Bill Gates Still Trying To Buy Some Common Core Testing Love

theodp writes: "Bill Gates famously spent hundreds of millions of dollars to develop, implement and promote the now controversial Common Core State Standards," reports the Washington Post's Valerie Strauss. "He hasn't stopped giving." In the last seven months, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has poured more than $10 million into implementation and parent support for the Core. Strauss adds: "Gates is the leader of education philanthropy in the United States, spending a few billion dollars over more than a decade to promote school reforms that he championed, including the Common Core, a small-schools initiative in New York City that he abandoned after deciding it wasn't working, and efforts to create new teacher evaluation systems that in part use a controversial method of assessment that uses student standardized test scores to determine the 'effectiveness' of educators. Such philanthropy has sparked a debate about whether American democracy is well-served by wealthy people who pour part of their fortunes into their pet projects — regardless of whether they are grounded in research — to such a degree that public policy and funding follow." If you're still on the fence about Common Core after viewing it, the Onion just came out with a nice list of the pros and cons of standardized testing that may help you decide.

Comments

Re:Controversial because?

[Archangel Michael]

And on the third side, you have Liberals beholden to Teacher Unions wanting to keep the status quo at failing schools.

See, it is really easy to paint in broad strokes to make the other guys look bad. The real issues with CC are

1) Common Core doesn't serve the kids, it serves those in power
2) Much of the problem with "Common Core" is from mandates, be it from city, county, state or federal levels, not directly Common Core itself. (Conflating)
3) Other aspects of Common Core are the methods prescribed by mandates (see #2) that try to avoid long standing approaches to instruction. (also Conflating)

If we stopped for just a second, and took a big step back, and simply asked "How does this help Johnny or Sue". The best person to know about Johnny or Sue is their parent(s), not some bureaucrat who has never met Johnny or Sue. The problem we have is that is the one person who should have a choice, but doesn't. We can spend all the money in the world, and not change the result. But until we start empowering those closest to the problem to change the conditions, nothing is going to change. Common Core doesn't actually address how to get Johnny or Sue educated. It only addresses how schools are failing (or not), but never addresses WHY those schools are failing. And we really can't ask that question can we?