highly sensitive piece: college admissions. Shifting the college-entrance exam to embody the new standards would involve the same significant shifts that mark the standards themselves.

Top education leaders—including U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, a big fan of the common standards—are on record in the College Board's press release as commending Coleman's selection as the organization's new leader.

If you privately school or home school, this move toward aligning toward the common core standards will dictate how/what you teach children so they can pass the SAT to gain college admission.

Pretty nifty, eh?

Schools Matter blogged about Coleman's power play and the takeover of education:

The testing industry: self-appointed non-elected national school board?

The hiring of David Coleman as its next president is consistent with the College Board's aggressive push into the K-12 assessment arena. Unlike the university admissions testing market where the Board has little or no growth potential due to the end of the baby boom echo and competition from ACT, K-12 has been flush with money and demand for more exams as a result of programs such as "Race to the Top" and NCLB Waivers.

Under Gaston Caperton, who was hired with the goal of "growing the bottom line" for the company, the Board aggressively expanded its Advanced Placement program of high school courses and tests, introduced the controversial middle school ReadiStep pre-pre-SAT, and promoted its SpringBoard curriculum as well as services to align high school subjects with its tests.

Coleman's pledge to align the SAT with the Common Core Standards is the next logical move in the testing industry's drive to dominate public U.S. public education with "one-size-fits-all" products in its self-appointed role as the country's non-elected, national school board. 

Bob Schaeffer, Public Education Director
FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing
ph-    (239) 395-6773    fax-   (239) 395-6779
cell-   (239) 699-0468
web-  http://www.fairtest.org  

Charters are replacing the traditional public education model under the assumption they will improve test scores in an alternative educational setting....with the same mandates as traditional public schools.  This is promoted as "authentic" choice.  Parents are happy to get their children out of classrooms filled with discipline problems. This "choice" pacifies parents and they believe their children are receiving an education promoting critical thinking skills.  Educational content won't vary much from traditional schools, so it seems to be just a difference in education delivery, not content.  

In the meantime, many folks are missing the most important announcement from yesterday and the realization an important door in education and America is closing.  The cries of  "I'll home school" or "I'll put my child in private school" to escape the national standards will be useless and hollow at the nearest SAT testing center for your child when he/she applies for college.   

Your children (publicly, private or home school educated) better know the material used for common core assessments and answer in the way public school students have been taught to answer or else college might not be an option for their future.

Anyone see a way out of this trap of national standards, national school board and national superintendent?  The takeover of American education is about complete.

Paper and Ink, Brick and Mortar - Make way for digital delivery

Last week CEOs from technology companies and text book publishers met with senior officials from the DOEd and FCC to talk about the digital revolution in education.  Also present at the table was the LEAD (Leading Education by Advancing Digital) commission, whose goal is to harness technology as a catalyst to education reform.  The four members of LEAD are:

• Columbia University President Lee Bollinger- A liberal bastion in higher education

• Co-Founder of TPG Capital James Coulter- Private equity funds management company because, as Tim McGraw head of McGraw-Hill Financial stated recently, "The growth outlook is really quite healthy for the education business and we expect that to continue." 

• Former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings-  Her consulting company leverages the many public private partnerships she has forged along with the insider experience of the many former capitol hill experts she employs to drive public policy nationwide. Seeing as how, as Secretary of Ed under George Bush, she was a leading proponent of No Child Left Behind, we must question whether her ability to affect national policy is really all that desirable.

• Common Sense Media Founder and CEO Jim Steyer- perhaps a reasonable member, but he may have drunk the kool aid too."The great news is that technology provides us with an opportunity to leapfrog decades of simply maintaining the status quo and to truly revolutionize education in this country quickly, which is exactly what’s needed to remain economically competitive in today’s global economy."

Key quotes from this meeting:

Duncan said "We need your expertise, your leadership, to figure out how every single child has access to content 24/7. I see amazing pockets, islands of success, but it's on the margins. The question is, can we get to scale as a country?" IMPLEMENTATION ON A MASSIVE SCALE THROUGH GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION

James Coulter, "Our goal with this commission is to help policy makers to more swiftly and effectively integrate digital learning into our national curriculum.”  SPEED WITHOUT CONSIDERATION

FCC Chairman Genachowski said, "I’m confident the LEAD Commission’s blueprint will chart a course to ensure that education technology will help prepare students to compete in the 21st century global economy.” GLOBAL FOCUS, SCHOOL TO WORK PROGRAMMING

One of the digital companies represented at the meeting was McGraw-Hill who plans to push for learning programs related to vocational training online and is working on making more learning material and textbooks available across various digital platforms. The company is looking to strike joint ventures with companies to impart skills learning in India and skills training in China. Having perfected such programs in these massive markets, it will be very easy to bring such digital training to America.  And with government's focus on providing 21st century global workers, and businesses like Margaret Spelling's working to push such policies nationally, McGraw-Hill will have a ready made entree to the American market.

That's what all of this is about.  The government helping private business create new markets by making their products mandatory.

LEAD's goal is to produce a blueprint by the end of the year, based on input from teachers, parents, local government and school officials, students, and ed-tech industry leaders, which will include:

• a fact base of current efforts, trends, cost implications, and other obstacles regarding technology adoption in schools; Note they are not evaluating its effectiveness or desirability
• an examination of how tech-driven transformation in other sectors could be carried over to education;  Education is not a business model and applications in other sectors do not necessarily translate to correct application to education.
• the types of policies and funding vehicles that may be needed to ensure that school systems can successfully incorporate technology. It is unclear who is funding the LEAD report or what deals have already been struck to ensure compliance with the policy and funding recommendations developed in the report.

If these people have their way, what will the future classroom look like? It may be much smaller as many students may choose to stay home and work on-line on their own. It will be staffed by less experienced teachers because the software will adapt and challenge each individual student in a way that a teacher never could. The interim, and most immediate step, will be what techsperts are calling "blended learning" where children spend part of their classroom time on computers doing endless worksheets.

From Schools Matter blog

Now Vander Ark is leveraging his connections from 7 years as check delivery boy for the Gates Foundation to shape the education agenda in ways that will pay a handsome return on Bill and Melinda's beneficence over the years.  It's called blended learning, and it represents a poisonous mixture of bad pedagogy and big business; it is gaining footholds in the poorest schools (or in KIPP schools that pretend to be poor) where resistance is the weakest and resources are in shortest supply.  And yes, it does involve computers and computer software and computerized assessments, with the added value of cutting the teaching staff by as much as half while potentially doubling class size.  More tech aides and fewer teachers.


The way it works is to have children taught in shifts, and while one shift has the attention of a flesh and blood teacher, the other shift of children is de-minded by an endless stream of digital worksheets handed out by an indefatigable bank of endlessly-cheerful computers.  In the example of the KIPP kindergarten (a scary prospect, indeed), children are plugged in for half their time in school.  Note, too, that the KIPP "school leader" claims a lack of funds as his rationale, even though KIPP, Inc. has a stash of corporate cash in the hundreds of millions an unlimited stream just for the asking.  The fact is that these most vulnerable children are guinea pigs in an unproven experiment intended to benefit corporate bottom lines, not children.  Note, too, that these children are particularly sensitive to the learned helplessness treatments that are applied during Kipp-notizing summer sessions to maintain total compliance, with or without supervision.

 Like so many things coming out of Washington these days, this seems to be rushing something through that sounds good, but has great potential for unintended consequences.  It attempts to push a business sector that should be able to market itself quite effectively without DC mandates. It shows the trap laid by establishing power bases (like DOEd) in Washington. They cannot resist the temptation to use their power and "make a difference."