"Teacher of the Year" quits over Common Core tests

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If NEA and AFT had truly turned their backs on CC in betrayal of the Gates Foundation as you claim, then why would the Gates Foundation continue to support NEA and AFT? Your claim just doesn't make sense.

Gates needs the NEA and the AFT. Without them, he will have a much harder time. You cannot do something this big without all kinds of buy in.

At this point it's already questionable whether the buy in is enough. If you've got people arguing, states dropping tests, parents opting out, teachers quitting, etc., then you need to put the horse out of its misery.

Certainly there is a lot of noise from the arguing. However -- Which states are dropping which tests? How many parents are opting out, and to what extent is that related to the Common Core standards, as opposed to testing? How many teachers are quitting because of the Common Core standards? I'd like to see some data and documentation.

[Anonymous]

Wrong. Any professional organization who had that information would have published it. Unless, the results were not positive.

+1000 If this were something that really backed up their cause, the pro CC people would have it out there front and center. You wouldn't have to go digging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

+100 the person looking for it should just go and ask for it!! Also, the person making the accusations (that being the anti-CCer) has the burden of proof to meet in the accusations - yet keeps failing to do so!

Wrong. Any professional organization who had that information would have published it. Unless, the results were not positive.

You are just pulling that out of nowhere.

Where it comes to workgroup comments and input for standards development, there's a lot of it that would typically be considered interim work product, which is typically *NOT* published by professional organizations. When I go on NEA or AFT's websites I don't see or have access to their detailed emails about any of their work. When I go to a standards site like ISO or ANSI I don't get access to their detailed workgroup exchanges leading up to development of the standard. Typically, people only get access to that if they are actually involved and participating in workgroup listservs and other collaboration tools. So no, professional organizations typically *don't* just publish all of that wholesale. The fact that one can't see the detailed input and commentary on something like an ISO or ANSI standard doesn't make it invalid, nor does it in any way imply that people were shut out of the process, or that it was closed-door - NOR does it imply that the input and commentary wasn't positive. You are drawing many conclusions that are simply invalid.

And this is something I actually know quite a bit about, because I've been participating in the work of numerous professional and standards organizations, nationally and internationally, for over 15 years.

[Anonymous]

Certainly there is a lot of noise from the arguing. However -- Which states are dropping which tests? How many parents are opting out, and to what extent is that related to the Common Core standards, as opposed to testing? How many teachers are quitting because of the Common Core standards? I'd like to see some data and documentation.

The Chicago public schools got cold feet and, before they could find out exactly how bad the opt out was going to be (and it was looking bad), they ran for political cover and decided to only test 10% of their students. I'm not sure you'll get the full documentation and data as other state and local governments look for political cover. They really would rather not have this thing play out and make them look ridiculous. They'd like to get ahead of the "data" (because letting this stuff happen does not make for great political careers).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Wrong. Any professional organization who had that information would have published it. Unless, the results were not positive.

+1000 If this were something that really backed up their cause, the pro CC people would have it out there front and center. You wouldn't have to go digging.

There has already been plenty of information presented to debunk the claims, that there were no teachers involved, that they didn't have any input, et cetera. Many examples and details have been given, to demonstrate sufficiently enough that the claims have no merit. But instead, they are choosing to try and turn it into a slippery slope of moving goal posts and unreasonability.

The analogy would be that the anti-CCers started out claiming the moon has no craters, but having now been handed a telescope to see for themselves, they still aren't satisfied, and are now demanding to know the exact number of craters, their names, coordinates, diameters and impact dates for when they were created before accepting the fact that there are indeed many craters present. But what then? Next, they will want to be physically there, touching the craters? But then they will decide that this isn't enough either, they will demand a time machine, so that they can be physically present to witness the formation of the crater before actually accepting it...

[Anonymous]

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database#q/k=american%20federation%20of%20teachers

Gates has only given 150K to AFT since 2012--and that was in 2013. Looks like the Common Core bloom is off the rose.

