David Coleman’s Coup d’etat
Who is the most powerful man in public education?
In one of the first critiques of the “new” SAT rolled out by College Board President, David Coleman yesterday, Bob Schaeffer, public education director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), a nonprofit group dedicated to ending the misuse of standardized test scores said, “The truth is no one needs the SAT, either ‘old’ or ‘new.’”
I don’t often disagree with anything Fair Test has to say, but in this case I know for certain of one person who needs the “new” SAT – David Coleman. With the rollout of the revised SAT, Coleman, now president of the College Board, completes the grand takeover of American public education from K-12 and beyond.
Coleman is, of course, the chief architect of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Coleman has often reminded us not to worry; the CCSS are just standards not curriculum. As you read this; however, two testing companies, PARCC and Smarter Balanced, are developing high stakes standardized tests that are tied to the CCSS. It has long been established that when curriculum is tied closely to high-stakes tests, the curriculum is inevitably narrowed to