Is the New "Common Core SAT" Bill Gates' Doing?

theodp writes "'I want to explain why Common Core is among the most important education ideas in years,' wrote Bill Gates in a USA Today op-ed last month that challenged the "dangerous misconceptions" of those who oppose the initiative (pretty confident for a guy who conceded there wasn't much to show for his earlier $5B education reform effort!). 'The Gates Foundation helped fund this process,' acknowledged Gates in quite an understatement of his influence. Receiving $6.5M in Gates Grants was Student Achievement Partners, whose founder David Coleman was dubbed the 'Architect of the Common Core.' So it's not too surprising that at last week's SXSWedu, Coleman — now President and CEO of The College Board (no stranger to Gates money itself) — announced a dramatic overhaul of the SAT that includes a new emphasis on evidence-based reading and writing and evidence analysis, which the AJC's Maureen Downey calls 'reflective of the approach of the Common Core State Standards.'" (Read more, below.) "And over at The Atlantic, Lindsey Tepe reports that the Common Core is driving the changes to the SAT. "Neither Coleman nor the national media," writes Tepe, "have really honed in on how the standards are driving the College Board-as well as the ACT-to change their product." In conjunction with the redesigned SAT, The College Board also announced it would exclusively team with Khan Academy (KA) to make comprehensive, best-in-class SAT prep materials open and free in an effort to level the playing field between those who can and can't afford test prep services. In a conversation with KA founder Sal Khan — aka Bill Gates' favorite teacher and a beneficiary of $10+ million in Gates Foundation grants (much earmarked for Common Core) — Coleman stressed that Khan Academy and CollegeBoard will be the only places in the world that students will be able to encounter free materials for the exam that are "focused on the core of the math and literacy that matters most." "There will be no other such partnerships", Coleman reiterated. Game, set, and match, Gates?"

Comments

Gates foundation: not good for education

[i kan reed]

The problem isn't that they have ideas and they spend money on getting those ideas to work. It's that the Gates foundation uses their "leveraging" plans for charity on everything, including more political stuff like education. So they give large gifts with the caveat that both that money, and an even larger chunk of public money be spent on doing things the way the foundation envisions.

This is great when it comes to eradicating diseases or building infrastructure, because once that's done, areas stay healthy and stable. When it's used on the already pretty-functional US education system, it turns into a "my way or the highway" situation and the plans being advocated by the Gates foundation aren't nearly as evidence based.

It's problematic.

Re:Becuz

[RobertM1968]

But, seriously, we've only solved the universal literacy problem over about the last 50-150 years(depending on when you consider it "solved"),

Sadly, you are only correct if you are equating "the ability to read (anything)" as literacy. There are states where the functionally illiterate rate is staggering. The figures on the DOE sites are very misleading, since they consider the ability to read "basic prose" to indicate "literacy" - when in reality, the "deeper numbers" indicate "21 percent of adults in the U.S. read below a 5th grade level, and 19 percent of high school graduates can't read.". The numbers are even worse if one expects an adult to read at what's considered an adult level - someplace decently over 50%.

and it's made a huge difference for how well society functions.

The true situation does indeed impact how well society (in this country) works. And we can see that ignorance, lack of education and lack of literacy driving some lunatic policies.

Re:Becuz

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Where to begin? Denial of reading the classics. The elimination of poetry and Shakespeare. Replacement with texts designed to limit vocabulary and more importantly, limit thinking. The almost assured dropout rate of at least 34% as the kids too stupid to achieve common core drop out from frustration and the kids too smart for common core drop out from boredom.

It's likely great for the 68% of the kids in the middle of the bell curve, but universal literacy is not going to be accomplished under it anymore.