I agree with you, OP. The money trail definitely indicates that corporations have taken over public education with the aid of big government. I tried the public school system and found it rigid, uninspiring, inflexible and lacking in basic humanity towards children in the earliest, critical grades. There was little to no understanding of or tolerance for developmental differences in early childhood and no demonstrated ability to effectively manage these differences in the classroom. It is now truly a system in every way that treats children like cookie-cutter widgets coming off the assembly line. Any deviation from the mold gets you labeled as possible special needs and tossed into the lion's den of the SN industrial complex, which is as out of control in Washington as any other industry there and populated with "experts" of dubious quality. I am so grateful that I have the money to make a different choice and so sorry for the families that don't. Kids deserve better than to be treated this way and I can't even fathom why teachers would bother to put in the effort anymore when they are treated with zero professional respect.

Anonymous wrote:

...for the purposes of maximizing education for our young one needs the services of lawyers to find out what our children are doing in math in order that we as parents can help them.

This lack of transparency from the top down is preposterous. I suspect the Board of Education and MCPS are equally nontransparent about how they spend the tax payers money ($1.2 billion/yr for the school system). Time to look under the hood with our own lawyers!!!

And predates both Pearson and the Common Core standards.

What do you mean by this -- teachers can't make Pearson materials available to parents? If your child completed a worksheet or test with his/her name on it, then it's an educational record subject to FERPA, whether or not Pearson created it. The school might not send it home, and instead require you to come to school to see it, and/or require you to sign a non-disclosure form. Schools even have to do this for major standardized tests (whether created by Pearson or whoever) like the MSA, etc.

If you're talking about curriculum materials created by Pearson, then that's true, curriculum materials aren't subject to FERPA because they're not attached to any one student, so they're not educational records. And, I think that's a really big problem because parents don't actually know what their student is doing.

...for the purposes of maximizing education for our young one needs the services of lawyers to find out what our children are doing in math in order that we as parents can help them.

This lack of transparency from the top down is preposterous. I suspect the Board of Education and MCPS are equally nontransparent about how they spend the tax payers money ($1.2 billion/yr for the school system). Time to look under the hood with our own lawyers!!!

Anonymous wrote:Surprised by this as McKinsey usually does good work. