Yes, Rodel has some competition coming to town! My fervent hope is that they compete with each other so much they just cancel each other out. Has Rodel’s time come and gone? Or is there more to this new corporate education reform company setting up shop in Delaware?
Gates Foundation
WestEd Selected As Vendor For Delaware’s Next Gen Science State Assessment
WestEdWestEd, a San Francisco based company, was selected as the vendor for the future Next Generation Science Standards state assessment. The contract runs through December 31st, 2017 but it will assuredly get an extension based on the scope of work involved and the timetable for the full release of the new Science state assessment. The amount awarded for the contract is $673,658. Only two bidders sent proposals to the Delaware Department of Education, WestEd and American Institutes for Research (AIR). AIR is the current vendor for the Smarter Balanced Assessment in Delaware.
The plan is to have the field tests for this assessment in the 2017-2018 school year and then all public school students in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grade get to take it in the 2018-2019 school year. All states are required to administer Science state assessments to students in these grades and it will be the same for the Every Student Succeeds Act. Currently, Delaware students take the Science DCAS Assessment.
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) were created by Achieve Inc. and 26 states. It rolled out in 2013 but only five states signed up to implement them. As of today, there are only 18 states that have adopted the sometimes controversial science standards. NGSS is very big on terminology surrounding three dimensions: science & engineering, disciplinary core ideas, and cross-cutting concepts. Okay. How do you accurately explain that? I have an idea! They should use rope to do it! Oh wait, someone beat me to it…
I wrote about WestEd a month and a half ago when I saw they were one of the bidders for this contract:
WestEd, though, is no stranger to Delaware. This is a company that thinks online digital learning games with Curious George are just great for preschool. They also have an extensive list of clients with some very familiar names. Ironically, the Delaware DOE hired facilitators from WestEd for their Every Student Succeeds Act Community Conversations, along with Research In Action. They even went into a partnership recently with NewSchools Venture Fund to expand small business data technology companies in K-12 classrooms.
Lately, whenever I see a corporate education reform company, I check out how much money they have received from the Gates Foundation. WestEd has received $24,164,909 over the past ten plus years. That is no small chunk of change! You can read the full contract below:
Education Reformers and Gates Foundation Want Free-Flow Of Private Student Data
Commission of Evidence-Based PolicymakingLast Friday, the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking held a hearing for the handling of data in America’s future. Make no mistake: this would allow student data to flow out of schools more than it already is. FERPA would become more of a joke than it already is. The written statements are now available. And we see more of some of the names behind these foundations. Folks like KIPP and the Gates Foundation are knee-deep in this. We know Bill Gates doesn’t care about student data privacy. And what company actually talks about how brick and mortar schools should no longer be used for a certain population? The answers are in here. This is a must-read. I’m glad to see some of the data privacy groups were able to get public comment submitted for this. But what in the heck is “Moneyball For Government”? There are a lot of names involved with that one!
The Gates Foundation came out with a long report last month on student data. They want the U.S. Government to lift the ban on a Federal database for student data. How ironic that President Obama issued an Executive Order creating this commission that would allow for Bill Gates’ dream to come true. Corporations run this country. This is all just the set-up that will lead to Smart Cities and Blockchain takeovers of society. When children lose their individual uniqueness and become a part of the hive. I am all for transparency of government activity, but not things that should never see the light of day. Personal information should be private. If someone wants to make their business public, that is one thing. But when that choice is taken away from you by what amounts to corporate profits, every single American needs to be concerned about this. Students are no longer people. They are the human capital for a return on investment.
The Creepy Personalized Learning Virtual Reality “Genie” In Reasoning Mind Math: Who Is Behind The Avatar?
Personalized Learning, Student Data PrivacyWhen a “personalized” MATH program admittedly creates a virtual reality “Genie” to become a child’s best friend… what happens when email secrets start to go out, along with confessions about themselves and their home life? Many parents in America are very concerned. Who is behind the Genie? Who gets the information? When they found out that BILL GATES, RUSSIA, and the US DOE are promoting and/or paying for this…. let’s just say they became more concerned. Please read and share this so more parents can become aware of this child predator in the making! As for the Genie… Well, how would you feel if your child was emailing grown men, disguised as a friendly Genie? In another country?
The non-profit Reasoning Mind offers “personalized” on-line math curriculum and a computer-based “Genie” who is virtually a child’s best friend, and knows personal things about them, even confessions. As first noted in this RM document posted by a blogger known as Educray, Reasoning Mind math curriculum places a large emphasis on teaching Soviet-style morals, collectivism, and the importance of labor (Tudge, 1991). Reasoning Mind has given some parents reason to worry. So, let’s take a look at Reasoning Mind and see what could possibly cause concern.
“The Genie”, according to this Reasoning Mind report:
“Anecdotal evidence suggests that students are quite “attached” to Genie, who regularly receives (and answers) email on topics beyond the scope of the learning software, including jokes, requests for friendship, and confessions about students’ home life.”
“Every day, Reasoning Mind elementary students send hundreds of messages to the Genie, a “friend and mentor” who guides …students through their studies. Here’s our favorite student message from this week. And yes, the Genie does respond!”
Since Reasoning Mind offers “personalized” curriculum that knows and also remembers the student, a child can log into RM from home or school. And since it’s adaptive and personalized, RM and Genie will keep track of the child, will remember their profile. If RM and Genie can track a child into consecutive grades, like an old friend, Genie will be able to pick up the profile where the child left off last year. While proponents would say keeping track of learners’ profiles is beneficial, this massive accumulation of student information also begs the question of data privacy, risk, and security.
With all that PERSONAL communication being directly and indirectly (ie: analyzing emotions) shared with RM’s Genie, we wondered what their data sharing agreements and Privacy Policy look like. If a parent were curious what data was collected and shared on their child, this is what they would find if they went to Reasoning Mind’s website. There is nothing posted about how RM uses and analyzes and shares the noncognitive and personal information that children are providing to RM and to Genie while logged onto their curriculum. There is no mention of how RM complies with COPPA law.
Given the many Supporters and In-Kind Contributors of Reasoning Mind, spanning the globe, parents wonder if organizations like Salesforce, Microsoft, Russian Petroleum, Google, Swagger Films, etc. are allowed access to their child’s profile or personal information. We know that data is money.
Money and Moscow Connections:
Non-profits must make public their tax returns (form 990). Here are 990 returns available for Reasoning Mind. Looking at the 2014 return tells us a lot; for starters, Reasoning Mind is connected.
Connected to each other: Page 32… FORM 990, PART VI, SECTION A, THE PRESIDENT AND CEO IS MARRIED TO ONE OF THE SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT’S AND THEIR SON IS (LINE2) ALSO A SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT
Connected to Russia:
Pages 7 and 8 of their 2014 form 990 tax return. Note the Russia Connections:
Page 22 of RM’s 2014 return shows Moscow did the computer Programming and Testing of end product (remember that GEF MAP I posted a few months ago).
Reasoning Mind is Connected to Bill Gates, with this $300k grant for a math pilot as seen in Gates Foundation 2011 990 form (hint: take a look for other interesting awardees)
Reasoning Mind is AGAIN connected to Bill Gates with this $700+ grant awarded in 2011 for alternative human capital models and Common Core aligned math pilot targeting minority children.
Reasoning Mind is featured in this 2013 US Department of Education publication that focuses on “New technologies using educational data mining and “affective computing”:
“There is a growing movement to explore the potential of the “noncognitive” factors—attributes, dispositions, social skills, attitudes, and intrapersonal resources, independent of intellectual ability—that high-achieving individuals draw upon to accomplish success… —it is the responsibility of the educational community to design learning environments that promote these factors so that students are prepared to meet 21st-century challenges.…Several private foundations have recently initiated programs to push the frontiers of theory, measurement, and practice around these and related factors, particularly for at-risk and vulnerable students. In national policy, there is increasing attention on 21st-century competencies (which encompass a range of noncognitive factors, including grit), and persistence is now part of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics….
Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance mentions Reasoning Mind as an example of a system that customizes to a student’s cognitive profile and emotional state (e.g., frustration or boredom) using inputs from physiological indicators and facial expressions” and they also mention experimenting with “animated, affective [digital] agents perceived as caring can increase the likelihood that students will persist through frustrating portions of instruction”.
Reasoning Mind is connected to this prominent Foundation, who has a button to DONATE money to RM.
Reasoning Mind is connected to Rice University, an advisor to Reasoning Minds, Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian is also the Director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Additionally, Dr. Neal Lane, Professor Emeritus, Rice University; Former Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Former Assistant to the President for Science and Technology; Former Director of the National Science Foundation–sits on the board of RM.
Reasoning Mind is connected to Columbia University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute who did a study on the “affect and behavior among students at three schools using Reasoning Mind, a game-based software system”. This study was paid for by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The researchers report “high student engagement with this learning system“. The researchers attribute student engagement to the game-based nature and also because children were embracing the genie as a friend and confidant:
“Anecdotal evidence suggests that students are quite attached to Genie, who regularly receives (and answers) email on topics beyond the scope of the learning software, including jokes, requests for friendship, and confessions about students’ home life. On the basis of these reports, it seems that the effect of Genie deserves more careful consideration, as the success of her design may contribute significantly to the high levels of engagement observed. Finally, we should consider the many game-like elements in its design, including a point system that rewards students for speed drills and puzzles. Once sufficient points have been accumulated, students may furnish their own virtual space within RM City or buy virtual books. Particularly at a young age, this kind of autonomy is likely very appealing.”
Some have questioned whether RM’s Genie is gaining children’s trust and using a reward system to train children to respond in much the same way that the Russian researcher, Pavlov, conditioned his dogs. Speaking of experiments and research…
Is it any wonder that students areengaged in this video-gaming atmosphere? They are engaged because many like Dr. Kardaras, author of Glow Kids, know: online games are addictive.
Online Curriculum– or Spying on Children?
This 1984 quote by Dustin Heuston (Geuston), Utah’s World Institute for Computer-Assisted Teaching, seems remarkably fitting if not foreboding:
“We’ve been absolutely staggered by realizing that the computer has the capability to act as if it were 10 of the top psychologists working with one student… you’ve seen the tip of the iceberg. Won’t it be wonderful when the child in the smallest county in the most distant area or in the most confused urban setting can have the equivalent of the finest school in the world on that terminal and no one can get between that child and that curriculum?”-Dustin H. Heuston, “Discussion–Developing the Potential of an Amazing Tool,” Schooling and Technology, Vol.3, Planning for the Future: A Collaborative Model, published by Southeastern Regional Council for Educational Improvement, P.O. Box 12746, 200 Park, Suite 111, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709/ Grant from National Institute of Education, p. 8.
Even more fascinating and startling is this 2010 research on monitoring engagement [curriculum-usage compliance and Academic learning time (ALT)] of preschoolers while interacting with online curriculum, done by Edward B Heuston of Brigham Young University. His conclusion:
“The ability to remotely and accurately quantify interaction with a computer-based curriculum and assessment in the home defines a new vista in ALT research.”
Should parents and teachers (and friends) and human social interactions be replaced by online “affective” avatar agents, who profile childhood secrets, moods, emotions, failures, and flaws? Will artificial, virtual “friends” like Genie become the Oracle that children consult, confide in? … and take direction from?
Perhaps, parents are wise to question who the Great Oz is behind the curtain. The entity (or persons), receiving and profiling the hearts and minds of their connected children, both at home and in classrooms. What has to happen before parents realize the danger they are allowing to come into their child’s life? Every time you sign a consent form, are you getting this kind of information? I highly doubt it. And are parents bothering to educate themselves on privacy policies and how data is disseminated? I doubt it. The wolf isn’t at the door. It is in your home…
An Open Letter To NEA President Lily Eskelsen Garcia
Lily Eskelsen GarciaDear Lily Eskelsen Garcia,
As President of the National Education Association, I am very curious why the NEA Foundation accepts money from the Gates Foundation. While that foundation does have some very noble projects going on with health issues in Africa, they also have some very disturbing things that have caused serious disruption in public education. I can’t remotely fathom how anything even associated with the largest teachers union in the country would want anything to do with the Gates Foundation.
Gates and all the other foundations that support corporate education reform want to bust the teachers unions. They want to privatize education and make schools 21st Century community learning centers. Everything the NEA stands for will eventually crumble to dust. Gone will be a teacher instructing a class. Instead, they will get training on how to guide students on their 1:1 devices.
I am not a teacher. I’m a parent. I understand NEA is about teachers. But lately, at least in terms of leadership, it seems like those leaders are all about themselves and their personal quest for power. It isn’t even about the teachers anymore. If I were a teacher, I would consider it a slap in the face knowing NEA actually collaborates with these entities.
I can only assume you are well-connected with these organizations and know exactly what they are planning. As an education blogger, I’ve written about it as have many others. The writing is on the wall but you seem to be worried about that one tiny corner in the room with a tiny cobweb. At least that’s what you tell your membership. I find it abhorrent you would sell out those who elected you.
But what I find even more bizarre is the buzzwords coming out of NEA and all these education organizations pretending they know what is best for children. If you are following the corporate mantras then you lost touch with what is best for kids a long time ago. This makes you, NEA leadership, and the NEA Foundation a part of the problem, not a hope for a solution.
When I first began blogging over two years ago, I soon find myself rooting for teachers. I joined the Badass Teachers Facebook page and began to see how all of this affected teachers. But I find myself wondering why the supposed leadership of teachers is getting in bed with companies that want to destroy you and your membership.
I would like you to explain this. Not for me, but for the hundreds of thousands of teachers who elected you as President of the NEA. Also for the students who are under the care of teachers for 1/3rd of their life until they graduate high school.
I understand many will take offense to this very open and public letter to you. But I also know what is coming up in the very near future, based on the seeds planted by the privatizers of education. You keep watering those plants and they will weed out what is left of public education. I warned you and AFT about jumping on the Every Student Succeeds Act and begging your membership to support it before the final legislation came out. That law will destroy NEA and the American Federation of Teachers.
You seem more concerned with Donald Trump lately than the very real danger facing teachers as every state in the country submits their ESSA state plans. It doesn’t matter who the next President of this country is. Our national government sold their souls to corporations and foundations a long time ago. This is all just distraction so they can get their final pieces in play. I suppose that is why the NEA Foundation is actually helping to fund all these ed tech conferences and global future forums. It is complete nonsense and they are taking teachers money and investing it in what will replace them. Doesn’t that bother you in the slightest?
In my viewpoint, this is like the snake giving you the apple. But you don’t just take a bite out of it, you start taking tons of apples, begin making apple pies, and sell them for the snake. It is just wrong. If you can’t look out for teachers and their future, please step down. And for those who are also subscribed to these viewpoints in NEA and AFT, you should step down as well. The price for teachers and students is too big to have power brokers dancing with the devil. I’m sure the viewpoint of parents is the last thing on your mind, but we are sick and tired of those who think they know what is best for our children but are selling them out behind the scenes. You seem to forget that today’s students are tomorrow’s teachers. What you do to them now will make sure NEA will become an archived post on Wikipedia that gets less readers by the year.
If you want our schools to become personalized learning competency-based career tracking community schools of the future, where students have no privacy and everything is catalogued while they earn to learn, then please, go work for a cyber charter school. If not, then please detach from any corporation that wants to destroy what you lead. Only then will I truly believe you have teachers best interests in mind. Your job should be leading teachers away from this madness, not embracing it.
Sincerely,
Kevin Ohlandt
Dover, DE
Who Funds Teach For America, KIPP, & Rocketship Education?
Corporate Education ReformWe know a lot of school districts, charter schools, and state departments of education give a ton of money to Teach For America, but who got the group going? And who still funds them? Let’s just say it is a lot of organizations! Some of these foundations I had never heard of. Keep in mind, this is the corporate Teach For America. There might be foundations funding each state chapter. For example, the Rodel Foundation loves giving money to the Delaware TFA!
Richard Barth is the CEO of TFA, but Wendy Kopp, Barth’s wife, runs the show. But Barth runs the KIPP charter school chain.
Going from here, it is amazing how many connections between Teach For America, Kipp, the Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, the NewSchools Venture Fund, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, the Charter School Growth Fund, and Tom Vander Ark exist. It is important to know Vander Ark’s role in this because he is one of the biggest pushers for the death of traditional public schools through his competency-based education personalized learning career pathways earn to learn agendas.
I’ll be doing more of these. If any traditional school district unionized teacher isn’t very worried about their future, I would probably start doing something about it now. Unless you want to be working as a facilitator in an online charter school in 2026. This IS corporate education reform, but only a part of it. It goes much deeper than that. I’ve been telling people this for over two years now. But sometimes pictures say a lot more than words ever can.
The Gates Foundation Isn’t Even Hiding It Anymore… The Complete Transformation Of Education Brought To You By Billionaires
Gates Foundation
Bill Gates wants a Federal Student Data Tracking System. That’s right. He also wants competency-based education, more career pathways programs, and personalized learning to take over public education. This is the same guy who funded Common Core. Remember that when you read the document released by the Gates Foundation today. If I had to guess, now that many education bloggers have exposed all the agendas which will lead to the Bit-Coin inspired Blockchain Initiative, the corporate education reformers (clearly led by Bill Gates) have nothing to lose by getting it all out there now. Now I know why U.S. Senator Chris Coons (Delaware) is chomping at the bit for his post-secondary legislation to get passed by Congress.
Read this. Every single word. Read between the lines. This is the endgame they have been pushing for, the complete and utter destruction of public education in anticipation of online education for all. Where you will be tracked from cradle to grave, with data allowed to be looked at through a federal database, which will track everything about you. The sad part is they play to civil rights groups by assuring more success for minorities. They screw over students with disabilities every chance they get. But their manipulation of under-served communities is at an all-time high in this document. Words like “outcome-based funding” scare the crap out of me, and it should for every single American. Look at all the footnotes in the below document. Look at the companies and think-tanks that are reaping immense profits for every bogus report they come out with. Look how embedded this already is in every single state and our national government.
While this document is geared towards higher education, its goals are for ALL education. It is all about creating the “workforce of tomorrow”. He mentions Jobs For the Future at the very end of the document. Just take a look at the corporate education reform madness they push out. I have no doubt Gates is concerned about the workforce of tomorrow. By making sure we are all learning online, Microsoft continues to profit. And all the other ed tech companies are chomping at the bit for their big paydays of the future. This is ALL about corporate profit.
Hillary Clinton will, in all likelihood, be our next President. She is all in on this. Every single step. And she has been since the very beginning. The question is if we can, as everyday Americans, education enough people to rise up and tell our government to stop selling out education to investors, hedge fund managers, and ed tech companies. That will be the challenge. How do you stop corporations and billionaires from taking over not only education but the entire economy? It takes courage and strength, bravery and daring. It is in all of us. Now we have to bring it out more than ever so we can turn the future into one of our design, not those who wish to be prophets and profit.
The above picture was from the following link: https://www.quora.com/Which-2016-presidential-candidate-does-Bill-Gates-support
The Judases On The Rodel Teacher Council & How They Changed Public Education Forever In Delaware **UPDATED**
Competency-Based Education, RodelEstablish a “critical mass” of support for CBL in DE and leverage supportive voices to raise awareness about CBL
A group of Delaware teachers, in conjunction with a few Superintendents, principals, a high-ranking member of the Delaware PTA, the executive director of the State Board of Education and members of the Delaware Department of Education found a way to sneak in a future-changing regulation eight months ago with a group no one knew about and never had any notices of public meetings. But all is not as it appears. In doing so, they opened the gates to one of the most dangerous corporate education reformers out there.
Have you ever heard of the Delaware Department of Education Competency-Based Learning Guiding Coalition? Me neither. Until last night. In doing a massive amount of research on the Leader In Me program in many of our Delaware schools (and there will be MUCH more on that coming), I found a very odd write-up on the Rodel Foundation of Delaware website.
In investigating a school in the Capital School District that is heavily promoting the snake-oil Leader In Me program, I came across the Rodel Teacher Council section of their website on a Google search. And there it was, under Michele Johnson of Towne Point Elementary School in Capital School District. I knew she was involved in the Leader In Me program, but what I didn’t know and had never heard of was the Delaware Department of Education’s Competency-Based Learning Guiding Coalition. I’ve looked at every single section of the DOE website and never found anything about it. So I went back to Google. I found a link to a pdf from a State Board of Education work session on July 16th, 2015.
To give some more background, this was an important day in Delaware education. It was the same day Delaware Governor Jack Markell vetoed House Bill 50. The State Board holds their work sessions during the morning before their board meetings. The State Board did have it on their agenda for this work session but try looking for anything else on this group and you will be hopelessly lost. With most groups at the Delaware DOE, there is something listed somewhere. But not with this one. There was no notice of public meetings and no transparency whatsoever. Why would there be? This was a Rodel group from their hand-picked teacher council. If you never believed Rodel was running education in Delaware, you will after reading the below document. Every single thing I’ve been writing about on this blog for the past nine months: about competency-based education, personalized learning, pathways to prosperity, the “Dear Hillary” letter, it is all in this 10 page pdf in some form.
So this group recommended finding a way past these barriers to competency-based education in Delaware. The pictures of the post-it notes show words like “urgency” and “barriers”. They mention collective bargaining as a “system barrier”. This Rodel Teacher Council sold their souls to Rodel when they joined this cabal. In the above document there is an entity called Reinventing Schools. I’ve heard of this company but this is the first time I ever saw them mentioned in Delaware. But obviously Rodel has been working with them behind the scenes for many years. To find out why, I highly suggest reading this article on the funded by the Gates Foundation organization led by Dr. Marzano.
I put a picture at the beginning of this article with the members of this Rodel created group. While I’m not surprised by most of the names, one of them stood out: Yvonne Johnson. As the face behind the Delaware PTA for many years, Johnson has been involved in many groups in one form or another. I originally wrote, and have now changed in this article, is how Johnson was involved with this group. I just spoke to Yvonne Johnson who was very upset about her supposed involvement with the Competency-Based Learning Guiding Coalition. As Johnson told me, she was invited to a webinar on this and there was a meeting at Howard High School of Technology about it. She said she does not support competency-based education and the other Delaware PTA member, Ashley Gray, told this group this was not for the Delaware PTA. Obviously the Rodel machine presented this information to the State Board of Education, close to a year later, suggesting the full involvement of Delaware PTA. But that is not the case. It is just another example of our State Board of Education being duped by Rodel into passing regulations they really don’t have a clue about.
The biggest barrier to implementing competency-based education in Delaware was the graduation requirements. They had to change existing state code to do that. Lo and behold, they did exactly that. But not without some old fashioned trickery. At the August 20th State Board meeting, Regulation 505 was put up for discussion by the State Board.
In listening to the State Board audio recording for this meeting, notice how it is introduced as having nothing to do with competency-based education. For a long time, they talk around it. It isn’t until the President of the State Board, Dr. Teri Quinn Gray, seeks clarification on this regulation that anyone in that room would know what they were talking about. As well, Tina Shockley with the DOE sped through describing the regulation very fast. But when the conversation gets going, Michael Watson from the DOE responds to a question from Gray about struggling students. He responds by saying some students can reach mastery in 180 days but for other students it may take longer and that’s okay. So is he suggesting some students will have to go to school longer?
At the September State Board meeting, when everyone was going nuts about opt out penalties in the Delaware School Success Framework/Regulation 103 fiasco, the State Board passed this regulation. But I find it hysterical how all the language surrounding the DSCFY wasn’t even needed to begin with which I’m sure the DOE was well aware of. In my opinion, they put it in the regulation to put the focus around that knowing it would be removed to get what they want.
So what does all this mean?
Here is the easiest way to break it down. This isn’t a Delaware thing. It is happening all over the country. To put it in a nutshell, corporations took over public education. This is a plan that has been in place for decades. First they had to make it look like public schools were failing students. This began in 1983 when the report called A Nation At Risk was released by the federal government. This damning report on public education changed the perception of schools in America. It also began the thirty-three year coordinated attack against teacher unions. Ten years later, the country’s first charter schools came into being. At the same time, Bill Clinton became the U.S. President. His wife Hillary received a letter from Marc Tucker, who went on to be one of the chief architects of Achieve Inc. and the Common Core.
