Melinda Gates Won’t Give Up Misguided Course to Remake American Education

Translation: Melinda Gates believes The Gates Foundation made a mistake in deciding to support The Common Core State Standards Initiative that bypassed state legislatures and voters because the PR talking points weren’t effective. In this Washington Post article she doesn’t address and ignores that representative governmental process was non-existent and state/school district budgets were expanded via unfunded mandates.   She doesn’t address that state constitutions direct states to determine their own educational policies, not Federal agencies, consortia and other unaccountable NGOs such as Achieve, CCSSO or NGA.

No, Melinda Gates believes that we just need to be ‘nudged’ into big cultural shifts The Gates Foundation and other non-governmental organizations deem citizens need to be suitable human capital for their pre-determined goals.  This nudge needs to be acknowledged as replacing the political process known as voting and representative government.  That’s the process of the elites.  They need your data, your genetic information, your life experiences to determine where you will be placed on the pecking order (under the guise of we are from the government (state) and we are here to help you).  More from Gates Foundation to ‘stay the course’ as it seeks to help shape state education policies:

Gates said the foundation also will work to persuade states to invest in databases that gather information about students, tracking their backgrounds, experiences and performance from preschool to college and career. Such longitudinal databases have fierce advocates — who say they can provide a powerful source of information about what works in education and what does not — and fierce critics, many of whom are parents who say that the compilation of so much information about children represents an unacceptable risk to privacy.

Some comments from the article:

*********************************************************************

If the Gates approach is so successful, then why are schools now more segregated than before? Why did they have to tinker with graduation definitions just to hide rising dropout rates caused by over testing? Why do model schools have to close due to low test scores, even when they successfully help large numbers of at-risk, disabled or English Language Learners achieve their potential?

The Gates still assume everyone wants to go to college, even though not everyone can or wants to, let alone is capable of paying off the debt. Not to mention, Gates’ tests perport to measure college readiness, despite the facts that zero studies confirm this and almost no colleges accept these scores due to concerns about validity and reliability.

It is sheer arrogance for the Gates to persue an approach that fails the majority of kids.

*********************************

The Gates actually have far less involvement with and understanding of public schools than most parents. They are not experts by any stretch of the imagination. Yet they want to drive the education bus……..because they have a ton of money. Is that an adequate qualification to dictate national ed policy from a federal Dept. of Ed that they have bought out and own? Why should any of us be forced to listen to them in the first place? It’s a case of arrogance and over-reach. The worst decision was on the part of O’Bama who actually allowed the Gates to buy his opinion! The O’Bama administration, under Bill Gates, has done more harm to public education than any other in recent decades, including G.W. Bush.

*********************************

The hubris of these people.

If CCSS was really as good as she claims, they would have rolled them out starting in kindergarten, then expanding to the next grade every year when materials were ready. Or better yet, piloted them somewhere to see if the standards were effective.

Instead they actively harmed students and teachers by forcing an untested transition midway through children’s school career, lacking the resources for the transition (other than traditional textbooks with the label “Common Core” slapped on, but not matching the actual standards) with the disclaimer “Oh, we’ll know in ten years or so whether it works.”–Bill Gates.

We can’t fire these people, unelect them, or ignore them since our leaders worship at their altar. Until parents stand up and say “enough!” we will keep hopping from one ill-thought out reform to another. Be prepared for their shiny marketing department to “get people on board” for the next round–probably Competency Based Learning or “Meet your new teacher, kids! It’s a computer!” Only the very wealthy get real teachers!

*********************************************************************

If Common Core and NGO directed education reform is so awesome, why aren’t the children of these education reformers in public school and under the CCSS mandates?  Time to launch our own PR campaign and nudge the elites with that question.

Share and Enjoy

Let’s block ads! (Why?)