Bad teachers create poverty says wall street edreform
For a long time I've been trying to figure out why do billionaires donate money to orgenizations who undermine public education in America, push counter productive high stakes testing and use it to justify giving away public schools and properties to charter school orgenizations. My conclusion is that to some extent it helps billionaires to shifts the blame for poverty and inequity onto American teachers and away from the tax code favoring the super rich in this country.
The charter school Education Reform Gold Rush will turn out to be the credit default swaps scandal of the Obama Duncan administration unless Obama has the guts to stop it and change course. These charter schools create credit for non existing success by getting rid of kids with low test scores who are mostly poor and minority kids. The charter school gold rush reformers default on the idea of free and appropriate public education for all children by outsourcing public oversight to private, and often for profit companies. Charter schools Gold Rush Reformers swap their responsibility for the failure of NCLB, with a marketing campaign calling to hold teachers and schools accountable for childhood poverty in America which was created by the billionaires who fund these attacks, and by the tax cuts billionaires enjoy. The Gold Rush Reformers promise us that the market rules of incentives, bonuses and competition will serve our kids better than it did Wall Street. While a good teacher can make a difference, the decision who is a good teacher should be left for educators and the communities in which teachers work and not to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
Bill Gates was accused in court of anti competitive practices yet he now uses his fortune to convince Americans that teachers should compete with one another for better pay. He claims that unions and due process rights are the cause for poverty. He funds groups, activists and even high paid district consultants pushing forward what many consider a punitive and counter-productive agenda. In effect, Gates and the Gold Rush Education Reformers ask to give charter schools flexibility by reducing public regulatory oversight. Clearly Mr Gates has an interest in reducing public oversight of Microsoft's anti competitive practices. He also has an interest in incurring favorable view of Window based systems and computers as compared with Mac OS, or Linux based systems because school districts have to make decisions and choices when they buy these systems. If schools in the US move to Open Source software which is free of charge and avoid Windows, the future of Microsoft maybe in question as these kids become adult users and decision makers. This alone however, does not explain the creation of the Bill And Melinda Gates foundation.
I feared a Republican president might cave in to the influence of multi-billionaires hell bent upon breaking the back of the American middle class and further segregating our communities and our neediest kids, I did not expect president Obama would lend his hand to forming the new segregation code. Test scores segregation is the new Jim Craw rule that charter school Gold Rush Reformers are in effect applying and President Obama is actively supporting it.
Over testing has been suffocating our children's creativity by standardizing their thoughts for as long as NCLB has been enacted. These tests do not measure creativity, real life problem solving and most of all these tests do not, and can not, measure the innovative capacity and entrepreneurial approach we so badly want to see our kids develop. These tests shift the focus of instruction away from these skills that we need because these tests do not measure thses skills and teachers are being evaluated by these test scores. Charter school Gold Rush Reformers suggest we base teacher evaluations upon these test scores even though it is an invalid and unreliable method of evaluating teachers and applying it will hurt good teachers who work with needy kids. Low scoring kids should not be made into a threat to teachers livelihood and conditioning teachers evaluations upon these "high stakes" tests cause teachers and schools to avoid low scoring kids who tend to be poor, belong to an ethnic minority, or suffer from disabilities. Worse yet, these tests are used to label kids, segregate schools and victimize communities.
We have to have "hope" though, don't we? Here comes something on that. Here is my hope.
The charter school Education Reform Gold Rush will turn out to be the credit default swaps scandal of the Obama Duncan administration unless Obama has the guts to stop it and change course. These charter schools create credit for non existing success by getting rid of kids with low test scores who are mostly poor and minority kids. The charter school gold rush reformers default on the idea of free and appropriate public education for all children by outsourcing public oversight to private, and often for profit companies. Charter schools Gold Rush Reformers swap their responsibility for the failure of NCLB, with a marketing campaign calling to hold teachers and schools accountable for childhood poverty in America which was created by the billionaires who fund these attacks, and by the tax cuts billionaires enjoy. The Gold Rush Reformers promise us that the market rules of incentives, bonuses and competition will serve our kids better than it did Wall Street. While a good teacher can make a difference, the decision who is a good teacher should be left for educators and the communities in which teachers work and not to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.
Bill Gates was accused in court of anti competitive practices yet he now uses his fortune to convince Americans that teachers should compete with one another for better pay. He claims that unions and due process rights are the cause for poverty. He funds groups, activists and even high paid district consultants pushing forward what many consider a punitive and counter-productive agenda. In effect, Gates and the Gold Rush Education Reformers ask to give charter schools flexibility by reducing public regulatory oversight. Clearly Mr Gates has an interest in reducing public oversight of Microsoft's anti competitive practices. He also has an interest in incurring favorable view of Window based systems and computers as compared with Mac OS, or Linux based systems because school districts have to make decisions and choices when they buy these systems. If schools in the US move to Open Source software which is free of charge and avoid Windows, the future of Microsoft maybe in question as these kids become adult users and decision makers. This alone however, does not explain the creation of the Bill And Melinda Gates foundation.