By the late 1990s, standardized testing with high-stakes was the law of the land in Delaware. When Delaware launched the DSTP test, students did horrible on it. Many students dropped out of school as testing mania took over the state. Graduation rates dropped due to the requirement of proficiency on the horrible test. In 2002, No Child Left Behind demanded all students in America become proficient on these high-stakes tests by 2014. It was completely absurd and everyone knew it, but it was a stall tactic. As Common Core came out in President Obama’s second year, Delaware switched to another test called DCAS. While not as bad as DSTP, it was offered two to three times a year. Race To The Top was in full swing along with all the ESEA Flexibility Waivers. Charter schools were rising in popularity for the past decade and the teacher unions were under attack. To get all of this going, the teacher unions had to be destroyed. But they couldn’t bust the unions, just give them a slow and painful death.
Many teacher unions across the country caved in to the new corporate education reform suggestions. They could have fought it, but it would have given an already rising bad perception of them an even worse one. So with the help of school boards, the unions signed on to Race To The Top. Even the state PTAs got sucked into the Common Core/Race To The Top vortex. Common Core was the boss, teachers were the servants, and students were the true victims. Then came the even newer high-stakes assessments tied to the Common Core. Meanwhile, new education think tanks and non-profits emerged from nowhere to give more and more bad news about education and how to fix it. In Delaware, we call them the Rodel Foundation and the Vision Coalition. They have been around for a long time, but they are one and the same and they are as venomous to public education as any of these other education fixit organizations.
So here we are now, in 2016. Governor Markell finishes up next January and in comes John Carney. Like the rushed implementation of Common Core, in the next few years we will see the “urgency” to incorporate full-time competency-based learning in our schools. Our students will be on the computer all the time in this era of “personalized learning” while our teachers become glorified guides and facilitators. As veteran teachers leave the profession in droves, we will see more duds like Teach For America and Relay Graduate School coming into our schools. They won’t be union, and they will take over. With their corporate driven brainwashing, we will see more “teacher-leaders” come into play via programs like “Leader In Me”. But education is, and always has been, about the students. What happens to them? This is the kicker.
All of this, everything since the day A Nation At Risk was introduced 33 years ago, has been with this plan in mind. It is all an elaborate tracking measure meant to keep down minority students, students with disabilities, and low-income students. They will not do well in this. We see this with the Smarter Balanced Assessment and the PARCC tests. The resources and funding are there. They have always been there. But our states and government didn’t want to fix education. They had to tear it down first and build it up again to one of their own design. They don’t want anyone questioning their authority. They want their worker bees to fall in line with their career pathways and shut up. They had to beat down the teachers and numb the minds of children. They do not care and have no remorse if anyone gets in their way. Even the charter schools they so methodically built up were fodder for sacrifice if need be. We saw this in Delaware as many charters closed and more sprung from the ashes.
What the corporate education reformers do is use the art of distraction to an astonishing degree. They know those who oppose them can’t fight everything all at once so they get us to focus on certain things. Take opt out for example. While they know opt out kills everything they are planning, they also know it is the key to their future. The once a year test will go away. It will be broken down into little tiny chunks, embedded into the end-of-unit personalized learning chapter. But a student must score proficient to be able to move on. They must “master” the material. But who writes the material? Who grades the mini-assessments? How long will a student be “held back” until they get it? What happens when a student just gives up because they are so mentally frustrated? How does IDEA and existing law fit in with any of this? Does anyone care about these kind of things anymore?
Governor Markell and Dr. Paul Herdman, along with their key player at the Townsend Building in Dover, Donna Johnson, have been the masterminds behind all of this in Delaware. Does anyone think it is a coincidence there have been very few task forces, working groups and committees with an actual State Board of Education member on it? It is always Executive Director Donna Johnson. Calling the shots. Bossing people around as if she is the ultimate authority in education. Manipulating the playing field to the agendas she controls. She did it with WEIC, the priority schools, the Delaware School Success Framework, Common Core, opt out, and all the other destructive policies and regulations under her control. We don’t have a State Board of Education. We have Jack and Donna’s puppets. Behind them is the face of Rodel: Dr. Paul Herdman. The single-most, number one with a bullet, vessel of discrimination and evil I have ever met in my life. The man behind the Delaware curtain. The man who helped Jack into the Governor role. The man who took over the Delaware Department of Education. The man who directs it all in Delaware. Who answers to his masters in bigger organizations like the Aspen Institute, Achieve Inc., the Lumina Foundation, and Reinventing Schools. Behind them are the true power players in the guise of the US Department of Education, the US Department of Labor, Mark Zuckerberg, and the Gates Foundation. And then there are the investors and hedge fund managers and corporations making billions of dollars off all of this. For those living in other states who may not be familiar with many of these names, I’m sure if you look hard enough, you have your own puppet masters pulling the strings.
