CorpEd Assails Opt Out In Desperate Attempt to Protect House of Cards
Ken Derstine has this fine piece on the latest exploits of the inimitable Eduwank:
Is Corporate Education Reform trying to Coopt the Opt Out movement?
by Ken Derstine
Bellwether - The term is derived from the Middle English bellewether and refers to the practice of placing a bell around the neck of a castrated ram (a wether) leading his flock of sheep. The movements of the flock could be noted by hearing the bell before the flock was in sight.
In typical Orwellian fashion, a corporate education reformer tries to flip the narrative of the Opt Out movement in the April 7, 2015 U. S. News and World Report. Andrew Rotherham, a cofounder of Bellwether Education Partners has an Op Ed which seeks to sow the tried and true method of oligarchs since time immemorial to divide and conquer through sowing ethnic and class differences. In this case, he tries to divide parents who want to Opt Out their children from standardized tests and says they should opt out of public schools to go to privately run/publicly funded charter schools. This has become the latest collective talking point of corporate education reformers.
First he warns of the dire consequences if parents choose to Opt Out and praises some state officials for “responding with force.”
He then goes on to say the Opt Out movement is “not some organic happening”, but, with no proof, implies that the Opt Out movement is being funded by the leadership of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers.
As anyone involved in the Opt Out movement can attest, the national unions have been manifestly missing in action in the Opt Out movement. Some state and local unions are supporting Opt Out, but it is parents who have been playing the leading role in the Opt Out movement.
Mr. Rotherham claims that “American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten straddles the issue by saying she vigorously supports the right of parents to opt-out but isn’t urging it.” Her actions behind the scenes say otherwise. As a recent panel at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute disclosed, Ms. Weingarten has been collaborating very closely with the corporate reformers to develop teacher evaluation systems based on standardized test scores.
After claiming that Opt Out is funded by the national union leadership, Rotherham recognizes the parents but this time to sow ethnic and class discord. He claims that the Opt Out movement is a “mostly white led effort to boycott state standardized tests that are arguably most important for low-income and minority students who are frequently denied a quality education in our nation’s public schools.” Why standardized tests, which have taken over many hours of instruction time for test prep and administration, is benefiting “minority students who are frequently denied a quality education in our nation’s public schools.” is never explained.
He singles out the Montclair Public Schools where 42% of students Opted Out of PARCC tests in March as one of the “affluent opt-out hot spots”. He derisively says these parents are not opting out their children from the SAT and ACT tests, ignoring that no instruction time is used for SAT test prep as opposed to the hundreds of hours of test prep and administration for the Pearson PARCC tests. He also ignores that year by year more and more colleges and universities are no longer using the SAT for admission.
Once again, parents involved in the Opt Out movement know that this attempt to make Opt Out a racial issue is a red herring. He claims that “the Common Core tests are linked to school accountability and teacher evaluation. The data are disaggregated to make sure some students, especially low-income and minority students, are not shortchanged.” How will a standardized test help low income students? A standardized test is not learning, Its only purpose is for ranking students and schools.
This is the canard that corporate education reform is the next civil rights movement. It bases itself on blaming teachers in schools with a large number of low income families for the schools’ problems which must therefore be “turnedaround” to charter companies. Any talk of lack of resources is not allowed in this paradigm. That the public schools have been systematically starved for the last ten years in order to build up the charter sector by politicians aligned with ALEC is not allowed to be brought to light.
It is low income communities that are being hit the hardest by corporate education reform. Standardized test scores have been used to Schools Matter: CorpEd Assails Opt Out In Desperate Attempt to Protect House of Cards: