The One about Peter Cunningham, Education Post and Spin...
BY: Dr. Mitchell Robinson
Originally posted on his blog here http://www.mitchellrobinson.net/2015/05/06/the-one-about-peter-cunningham-ed-post-and-spin/
John Oliver's recent takedown of standardized testing has met with near-universal praise, and deservedly so. It was a brilliant, thoughtful and bitingly funny analysis of the fatal flaws in the testing business, and was clearly based on extensive research and investigation. There has, however, been one lonely outpost of denial with respect to Mr. Oliver's piece: the intrepid externs at Education Post, and their fearless leader, Peter Cunningham.
Mr. Cunningham is from the long lineage of education leaders who have no degrees in education, have never taught and have zero experience in education outside of decision making and check cashing. By last count, about $12 million of that, as he points out in a recentEduShyster interview:
Cunningham: We hire bloggers and we subsidize bloggers who are already out there and who we want to support or give more lift. I think it’s fine. As you know, I have all this money. I have to spend it.
Mr. Cunningham, using generous donations from the Broad and Walton foundations, among others, has attempted to carve himself a niche as a "reasonable reformer," advocating for a more civil dialogue around the issues he believes are at the core of the reform debate. His agenda is based on 3 "Issues" that form the core of his beliefs about education reform:
1. High Standards for All Students: Is my child learning what is needed to be successful?
1. High Standards for All Students: Is my child learning what is needed to be successful?
Even if our kids are coming home with straight “A”s, how do we really know if they’re learning what they need to succeed in college, in career, and in life? One teacher’s “A” could be another teacher’s “C”.
We need to have clear and consistent standards for what our kids should be learning.
That is the thinking behind the Common Core — a common set of high learning standards for kids.
As you can see, Mr. Cunningham is a big Common Core booster. He also seems to believe that standardized tests are the only way we will "know if they’re learning what they need to succeed in college, in career, and in life"--which makes sense if you remember that he never taught, so he must not be aware of portfolios, formative assessments, playing checks, demonstrations, essays, poems, term papers, quizzes, drawings, dances, improvisations, compositions, science experiments, interviews, observations, and hundreds of other assessment tools that tell us what students know and can do in rich, meaningful ways.
His essay flagellating Mr. Oliver also uses florid imagery (Oliver throws poor kids under the bus) to defend the Common Core and standardized tests under a cloak of faux-racist indignation, as though more and harder tests will provide the magic solution to lifting poor kids out of poverty. Mr. Cunningham also makes outlandish accusations that exaggerate his importance in the grand scheme of American education:
We know these things because we force the educational bureaucracy to test kids, publish results and take action. Until we demanded real accountability, many states, with a few exceptions, simply ignored these kids.
For a person who has never taught, and holds no elected office, that's a pretty gaudy resume. Mr. Cunningham seems to believe he has the power to "force" schools to test Badass Teachers Association:
