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Soon-to-Be US Ed Chief Was Almost FB CEO's Ed Chief
theodp writes: Before President Obama announced John B. King as his pick to replace outgoing U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan (who is returning to Chicago, where his kids now attend a $30K-a-year private school), King was Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's pick to lead Zuck's failed $100 million "reform" effort of Newark's Schools. From The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools?: "[Newark Mayor Cory] Booker asked [NJ Governor Chris] Christie to grant him control of the schools by fiat, but the governor demurred, offering him instead a role as unofficial partner in all decisions and policies, beginning with their joint selection of a 'superstar' superintendent to lead the charge. Booker's first choice was John King, then deputy New York State education commissioner, who had led some of the top-performing charter schools in New York City and Boston and who credited public school teachers with inspiring him to persevere after he was orphaned as a young boy in Brooklyn. [Mark] Zuckerberg and [his wife Priscilla] Chan flew King to Palo Alto for a weekend with them and [Facebook executive Sheryl] Sandberg; Christie hosted him at the governor's beach retreat on the Jersey Shore; and Booker led King and his wife, Melissa, on a tour of Newark, with stops at parks and businesses that hadn't existed before his mayoralty. But after much thought, King turned them down. Zuckerberg, Christie, and Booker expected to arrive at their national model within five years. King believed it could take almost that long to change the system's fundamental procedures and to raise expectations across the city for children and schools. "John's view was that no one has achieved what they're trying to achieve: build an urban school district serving high-poverty kids that gets uniformly strong outcomes," said an acquaintance who talked with King about the offer. "You'd have to invest not only a long period of time but tremendous political capital to get it done." King had questions about a five-year plan overseen by politicians who were likely to seek higher office."
What the fuck is an "Ed Chief"?
that this person was farsighted/risk averse enough to turn down a scheme that failed in the end. giving as reasons unreliability of short term politicians, but is now accepting lame duck position.
. [Mark] Zuckerberg and [his wife Priscilla] Chan flew King to Palo Alto for a weekend with them and [Facebook executive Sheryl] Sandberg; Christie hosted him at the governor's beach retreat on the Jersey Shore; and Booker led King and his wife, Melissa, on a tour of Newark, with stops at parks and businesses that hadn't existed before his mayoralty. But after much thought, King turned them down.
Where's the outrage?
Obama and Duncan sends their children to schools that refuse to associate with the policies that these guys says good for kids. (Usually the pretense of NOT sending kids to public school is security, here Duncan goes on to say they are doing it to keep it simple.) May be their kids are beyond these policies. Like erstwhile Soviet Union, all are equal but some are more equal.
What Arne Duncan's new senior adviser did to N.Y. schools:
"You'll see the rollout of a statewide data system that will give a lot more useful information to teachers and principals about student performance and a lot more useful data for policymakers."
In the above quote, King was referring to the implementation of inBloom, funded and created by the Gates Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation. Its purpose was to amass an extraordinary amount of confidential student data with the intent of sharing it with private software developers to create personalized educational products. Despite public outcry, John King continued to support inBloom until the legislature stepped in and pulled the plug during the spring of 2014. Shortly thereafter, inBloom itself shut down.
If you want to sell Slashdot for any money, please, please, just get rid of Timothy.
TL;DR anyone?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
$30K is an average price you pay if you want to live in a diverse, liberal city.. Its just unfortunate that the liberals who promote sanctuary cities, unchecked immigration, diversity, and public schools are the first people who take their kids to these private schools or flee to the suburbs at first chance.
Will Obama EVER stop picking corporate stooges to run important things?
Education has been suffering ever since George W Bush and has continued to be under attack from Obama's picks.
We don't need technology. We don't need facebook. We don't need online learning. What do we need?
Pencils. Paper. Well maintained schools. Breakfast programs. Lower class sizes. Paying teachers for the work they do.
That's it! That's ALL we need! It couldn't be that simple, but those things don't have the business charm that charter schools, standardized testing, and online education / online testing methods have. The simple plan isn't the plan where businesses can cash in, so we never get it.
Will we EVER have a President in our day and age that really supports education?
From Goodbye, Arne Duncan...Hello, John King:
Head of Class Size Matters, Leonie Haimson, had this to say upon his leaving:
"John King was the most unpopular commissioner in the history of NY State. He showed no respect for parents, teachers or student privacy. Ironically, he was intent on protecting his own privacy, and routinely withheld public documents; our Freedom of Information request of his communications with inBloom and the Gates foundation is more than 1 1/2 years overdue. His resignation is good news for New York state; hopefully he will be unable to do as much damage at the US Department of Education."
Sadly, as the new head of the US Department of Education, Dr. King will be in quite a position to do a lot of damage over the next 15 months.
As the parent of two kids in public school in New York, I can personally attest that John King was horrible. He pushed a high stakes testing regime whose only purpose seemed to be funneling money to Pearson. When parents complained at a public forum he hosted, he responded by refusing to hold any more public forums until he could change them around so nobody could complain at them. In short, the parents were responding to his changes with valid concerns (e.g. kids stressing out with tests so much they were vomiting on their papers) and he "addressed" these concerns by refusing to listen to feedback and doubling down on his failing strategy.
Sadly, once he left, Governor Cuomo has not only continued down the path John King was headed, but has made matters much worse. Cuomo's made it clear that he won't be happy until all public schools are closed and are replaced by business run charter schools (whose businesses contribute to his campaigns).
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Who will pretend that more pay and more unionized jobs will solve the problems. This time.
(Dr. Laura Schlessinger)