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

Controversial because?

[damn_registrars]

Common Core appears to have become controversial primarily because the conservative media told us it is. Apparently they were hoping that the new standard would also find a way to further reduce teachers' salaries and career opportunities, and as it did not do that it needed to be destroyed at all cost.

Granted Common Core has some faults, for sure, but at least it is an attempt by someone to do something. So far we have seen lots of lip service on the education system in this country and very little action. I'd be more impressed with the arguments of those calling it "controversial" if they actually proposed a meaningful fix instead of just attacking the fix that we have.

Re:Controversial because?

[Njorthbiatr]

They do have a fix. It's called privatization.

In other words they want the system to keep failing so they can push private schools.

Re:Controversial because?

[kaizendojo]

It's controversial because it takes away time from teaching anything but the test, associated implementation and support costs are enormous and the only ones truly benefitting from this are the test manufacturers like Pearson... who also make the books for studying and the certifications for the teachers and even the GED certs so they have you one way or the other. Full disclosure; I am an independant consultant who works in IT a few days a week for a major school district and I am seeing this from the inside. If you'd like another perspective, I suggest going to YouTube and searching on John Olver's take. Funny, but at the same time chilling.

Re:Controversial because?

[JWW]

Umm, sorry to disturb your "conservatives are evil" rant, but then how do you explain the epically failing schools of many american inner cities? Cities that have been run top to bottom, city council to school district by liberals.

"Conservatives" are also for school choice, charter schools, school vouchers, all of which are designed to empower parents in those failing inner city districts some hope.

Now, I've kinda lambasted the liberal city government here, but their intentions aren't all bad. However, this is not a "throw money at" sort of problem.

I'll agree that Common Core has been combined with other items in order to criticize it. Common Standards are a "good thing", in fact we need to pull the standards back up from the constant lowering of them that has happened over time. I completely support this at the state level, from whence Common Core originated.

However, certain entrenched forces in the education community, and federal regulators glommed on to Common Core with the intent to have it drive curriculum and content. This was, and is, a mistake. The KISS principle should have driven the Common Standards, but they complicated it with federal mandates and absurd curriculum.

The "new" math they are trying to teach under the banner of Common Core makes me fear that we will end up with an upcoming generation that does't have the math skills to undertake a College Education in Engineering and Science.

Standards and levels of understanding are good. Demanding that everyone teach via the same methods (unproven ones at that) is not.

Re:Controversial because?

[thaylin]

Common core does not teach to the test, no child left behind does. Common core does not meantion in any way testing, or how a student must learn. Schools in my area do not buy any books, they make the common core lessons themselves.

Re:Controversial because?

[thaylin]

I am 39, way too old for common core, however I have always been poor at spelling. Math and logic great, spelling poor. However you were able to read it just fine I am sure, and this is the best argument you could come up with.

Re:Controversial because?

[whoever57]

Umm, sorry to disturb your "conservatives are evil" rant, but then how do you explain the epically failing schools of many american inner cities? Cities that have been run top to bottom, city council to school district by liberals.

Explaining that is so simple:
1. Parents either don't have the skills or the time to assist their kids in succeeding.
2. Less resources in inner-city schools.
3. Poor attitudes towards learning amongst the kids (see item 1).
4. Poor teachers: Because teachers in these inner-city areas do not get paid more than their colleagues in good districts, only the worst teachers will teach there. Also, as a teacher, where pay is determined by test results, would you work in an area where the dice are stacked against you (see items 1, 2 and 3 above)?

However, this is not a "throw money at" sort of problem.

Actually, it is. Want better teachers? Increase pay and better teachers will enter the profession.

Re:Controversial because?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, sorry to disturb your "conservatives are evil" rant, but then how do you explain the epically failing schools of many american inner cities? Cities that have been run top to bottom, city council to school district by liberals.

"Conservatives" are also for school choice, charter schools, school vouchers, all of which are designed to empower parents in those failing inner city districts some hope.

Wow, I am impressed by the doublespeak there! I can't speak for all charter school programs, but the one in Milwaukee I am familiar with. In that city, Charter schools have the ability to refuse students with special needs or with behavioral problems. It shouldn't be a big surprise, then, that they fill up with very teachable students, leaving the difficult cases to the public school system. The public school system then has to spend more of their budget on children who are more expensive. This makes their numbers look bad, which causes any parent of a problem-free child to jump ship to the charter schools. It's a death spiral caused by the charter schools and the rules they are allowed to run under. Conservatives love it because they get proof that the charter schools perform "better". But the student population is not at all comparable.
 
  If I was allowed to shift the most troublesome 25% of my job to someone else, I would appear to be a better employee. But that would have everything to do with the situation and nothing to do with my own personal performance.

Re:Controversial because?

[damn_registrars]

The nice thing about the US is that the states should be independent of one another when it comes to education and most other things.

We've tried that, and it turns out that it doesn't really lead to independent states in education. Look at all the textbook debacles that start in Texas, for example. Why would textbooks in Texas matter if you live in a different state? They matter because the companies that publish textbooks don't want to publish different versions for each state, they want to publish for the largest states (population wise) first and then try to sell the same texts to other states.

This results in textbooks going in to non-nutter states that include discussions on intelligent design and other rampant bullshit. The states only have the flexibility to get textbooks of their own choosing if they exist (as few states have the time and money to go about preparing their own textbooks) so they end up with what the boards in Texas approve.

Re:Controversial because?

[LordLimecat]

Excuse me, Im looking for strawmen and someone told me this thread would be a great place to find them.

Re:Controversial because?

[ShanghaiBill]

The opposition to Common Core is easy to understand. Basically, the Republicans wanted testing to be controlled by the states, not the federal government. So they designed a system to do just that. The Democrats didn't like it at first, preferring something more centralized and bloated, but figured it was the best they could get, so they were eventually won over. Then the Republicans noticed that the Democrats no longer opposed their program, so they switched sides and decided if the Dems were for it, they needed to be against it. Rabid opposition to Common Core is now considered a rigorous requirement for Republican presidential candidates. Only Jeb has stood by it.

For another splendid example of "Republicans opposing their own ideas" see {Romney|Obama}care.

Re:Controversial because?

[ShanghaiBill]

I have always been poor at spelling.

Pro-tip: Use a modern browser and look for the little red squiggles under words. That means they are misspelled. Use the right button on your mouse to click and choose the correct spelling. This will not only make your posts more readable, but also give you greater credibility.

Re:Controversial because?

[Jason Levine]

The Common Core opposition isn't just coming from Republicans. My wife and I have been fighting over New York's horrible implementation of Common Core which includes scripts for teachers that they aren't allowed to deviate from, high stakes testing, and most recently tying said testing to teacher jobs. We're definitely not Republicans. Around 300,000 students refused the tests in NY. (Before someone says "well, they're just hard tests", the 6th grade tests had college level reading material on them.) Bill Gates, Pearson, and others are pushing this to make money off students - not to help students succeed.

Re:Controversial because?

[Oligonicella]

Actually, you should have bolded Pearson Those people produce horrid tests.

About a decade ago I wrote science essay tests for them. I quit because they kept asking for dumbing down. Example: They insisted that an essay on hot air balloons tell the reader what a basket was and what it was for on the balloon. The what it was for was already described functionally in the text. They wanted an explicit, dictionary type description. It was very much worse on the non-technical essay tests. Enough so that so many writers stopped, Pearson used their own editors to write the essays.

Short of it is, those are the people producing the bulk of the terrible test examples you'll find in complaints; 'Indicate the box that is correctly shaded.' with none of the boxes shaded, 'Lincoln was a Democrat.' , etc.

"He hasn't stopped giving."

[QuietLagoon]

Mr. Gates is still trying to buy his way into history remembering him in a good light.

Standardized Testing

[Roger W Moore]

Thinking about standardized testing reminds me of the Churchill quote: "Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.". Standardized testing has its problems but these are no where near as significant as the problems with everything else which has been tried.

Lots of other stuff swirling around Common Core

[ErichTheRed]

My state (New York) which had semi-decent education standards to begin with, recently switched to the Common Core curriculum and it's really stirring up a mess. Partially, it's the mandatory testing that parents are opting their children out of, but it's also being tied to a bunch of other things. For example, teachers now have to deal with the same BS performance evaluations that corporate employees do, and a huge chunk of their rating is based on these test scores. They were evaluated in the past, but it was understood that there was no objective way to evaluate teacher performance with variable student performance. Now, new teachers will lose their jobs if their classes don't do well on these tests, with no regard for whether the teacher has a bunch of losers or geniuses in their class. I'm not a teacher, but I'm definitely on the teachers' side in this case. I would hate to spend the time to get a teacher certification (not impossible, but harder in NY than many states) and have my job be at risk due to factors I can't control. For example, most new teachers can't get jobs in the nice affluent school districts because there are tons more qualified applicants who want to work there, so they usually have to start off teaching in a crappy school district. Crappy districts tend to have kids who have crappy parents. (And yes, affluent districts have helicopter parents that make teachers' lives miserable, but that's another story.) If you have a class full of students who have bad home lives, parents who don't care, or have been socially promoted for years, they're going to do badly on these standardized tests and your performance rate will suffer through no fault of your own.

The other thing I've seen is that the material used to teach the common core curriculum is really different from stuff we saw in earlier times. I think that's another big thing -- parents feel they can't help their kids with homework. However, it's the material, not the curriculum itself. Blame the educational publishers for that, not the standards.

One thing I definitely don't agree with Bill Gates on is his love of charter schools. These just suck more money away from the public system and funnel it into corporate interests' pockets, making the public system weaker. What Gates or anyone doesn't understand is that education won't improve until it's valued by everyone. The reason China, India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, etc. are ahead of us in test performance isn't the curriculum -- they push their students like crazy from both directions (teachers and parents.) Kids in these countries spend many more hours in school than US kids, and have information drilled into their heads. That's what needs to happen if we want to compete with these countries in the future. In the case of India and China, school performance is basically some kids' only ticket to a better life given the population and structure of society. Things might be a little different if students in the US who didn't excel in school were permanently doomed to a life of poverty...I think the parents might care a little more.