Common Core-Aligned Tests and the New Pearson GED: Failure By Design?
Returning from protesting the Gates Foundation's funding of corporate education reform, I have been wrestling with some questions about the goals for their project.
The Gates Foundation's Vicki Phillips was interviewed the day of the protest, and had this to sayabout it:
At the Gates Foundation, the great thing about us, and about Bill and Melinda is that they believe that all lives have equal value, and in the US, the way to address many of these issues is through a much, much better education system. And that's a goal that we all share. What makes what's happening today really valuable is to make all the perspectives heard, and to have a rich, honest, candid, substantive conversation. Because we can be after the same ends, but differ perhaps on how you might get there.
I engaged in a rich, substantive dialogue with the Gates Foundation two years ago, but sadly, they seem to have taken very little away from the process.
In fact, I have been growing more and more skeptical regarding this benign notion that we are all after the same thing. I have noticed a disturbing pattern. In New York, the Common Core tests were intentionally engineered to yield a pass rate of only 30%. This was documented by Carol Burris last year, who explained:
...the New York State Education Department, with the help of Pearson, creates a test and then after it is taken and scored, decide what constitutes passing. By showing those chosen to participate in the cut-score setting process other measures that they claim indicate collegeCommon Core-Aligned Tests and the New Pearson GED: Failure By Design? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher: