The Kick-off of "Parents as Partners Week": Who is David Coleman and why should we care?
DOE officials are working hard, trying to persuade us that they now have a different attitude towards parents. Next week is called “Parents as Partners” week, starting off with a meeting on Tuesday at Seward Park High School. Though today’s DOE press release calls this “a conversation” with the Chancellor, the prescribed topic is the new Common Core standards, though parents will be “allowed” to submit their questions on index cards. Clearly, this will be no “conversation”.In reality, the Common Core standards are being imposed from above, pushed by the Gates Foundation and others, with no proof of efficacy and no input from parents.
David Coleman, who is going to give a presentation on the CC, gave one last April to “educational leaders” hosted by SED; here are videos and transcripts . As reported in EdWeek:
Working under a contract with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an avid backer of the standards, David Coleman and Susan Pimentel wrote a pair of documents highlighting the key ideas of the standards and describing the qualities of instructional materials they consider a faithful reflection of them.
As of August 2011, 44 states and the District of Columbus adopted the Common Core, in exchange for the