In my previous post, The Importance of Common Core for Nationally-pervasive Ed Reform, I cite the 2009 Broad Foundation report in which a number of major reformer “participants” told America of the reforms it might expect to be in place in 2012– one of which is the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Among the list of […]
On April 19, 2017, former president and board member emeritus of the Thomas B. Fordham (TBF) Institute, Chester Finn, published a piece entitled, “Will Teacher Tenure Die?” Below is an excerpt: Tenure arrived in K–12 education as a trickle-down from higher ed. Will the demise of tenure follow a similar sequence? Let us earnestly pray […]
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute (TBF) has been trying to sell the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for years. In October 2009, TBF received almost $1 million from the Gates Foundation “to review the common core standards and develop supportive materials.” It should come as no surprise that in 2010, TBF rated CCSS “clearly superior to […]
It seems that the Fordham Institute views itself as the grader of the corporate reform initiatives that it is paid to support. In July 2010, it graded the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and state standards– and found in favor of CCSS in this highly questionable, slanted report. In February 2016, Fordham Institute released another report, this […]
This is the story of two organizations that took diverging roads to grading state standards: American Institutes for Research (AIR) and Fordham Institute. Let’s start with AIR. In a report released September 2014, AIR has “internationally benchmarked” state education standards. Now, this is not to be confused with the famed-yet-elusive “international benchmarking” of the Common […]
I am sitting in my easy chair on this Saturday afternoon, and I am trying not to write any posts. I know that I need a rest. Sure enough, though, I come across Common Core State Standards (CCSS) promotional slant from the brand-spanking new, non-teacher-practitioner president of the Gates-funded Fordham Institute, dedicated think tanker Michael […]
This post is about the for-profit “reform”-promoting think tank, the Fordham Institute. The Fordham Institute likes to grade. Mind you, Fordham doesn’t bother to grade itself. But it does promote the grading of teacher training programs via an entity it birthed in 2001, the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), and it also promotes the grading of […]
On March 30, 2021, a new ed-reform kid on the top-down block, Parents Defending Education, introduced itself to the public on Twitter as follows: “Launch today.” That sounds very new– and very odd because this org purports to do the nonsensical– “build a grassroots army of parents.” Grassroots is not “built” from the top down. […]
As the December 04, 2020, Politico reports, former National Education Association (NEA) president, Lily Eskelsen Garcia, is seriously pursuing President-elect Biden’s nod for next US secretary of education. Eskelsen Garcia earned her BS in elementary education in 1980 and her MEd in instructional technology in 1985, both from the University of Utah. She taught at […]
Billionaire Bill Gates doesn’t use the term “common core” much anymore, but he still dabbles. In 2008, he agreed to bankroll the effort. Over the next several years, in his effort to “release powerful market forces” because “scale is good for free market competition,” Gates spent roughly $200M to cement Common Core as a fixture […]
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