Common Core: A Gift to the Tech Industry?

This is the heading of a “News Brief” dated July 29, 2013 on EdSurge – an education technology website supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Washington Post and New Schools Venture Fund  http://bit.ly/16sqI9U . The title refers to a blog post by Larry Cuban who concludes that after three decades of looking for evidence that technology can transform teaching and learning or help the current generation for actual jobs; “well that evidence is missing for each of these traditional reasons to by computers.”

Mr. Cuban goes on to say that school districts have a new reason for “getting devices.” He states;” No longer does it matter whether there is sufficient evidence to make huge expenditures on new technologies. Now, what matters are the practical problems of being technologically ready for the new standards and tests in 2014-2015: getting more hardware, software, additional bandwidth, technical assistance, professional development for teachers (one would assume to administer the online tests), and time in the school day to let students practice taking tests.” He predicts a “tsunami” of tech purchases enabled by the Common Core standards.

Well -  thank you Larry for just laying it all out for "the little people" who actually thought the Common Core agenda was about improving student learning, helping teachers, and preparing the youth of America for college and/or career rather than a life behind the cash register at Walmart.

Please wake up parents, teachers and tax payers. Make a copy of this candid expose before it vanishes and ask Governor Deal about it!

The Common Core standards came out of our President’s $4 billion 2009 Race to the Top program http://1.usa.gov/1ePpPYc . There are four parts to the program:

1) Adopting standards and assessments

2) Building data systems

3) Recruiting, developing, rewarding and retaining effective teachers

4) Turning around the lowest achieving schools

The Gates and Carnegie Foundations/Achieve.org underwrote the writing of the Common Core Standards under the auspices of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association. Governors were strongly encouraged by promises of federal funding to implement the Common Core Standards in math and English rather than sticking to their previously written standards required by No Child Left Behind.

Step one, adoption of the standards and assessments, is critical for steps 2 and 3. The pitch from Achieve http://bit.ly/13FmGFv :

“The bar has been set too low for too long, keeping students from reaching their full potential. If we want students to achieve more, we need to expect more.”

Wow – this must have been a “V-8” moment for some education consultant in Washington.  The education crisis of our time  is not called an “Achievement Gap” anymore it’s called an “Expectations Gap.” The reason some kids have not been achieving up until now is because teachers did not expect enough from them. Genius! Now with high expectations and high standards (and high assessment failure rates – see the New York disaster test results http://on.wsj.com/1cKPrtC ) the ONLY reason kids will fail is because they don’t have effective teachers. So clever and such a crock.

The real reason Arne Duncan and Bill Gates (plus many bi-partisan education “deformers”) wanted the Common Core standards is devoid of all the “moral obligation” garbage spouted  times in the RTTT link. It is all about the “economic imperative” part – also mentioned three times.

Don’t take my word for it, here it is from the Executive Office of the President – Council of Economic Advisers, September 16, 2011: Unleashing the Potential of Educational Technology  http://1.usa.gov/16QgDjy .

“Educational technology holds the promise of substantially improving outcomes for K-12 students, but there are significant challenges in bringing new educational technology products to market.”

A promise? Says who? Bill Gates? We are upending EVERYTHING and spending billions because Bill Gates thinks personalized learning holds “promise?” Yes.

As Mr. Cuban stated “off camera,” there is no evidence. One paper I found by Darrell West at the Brookings Institute concludes; “We require additional research to test hypotheses and document relationships. There should be further analysis of ways education personalization can help students master material and learn at their own pace.” The study was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2011. http://bit.ly/145vLuL

Back to the Office of the President – page 5;

“A second important development is the Common Core State standards (the first was Broadband internet) that now have been adopted by 44 states and the District of Columbia. The widespread acceptance of these standards represents a major step towards resolving disagreements over learning objectives that have been an obstacle to the development of broadly applicable education technologies. The standards are highly detailed, providing metrics on a large set of specific skills by grade level and field, and thus a source of clear, actionable guidance for entrepreneurs and businesses in developing learning technologies.” My bold.

The Common Core Standards are and always have been in the eyes of Bill Gates and The White House about paving the way for scalable education technology applications using your tax dollars and your kids’ data. Any effect on student achievement is unknown and unintentional.

 It is criminal that school districts have been cut to the bone in many areas yet our bipartisan “leadership” expects school districts to take those scarce tax dollars and give them to entrepreneurs and businesses that are developing learning technologies that may be of benefit or may just be trendy. All are experimental.

 It is a lie to state that failing students and failing schools are only under achieving because not enough is expected of them. It is criminal to have allowed the Gates Foundation to shape the standards and most likely the assessments to maximize their data mining potential for personalized educational applications http://bit.ly/16UsAGX.

 I felt it was my moral obligation to say something.

Get educated on InBloom and data privacy:  Check out Leonie Haimson’s blogspot - NYC Public School Parents;  http://bit.ly/1ePTK2u   

Get connected to a real grassroots parent and teacher group in Georgia which supports public education for all students:   EmpowerED Georgia;  http://bit.ly/1actiCl   

For more information on Common Core and Georgia updates, check out:  stopcommoncore.com at   http://bit.ly/1ePVRDj