Conformity uber alles.
Until recently, that's been hard to enforce. People can do "inconvenient" things like read and research and think for themselves.
Big Business and Big Government and their handmaidens in Big Education have a plan to remedy that.
The National Governors Association, the Gates Foundation, Intel, Microsoft, the World Bank, and the �learning company� Pearson are working hard together to bring a nightmare curriculum to fruition.
Their vision is one where techno-socialization, not knowledge gained from independent sources or critical thinking ability, is the top priority for education.
Documentarian Aaron Franz interviews education researcher Robin Eubanks about the Rotten Core Curriculum, and this video covers some of their main points in an excerpted form.
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WND
Common Core: $500 billion scandal
Exclusive: Carole Hornsby Haynes blasts federal takeover driven by corporate giants
By Carole Hornsby Haynes
Why are powerful corporate interests pushing Common Core? Could it be the promise of national scale business opportunities for White House loyalists?
Signaling philanthropic capital, Joanne Weiss, the chief of staff to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and leader of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program, blogged in the Harvard Business Review:
Republican Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corporation, stated, “When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching.”
It didn’t go unnoticed that Bill Gates spent – more accurately, primed the pump – $5 billion buying his own version of education reform. From bribing the National Parents Association, to paying the Council of Chief State School Officers for the development of Common Core, to doling out funds to other major centers of influence, the Gates money has attracted those of all stripes who will benefit from the success of Common Core.
News Corp. purchased Wireless Generation in 2010. News Corporation then created Amplify, of which Wireless Generation is a part, to create digital products and services for K-12. Soon after, Amplify partnered with AT&T.
Joel I. Klein, former chancellor of New York City, joined News Corp. as an executive vice president.
GE Foundation gave $18 million to Student Achievement Partners to assist states in implementing Common Core. Student Achievement Partners was founded by David Coleman, architect of Common Core and now, as president of the College Board is redesigning the SAT.
President of GE Foundation Robert Corcoran said, “Our economy is facing an undeniable challenge – good paying jobs are going unfilled because U.S. workers don’t have the skills to fill the positions. We must cultivate a highly educated workforce and we see the Standards as a key component to answering this challenge.”
One wonders if there is more to this than meets the eye. Yes, the GE website sports a full range of data management and data analytics software solutions.
A Fordham Institute editor gushed that business leaders were rallying around Common Core as he name-dropped the powerful who attended the GE Foundation’s Summer Business and Education Summit in Orland0.
The biggest gusher at the Summit was Jeb Bush, whose Foundation for Excellence in Education is supported by the Gates Foundation. Sounding the crisis alarm, he predicted “that states are heading for a ‘train wreck.’ He noted that when the new standards and assessments come fully online in 2015 that many communities, schools, and families are in for a rude awakening.”
Read More Here
***********************************************************************Why are powerful corporate interests pushing Common Core? Could it be the promise of national scale business opportunities for White House loyalists?
Signaling philanthropic capital, Joanne Weiss, the chief of staff to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and leader of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program, blogged in the Harvard Business Review:
“The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.Student information obtained through Common Core testing – data mining – is being shared with private companies that sell educational products and services. These companies will mine the information to create new tailored products.
In this new market, it will make sense for researchers to mine data to learn which materials and teaching strategies are effective for which students – and then feed that information back to students, teachers, and parents.”
Republican Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corporation, stated, “When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that extend the reach of great teaching.”
It didn’t go unnoticed that Bill Gates spent – more accurately, primed the pump – $5 billion buying his own version of education reform. From bribing the National Parents Association, to paying the Council of Chief State School Officers for the development of Common Core, to doling out funds to other major centers of influence, the Gates money has attracted those of all stripes who will benefit from the success of Common Core.
News Corp. purchased Wireless Generation in 2010. News Corporation then created Amplify, of which Wireless Generation is a part, to create digital products and services for K-12. Soon after, Amplify partnered with AT&T.
Joel I. Klein, former chancellor of New York City, joined News Corp. as an executive vice president.
GE Foundation gave $18 million to Student Achievement Partners to assist states in implementing Common Core. Student Achievement Partners was founded by David Coleman, architect of Common Core and now, as president of the College Board is redesigning the SAT.
President of GE Foundation Robert Corcoran said, “Our economy is facing an undeniable challenge – good paying jobs are going unfilled because U.S. workers don’t have the skills to fill the positions. We must cultivate a highly educated workforce and we see the Standards as a key component to answering this challenge.”
One wonders if there is more to this than meets the eye. Yes, the GE website sports a full range of data management and data analytics software solutions.
A Fordham Institute editor gushed that business leaders were rallying around Common Core as he name-dropped the powerful who attended the GE Foundation’s Summer Business and Education Summit in Orland0.
The biggest gusher at the Summit was Jeb Bush, whose Foundation for Excellence in Education is supported by the Gates Foundation. Sounding the crisis alarm, he predicted “that states are heading for a ‘train wreck.’ He noted that when the new standards and assessments come fully online in 2015 that many communities, schools, and families are in for a rude awakening.”
Read More Here
As schools adopt Common Core standards, challenges remain
September 27
By JOE ROBERTSON
The Kansas City Star
Brad Neuenswander, deputy commissioner of education in Kansas,
spends a lot of time on the phone these days talking about the Common
Core State Standards.