At this point, I don’t know if those who oppose this could stop any of this. It is so embedded into policy and law. All the states were required to have some type of career workforce plan based on the below federal document. The future is now. It is here. This Leader In Me garbage that is sweeping our schools is the biggest example of this. It goes beyond the classroom and invades the home. It has children making the parents compliant to this nonsense. Their “data walls” are one of the most disgusting and abhorrent acts of labeling, shaming, and discrimination I have ever seen in my life. But far too many of our Delaware teachers think it is okay. This is what happens when you are brainwashed to points beyond common sense. When you are fed the same false garbage time and time again. You begin to believe it. You become the enemy before you even realize it. When you once questioned all of this and you become a slave to the compliance machine. I am not saying these teachers are bad or even evil. They are misguided. They have been fooled and once the Rodelian mindset becomes a part of your thinking, they have their hooks in you. They mold and shape you into another one of their puppets or put your name out there to make it look like they have diverse “stakeholder input”. It seems like people with the last name of Johnson are their favorites. Charter schools, by their very nature, are ripe for takeover or creation by the Rodelian puppet masters. And don’t think it ends with Jack Markell.
But too many of us were blinded by opt out, teacher evaluations, and charter schools to even notice. All we hear about anymore on social media is Trump and Hillary. It doesn’t matter who wins because all the pieces were put into play years ago. They snuck it all in when those who should have seen it were distracted. As our pre-schools and schools become community centers and human teaching becomes a thing of the past, what happens to the children of tomorrow? Will we even need the school building in the future? What happens when they become indoctrinated into the cults of compliance? When they lose their spark? As the more affluent families stay in power while the vast majority of the population perform all the low-paying jobs? Who will rise from the ashes like a phoenix to turn it all around again twenty years from now? Or fifty? Many have predicted the machines would take over. But what they failed to realize was the machines were children. I saw this coming. I knew it. But I was looking in the wrong place. And for that I apologize. At some point, like everything in history, there will be a revolution. Only we can decide when that is.
Senator Bryan Townsend and House Bill 50: Why He Voted To Release It From Education Committee
DE Senator Bryan Townsend, House Bill 50The only other Senator at the Senate Education Committee meeting who spoke on House Bill 50, aside from Senator David Sokola, was Bryan Townsend. He left shortly after the beginning of the meeting, but did give a very passionate speech about the whole issue. I am not putting the timestamps on this one he is a member of the committee.
I really wanted to be here today, but I can’t stay, unfortunately. Personally, I’m not sure what the fate of the bill will be, but I want to note that it’s extremely disheartening to see the people who are so passionate for our school kids warring this kind of way. I do think that- although I understand why many of my colleagues are sort of skeptical about the impact of this bill and why it’s become such a flashpoint- I think I understand why parents are as passionate as they are about the issue. Last year, I asked the Markell administration, very politely, to embrace the opportunity afforded to us by the Gates Foundation which had been instrumental in the development of recent education reforms. The Gates Foundation announced support for the position that we should have multiple years of results before we try to introduce these tests live. We try to make responsible decisions, we try to say we’ve got it all figured out, but what’s unfortunate is the approach that has been taken. Part of the problem is that people hear threats in the name of a test which really is not familiar, but part of the problem also is the reaction from others that misses what the parents and educators are saying. And I think the idea now comes down to opponents of HB 50 saying “you don’t care about accountability, you don’t care about improving education for our kids.” But that’s not the case for most parents. I think most of us want to see a test that works, a test that’s proven. Educators I think are the same way. It’s not that they don’t care about accountability. I wish we could all work together, and kind of get to the heart of issues and not throw grenades across a battlefield by a line drawn inaccurately regarding people’s positions on those issues. I wish I could stay much longer and hear the passionate testimony on both sides. I’ll be signing the bill out when its circulated later on. And I just hope that this please can finally be the end to the war that happens in Delaware public education.
The Season Of Myths 