[Anonymous]

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database#q/k=national%20education%20association

No grants listed to NEA since 2013.

[Anonymous]

The analogy would be that the anti-CCers started out claiming the moon has no craters, but having now been handed a telescope to see for themselves, they still aren't satisfied, and are now demanding to know the exact number of craters, their names, coordinates, diameters and impact dates for when they were created before accepting the fact that there are indeed many craters present. But what then? Next, they will want to be physically there, touching the craters? But then they will decide that this isn't enough either, they will demand a time machine, so that they can be physically present to witness the formation of the crater before actually accepting it

Yeah, exactly the same as asking to see proof and documentation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The analogy would be that the anti-CCers started out claiming the moon has no craters, but having now been handed a telescope to see for themselves, they still aren't satisfied, and are now demanding to know the exact number of craters, their names, coordinates, diameters and impact dates for when they were created before accepting the fact that there are indeed many craters present. But what then? Next, they will want to be physically there, touching the craters? But then they will decide that this isn't enough either, they will demand a time machine, so that they can be physically present to witness the formation of the crater before actually accepting it

Yeah, exactly the same as asking to see proof and documentation.

I thought it was a very nice analogy, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database#q/k=american%20federation%20of%20teachers

Gates has only given 150K to AFT since 2012--and that was in 2013. Looks like the Common Core bloom is off the rose.

I'm confused. What's the argument now? Teachers hate the Common Core standards, except for the AFT and the NEA, but that's only because the Gates Foundation bought them, except that the Gates Foundation has now moved on to other perfidious doings, and so therefore the AFT and the NEA something something something?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The analogy would be that the anti-CCers started out claiming the moon has no craters, but having now been handed a telescope to see for themselves, they still aren't satisfied, and are now demanding to know the exact number of craters, their names, coordinates, diameters and impact dates for when they were created before accepting the fact that there are indeed many craters present. But what then? Next, they will want to be physically there, touching the craters? But then they will decide that this isn't enough either, they will demand a time machine, so that they can be physically present to witness the formation of the crater before actually accepting it

Yeah, exactly the same as asking to see proof and documentation.

Let's be real here -

The anti-CCers have already been shown the craters, can see many of them with a telescope that they have been handed, they already have been given the names, coordinates and diameters of many craters, yet they are still running around screaming from the rooftops that the craters don't exist because they didn't weren't handed a full and complete inventory, detailed database and geological analysis of each and every lunar crater in existence.

Every time proof and documentation is given, they just either just move the yardstick of "proof and documentation" or ignore it altogether and just start in again with the claims and accusations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database#q/k=american%20federation%20of%20teachers

Gates has only given 150K to AFT since 2012--and that was in 2013. Looks like the Common Core bloom is off the rose.

Scroll down to the timeline.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bill-gates-pulled-off-the-swift-common-core-revolution/2014/06/07/a830e32e-ec34-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html
How Bill Gates pulled off the swift Common Core revolution

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/Quick-Links/Grants-Database#q/k=american%20federation%20of%20teachers

Gates has only given 150K to AFT since 2012--and that was in 2013. Looks like the Common Core bloom is off the rose.

I'm confused. What's the argument now? Teachers hate the Common Core standards, except for the AFT and the NEA, but that's only because the Gates Foundation bought them, except that the Gates Foundation has now moved on to other perfidious doings, and so therefore the AFT and the NEA something something something?

Exactly. The claim that AFT and NEA were "bought" doesn't make sense.

[Anonymous]

First it was the grand Pearson conspiracy. Now it's the grand Bill Gates conspiracy. Pretty sure Bill Gates doesn't own Pearson, or vice-versa.

[Anonymous]

Pretty sure Bill Gates doesn't own Pearson, or vice-versa.

No--but there is a partnership. Go read the Wapo article posted a few posts up.