I believe that Mr Gates wants a vindication, a remake of his public image and legacy. However, his intense aversion to public oversight and scrutiny leads him on a massive anti regulation campaign. Instead of reforming his ways, he is trying to reform the regulatory oversight system which humiliated him and declared his Microsoft actions illegal. Mr. Gates' record and personal example does not qualify him to be a trustworthy educational figure.
"No person is rich enough to buy his/her own past" said Oscar Wilde. Mr. Gates may be rich enough to try, but if his suggested changes are implemented, we may be left with a colossal moral and financial failure. Exclusionary charter schools hurt our ability to get along by increasing economic disparity and inequity. If any charter school supporter tries to convince you that "charter schools are public schools" I suggest you take a look at an Education committee meeting in the US Congress where Rep. Miller ripped them. The Billionaire Boys Club is creating an anti regulation mood by victimizing teachers, thereby "turning our eyes away from the poverty and isolation" affecting our children. (D.R.) Mr. Gates suggests that we teachers reflect and improve ourselves. We have, we do, and we will. How about you Mr Gates?
How about you Practice what you preach Mr. Gates?
"No person is rich enough to buy his/her own past" said Oscar Wilde. Mr. Gates may be rich enough to try, but if his suggested changes are implemented, we may be left with a colossal moral and financial failure. Exclusionary charter schools hurt our ability to get along by increasing economic disparity and inequity. If any charter school supporter tries to convince you that "charter schools are public schools" I suggest you take a look at an Education committee meeting in the US Congress where Rep. Miller ripped them. The Billionaire Boys Club is creating an anti regulation mood by victimizing teachers, thereby "turning our eyes away from the poverty and isolation" affecting our children. (D.R.) Mr. Gates suggests that we teachers reflect and improve ourselves. We have, we do, and we will. How about you Mr Gates?
How about you Practice what you preach Mr. Gates?
I feared a Republican president might cave in to the influence of multi-billionaires hell bent upon breaking the back of the American middle class and further segregating our communities and our neediest kids, I did not expect president Obama would lend his hand to forming the new segregation code. Test scores segregation is the new Jim Craw rule that charter school Gold Rush Reformers are in effect applying and President Obama is actively supporting it.
Over testing has been suffocating our children's creativity by standardizing their thoughts for as long as NCLB has been enacted. These tests do not measure creativity, real life problem solving and most of all these tests do not, and can not, measure the innovative capacity and entrepreneurial approach we so badly want to see our kids develop. These tests shift the focus of instruction away from these skills that we need because these tests do not measure thses skills and teachers are being evaluated by these test scores. Charter school Gold Rush Reformers suggest we base teacher evaluations upon these test scores even though it is an invalid and unreliable method of evaluating teachers and applying it will hurt good teachers who work with needy kids. Low scoring kids should not be made into a threat to teachers livelihood and conditioning teachers evaluations upon these "high stakes" tests cause teachers and schools to avoid low scoring kids who tend to be poor, belong to an ethnic minority, or suffer from disabilities. Worse yet, these tests are used to label kids, segregate schools and victimize communities.
We have to have "hope" though, don't we? Here comes something on that. Here is my hope.
Reform would come when we abolish NCLB and reform the way in which we measure our children's progress and needs. If we want education reform to bring about creativity innovation and entrepreneurial attitude, we should reform the way in which we measure progress and move on to a peer review assessment methodology AKA authentic assessment, which evaluates actual student projects and portfolios. Teachers and administrators can collaborate on such assessments and determine how these projects and portfolios match state and community standards. Is it too simple?
Teachers can look at projects and portfolios, give grades in collaboration with other kids, teachers, parent representatives and administrators. These projects would be measured by how well they demonstrate mastery of community and state standards. We teachers can do the bubbling and feed the results into the databases if we have to. We can spare the kids this bubbling routine and change our classrooms and schools into the guided, safe, innovative, entrepreneurial labs they should be. Children may even enjoy such a reform. Is it too simple?
Yes and no my grandfather used to say. It's too simple because it is something that all Americans can understand design and evaluate and that's not good for you if you are one of the Gold Rush Reformers who want to make a quick buck of off this huge public pool of money. In that case you do not want regulations and public oversight, let alone direct authentic community involvement. Authentic project based evaluation is too simple in this case. There are good news for the free marketeers though: pushing forward such a reform is not simple. It is very difficult, and the teacher unions are not the reason for that difficulty as they support peer review of teachers. Such education and testing reform is very difficult because if you try to get through the corrupting influence of big money and the choke-hold it has upon media outlets who depend upon corporate and political advertising, you may find yourself where Diane Ravitch is. You may have the research, the wisdom the decency and kindness and you may have hundreds of thousands of teachers behind you, and still, you'd be personally attacked, broken almost, by those famous wind turbines of the Don Quixote story. Who will bail out our children when these Wall Street gurus are proven wrong again?
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