Friday, May 2, 2014

Monetizing the Common Core

Joanne Weiss, Secretary Duncan's chief of staff, wrote on the Harvard Business Review blog in March 2011:
"The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale."
Bill Gates speaking to the U.S. Congress in 2009:
“When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching. For the first time, there will be a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better.”
So is profit the motive pushing the Common Core State Standards, or is it just an incidental side benefit?

Gene V Glass
Arizona State University
University of Colorado Boulder


The opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the official position of NEPC, Arizona State University, nor the University of Colorado Boulder.

3 comments:

  1. Short answer to your question: i
    “No, No”—Or it could as well be ”Yes, Yes”
    Longer answer:

    The quotes from Weiss and Gates are neat condensations of the larger Federal-Corporate educational policy narrative--Faith the market will bring about reform “where the best products can be taken to scale," helping "every kid learn and every teacher get better." The model recapitulates on a smaller scale the economic model that occasioned the "Great Recession" of the last few years.
    Alan Greenspan admitted, "I found a. . . flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works."
    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business-july-dec08-crisishearing_10-23/
    The Fed-Corp cartel have yet to discover that the model doesn’t work as they would like it to.

    Follow the money and see what you get. The new CCSS are cut of the same format as the old state standards and the new tests have all of the same technical flaws as the old tests--with additional electronic complications piled on.

    The question, as always is “What to do next?” That’s a whole nother story.

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  2. Corporations Are Behind The Common Core State Standards — And That's Why They'll Never Work

    http://www.alternet.org/education/corporations-are-behind-common-core-state-standards-and-thats-why-theyll-never-work

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  3. It doesn't need to be monetized--that's its origins.

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