Corporate America Might Need Common Core, But Our “Outputs” Don’t
“Kill poverty not human beings. Stop putting the value of money over the value of lives.” – Mahatma Gandhi
December 8, 2013
Dear Allan Golston,
This is in response to your editorial America’s Businesses Need the Common Core, which was posted on Impatient Optimists, the Gates Foundation’s blog, on November 26, 2013.
You wrote,
“Last week in New York City, a group of business leaders who have long been involved in education took the important step of making a real commitment to ensure this country benefits from the promise of the Common Core State Standards…”
and
“I am pleased to see the excitement in the business community for the common core. Businesses are the primary consumers of the output of our schools, so it’s a natural alliance.”
It is so disturbing to me that you refer to students, human beings, as outputs. Did the Gates Foundation public relations department vet this op-ed piece before it was posted? Do you have children? Or are these outputs you refer to other people’s children, the public school kids of the world?
As I reflect on my life-long battle with depression and anxiety, I realize the root causes of my suffering are feelings of fear and hopelessness. As a student, school was a refuge for me. The connections I made to the greater world – namely learning about human struggles through both literature and history – were meaningful and comforting. As much as I try to create lessons that inspire my English-language learners and give them meaningful learning experiences, my freedom to teach and my students’ freedom to learn have been usurped as a result of corporate education reform policies, which are funded, in large part, by the Gates Foundation.
The Common Core, an instrument of corporate education reform, is not simply a document listing K-12 learning objectives. Contrary to what you argue, I do not have the autonomy to use the standards as I see fit. Rather, the Common Core is a package comprised of scripted curricula that prepare students for high-stakes Common Core