“I had a one-hour conversation with a mother over lunch just
today,” he said. Talking about what they are. And even more so, “what
they are not.”
“I had someone tell me they heard that they were a way to eliminate local school boards. I’d never even heard that one.”
As all Kansas City area school districts and most systems nationwide put the standards into action, they are fending off 11th-hour accusations of a nationwide curriculum — that a federal agency will dictate lesson plans.
Certainly the standards are a dramatic creation for American schools. They propose a set of common expectations of the knowledge and skills that children should attain according to grade level in math and English language arts.
They aim to increase rigor and inspire deeper and creative thinking so seniors graduate ready for college or training for competitive careers.
They represent one of the most collaborative state-level enterprises imaginable in the political world of education.
But for educators, it’s as if this jumbo airliner they spent years designing is being chased down the runway just as it is lifting off.
They already had enough challenges going forward.
The assessments being designed to test student performance under the new standards will cost billions of dollars nationwide to implement.
The assessments’ computerized format will strain many districts’ technology and web accessibility.
Scores almost inevitably will dip at first, clouding the perception of public schools. And this is coinciding with nationwide pressure to make student performance data a bigger part of teacher and principal evaluations.
Forty-five states, including Kansas and Missouri, have adopted the standards, and Minnesota has adopted the reading half. But Missouri and Kansas also stand among as many as nine states that have had lawmakers attempt to repeal them or cut their funding.
Earlier this month, leaders of the Kansas Republican Party adopted a resolution calling on the state to withdraw.
The backlash interrupts what had been a surprisingly smooth ride for education’s grand proposal.
“It seemed like an idea whose time had come,” said Jim Dunn of Liberty, who is directing a National School Public Relations Association project to publicize the merits of Common Core.
Education think tanks had long bemoaned America’s lagging performance in international testing.
U.S. schools too often were loading students up with too much content and not enough applicable skills. Comparisons between states were difficult. Disparities in state test rigor confused any search for successful schools that might serve as models.
In the mid-2000s, Republican and Democratic governors joined with state education commissioners to work with Achieve Inc. to collaborate on a new set of standards.
The idea was the standards would be state-driven. They would set a higher bar to guide educators.
The curriculum and the classroom strategies used to teach to those standards would remain the unique contribution of schools and their teachers.
By the end of 2010, all but a few states had signed on.
“It was surprisingly successful,” Dunn said. “I think the people who backed it got complacent.”
The education community did not always effectively inform people outside its universe of what was in store, he said. A PDK/Gallup poll released in August found, even now, that 60 percent of Americans do not know what Common Core is.
“This was a vacuum,” he said.
Plenty of concerned national voices have filled that space.
“I had someone tell me they heard that they were a way to eliminate local school boards. I’d never even heard that one.”
As all Kansas City area school districts and most systems nationwide put the standards into action, they are fending off 11th-hour accusations of a nationwide curriculum — that a federal agency will dictate lesson plans.
Certainly the standards are a dramatic creation for American schools. They propose a set of common expectations of the knowledge and skills that children should attain according to grade level in math and English language arts.
They aim to increase rigor and inspire deeper and creative thinking so seniors graduate ready for college or training for competitive careers.
They represent one of the most collaborative state-level enterprises imaginable in the political world of education.
But for educators, it’s as if this jumbo airliner they spent years designing is being chased down the runway just as it is lifting off.
They already had enough challenges going forward.
The assessments being designed to test student performance under the new standards will cost billions of dollars nationwide to implement.
The assessments’ computerized format will strain many districts’ technology and web accessibility.
Scores almost inevitably will dip at first, clouding the perception of public schools. And this is coinciding with nationwide pressure to make student performance data a bigger part of teacher and principal evaluations.
Forty-five states, including Kansas and Missouri, have adopted the standards, and Minnesota has adopted the reading half. But Missouri and Kansas also stand among as many as nine states that have had lawmakers attempt to repeal them or cut their funding.
Earlier this month, leaders of the Kansas Republican Party adopted a resolution calling on the state to withdraw.
The backlash interrupts what had been a surprisingly smooth ride for education’s grand proposal.
“It seemed like an idea whose time had come,” said Jim Dunn of Liberty, who is directing a National School Public Relations Association project to publicize the merits of Common Core.
Education think tanks had long bemoaned America’s lagging performance in international testing.
U.S. schools too often were loading students up with too much content and not enough applicable skills. Comparisons between states were difficult. Disparities in state test rigor confused any search for successful schools that might serve as models.
In the mid-2000s, Republican and Democratic governors joined with state education commissioners to work with Achieve Inc. to collaborate on a new set of standards.
The idea was the standards would be state-driven. They would set a higher bar to guide educators.
The curriculum and the classroom strategies used to teach to those standards would remain the unique contribution of schools and their teachers.
By the end of 2010, all but a few states had signed on.
“It was surprisingly successful,” Dunn said. “I think the people who backed it got complacent.”
The education community did not always effectively inform people outside its universe of what was in store, he said. A PDK/Gallup poll released in August found, even now, that 60 percent of Americans do not know what Common Core is.
“This was a vacuum,” he said.
Plenty of concerned national voices have filled that space.
Read More Here
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