Gates and Pearson Foundations Join to Offer Online Courses for Schools

[Hannah Bell]

Ohanian Comment:

With its support of the Curriculum Mapping Project, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was already in the curriculum business... But this hook-up with Pearson should tell our professional organizations a thing or two. In the curriculum race, the Gates Foundation has made the professional organizations irrelevant. NCTE and IRA should have done the right thing and opposed the Common Core Standards from the get-go. Instead, assuming a Johnny-come-lately role, NCTE now holds a virtual conference telling teachers how to get in line with the Common Core. You can sign right up and join the lemmings for just $175 for four interactive, 60-minute online sessions....

I guess it just shows that if you stick with the idea of national standards long enough, you win. You win because, in the face of Bill Gates' money machine, the professional organizations and unions roll over and play dead. . . and then try to catch up to the gravy train by offering courses and publishing books directed at helping teachers teach standards they had no part in developing.

And teachers? We are very late and very timid in coming to the idea of resistance. Saying "No!" to authority is just so far removed from the teacher ethos. After all, we are people pleasers. And standing up to politicos is totally foreign to the profession. I am a longtime teacher and I understand this insistence on thinking our profession is "nonpolitical." Teachers are fully involved in and exhausted by seeing to the individual needs of their students, students who are decidedly not standard. But what teachers must come to realize is that exhaustion isn't an excuse for ignorance. Everything about what we do in classrooms is political, and one must break with the dominant imperative and choose to work for the needs of the children or or continue to obey the demands of the corporate thugs, which reduces teaching to the role of obedient script reader. Just remember: DIBELS is the most political instrument of our time. It is the educational equivalent of drone bombing.

Acquiescing to the Common Core Standards and Assessments is a profoundly political act. The choice you make as a teacher should be yours, not that of Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, Judy Coddings, Eli Broad. Not the Kansas City board of education, NOT NCTE's decision, either. YOU decide. See you at SOS march in Washington D. C., July 30.

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=2238§ion=Article


for those who don't know what this is about, the gates foundation has designed a set of "core standards" for the nation.

who elected bill head of curriculum development for the nation? no one knows. but he thinks "little women" is a good read for 8th graders. in the suburbs. in the inner cities. in appalachia.

let's all read "little women" with our jr high school boys!! they'll love it!!

bill says this is what high standards means. we will eat it & like it & bill will make millions selling us materials on line.

fuck bill gates.

[Kolesar]

1. My teachers used to push books into our hands like: "Johnny Got His Gun"

It was a perfect message from our "born in the 1950s" teachers about the Vietnam War, even though it was based in World War One.

[Hannah Bell]

2. not sure, but i don't think that's on the gates-approved list (tm)

it may have been replaced by the mill on the floss or something of the sort

[Starry Messenger]

3. Don't tell me that nice man is in this to sell things!

:sarcasm:

[Hannah Bell]

4. no, he's a philanthropist, perish the thought.

he wants to *give* us the business.

[Donnachaidh]

6. considering that our school system charges $600 PER online course

Gates is in it for the BLING -- and there's potentially tons of it out there.... :grr:

[exboyfil]

7. That is twice what a course from

North Dakota Center for Distance Education costs. The courses from this organization offers opportunities for interaction (the digital photography class looks great). The teachers have been very responsive. Lots of kids are getting a good education using these courses.

[Donnachaidh]

8. ahh, but it gets better

If a senior has to re-do a class -- he/she gets charged $600 *if* they take the course in the summer. If they opt to take the electronic course during the school semester -- they can do it for free.

What's the difference?

[exboyfil]

5. Agree I am troubled that some billionaire is setting standards

I do think standards are important though. For example I would say that my daughter's 7th and 8th grade English class would not be certified if some objective standard was used. In both grades they were only required to read two novel length works for the year, and we are not talking about very difficult literature (The Outsiders and its sequel for example).

Little Women is just a suggested text demonstrating the level of complexity that a 8th grader should read. Obviously they cannot list every book to read. I read Huck Finn in 8th grade so asking 8th graders to read Tom Sawyer in 8th grade is not unreasonable. Another choice listed in the standards is Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry. I do feel that some classics should be read.

Colleges are accredited. While the teachers have flexibility in what they teach, they do have to cover certain material. I think we can agree on that material. The actual book read is not as important as the act of reading and analyzing it. I have been successful with my daughter by linking the "boring" classics with modern favorites and having my daughter write comparing and contrasting them (she is a 7th grader). For example Treasure Island and Hunger Games, Oedipus Rex and Percy Jackson, White's The Sword in the Stone and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. I would not expect a public school 7th grader cover the material my Homeschooled daughter did this year, but they need to go through the process for at least 3-4 good books in a year - hopefully one of them a recognized classic that will push their vocabulary skills.

What needs to be avoided is what happened in my older daughter's English class. In a Blue Ribbon school she had an English teacher for two years that was not engaged in the process. His passion is coaching - not teaching. He should not be teaching my children. That is why my youngest was Homeschooled in English this year and will be again next year.

I also think there is a role for online/distance education. I have been doing it for years with Engineering classes. My youngest daughter has done it successfully in Health, Life Science, and is currently taking Biology. Science is probably the hardest to do online. Parts of English can be handled well online and, in many ways it would be preferable to the alternative, a very disruptive class. My older daughter's 9th grade English class is a zoo, and it is really a shame because I have a great deal of respect for her teacher in this class. Lots of hours are wasted that could be spent reading and writing. Next year her English will be streamed so I am hoping for an improvement in the situation.

It is awful to consider but many times doing a course at home is a better option than taking one at the public school. Technology facilitates this approach. If all teachers were dedicated and all children where well mannered, then that would not be the case.

[Hannah Bell]

9. "Agree I am troubled that some billionaire is setting standards" buuuutttt (argument for billionaire

adjustment program follows...)

[exboyfil]

10. Never said but

Standards should be set by NCSS (Social Studies) or NCTE (English) as the best representative groups for these subjects. Like I said I am troubled about Gates or any single individual (especially one who has not studied and taught these subjects) setting the standards.

Frankly I think we should do away with the tax exemption for foundations. Our tax code basically says that the foundation knows better how to spend what would otherwise be tax dollars in part better than our elected representatives. There is no accountability for these organizations.