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发帖数: 19398 | 1 The year 2015 was one of exciting developments in the area of K-12 public
education in America. Unfortunately, most of the excitement was of the type
felt while witnessing a multi-car pile-up on the freeway. [See website]
Several of the worst crashes are detailed below.
January
Record-breaking snow fall in New England prompt school officials to order
snow shoes for all elementary school pupils so as not to miss a single day
of learning, which would render the children unready for career and college.
February
Turkish Islamic scholar and preacher Fethullah Gülen, CEO of the largest
charter school chain in America, contributes $5 million to Ohio
congressional candidates, who pledge to support bills to translate the PARCC
and Smarter Balance assessment instruments into Farsi so that Gülen
charter school teachers can teach to the test.
March
Basis charter school CEO Michael Block receives a special allocation of $2
million from the Arizona Senate Education Committee to underwrite his
lawsuit against the Michael Block management company for having supplied
Basis schools with inferior teaching staffs. Block's legal team, headed by
Peter Block, retract their pro bono offer and agree to pursue the case.
April
Temp agency Teach For America CEO Wendy Kopp answers charges that TFA "
teachers" use their 2-year tenure as a "resume builder" by releasing the
names of three TFA grads who took positions in charter schools in 2014.
May
Nationwide Opt Out movement leaves thousands of classrooms empty as students
, parents, and teachers take to the streets to protest over-testing. Pearson
PLC statisticians promise to "impute scores of missing high school students
by applying logistic regression model predictions to the missing students
Kindergarten attendance records."
June
Billionaire Bill Gates summons 100 big city school superintendents to
Redmond, Washington to gauge response to his new small schools project.
After declaring the first small schools project an abysmal failure, Gates
plans to redouble his commitment to the idea and confer generous grants on
those districts who limit high school sizes to 5 students. One hundred
superintendents rise as one in grateful praise for Gates's newest insight.
July
Scientists at the American Institutes for Research release study that shows
that the first two hours of the school day - from 5:30 am to 7:30 am -
account for less than 1% of the day's learning due to students' somnambulant
state. Study recommendations include delaying the start of school until 5:
45 am, so as to ensure that high school grads will be college and career
ready.
The American Association of University Professors releases the results of a
14-day study that pronounces 99% of America's high school graduates "not
ready for college." AAUP petitions the federal government to create a
special loan program to support all Freshmen while they complete two
semesters of remedial courses.
The National Association of Manufacturers issues a statement in response to
Common Core supporters that they have "not the faintest idea what skills
will be needed by persons entering the workforce of 2025."
August
Nothing happened in public education in the month of August as tens of
thousands of teachers treated their union thug representatives to cruises on
their yachts in the Mediterranean and Caribbean.
September
All branches of the US military are joined by the NCAA, the American
Association of Community Colleges, and the McDonalds Corporation in an
announcement that they will no longer accept diplomas granted by K12 Inc and
Pearson-owned Connections online academies as evidence of successful
completion of high school requirements.
October
Billionaire Bill Gates summons 100 big city school superintendents to
Redmond, Washington to announce his latest reform for the U.S. education
system. Value-Added-Measurement (VAM) of administrators will tie
superintendents' salaries to districts' pretest-posttest standardized test
score gains. One hundred superintendents remain silently seated as one.
November
A special committee of the American Educational Research Association on
Value-Added-Measurement (VAM) of teachers issues a report of its two-years'
deliberation that recommends that all tests used to fire teachers be "valid
and reliable." When quizzed by reporters on just how valid and reliable such
tests must be, the committee chairperson reports that the members could not
agree. Pearson PLC and the American Institutes for Research praises the
hard-hitting committee report.
December
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson informs the U.S. public school system of their
responsibilities: "I'm not sure public schools understand that we're their
customer-that we, the business community, are your customer. What they don't
understand is they are producing a product at the end of that high school
graduation?Now is that product in a form that we, the customer, can use it?
Or is it defective, and we're not interested?" Tillerson pledges $3 billion
to the Better Business Bureau to conduct a nationwide evaluation of the
entire K-12 education system. Charter schools will be exempted since they
have proven their worth by having survived in a free market.
President Barak Obama signs the Every Student Succeeds Act into law with its
retraction of No Child Left Behind excessive testing requirements.
Chastened by the hugely successful Opt Out movement, outgoing Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan informs state authorities that if compliance falls
below 95% with the ESSA mandated annual assessment that the government will
takeover all public schools in the state and turn them into self-storage
lockers.
Gene V Glass
Arizona State University
~
University of Colorado Boulder
National Education Policy Center
~
San José State University
The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not represent
the official position of the National Education Policy Center, Arizona State
University, University of Colorado Boulder, nor San José State University.
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Latest book: 50 Myths and Lies That Threaten America's Public Schools
The Real Crisis in Education
David C. Berliner, Gene V Glass, and Associates
Pub Date: March 2014, 272 pages
David C. Berliner is an educational psychologist and bestselling author. He
was professor and dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School
of Education at Arizona State University. Gene V Glass is a senior
researcher at the National Education Policy Center and a research professor
in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder. Their
Associates are the hand-picked leading PhDs and PhDs in training from their
respective institutions.
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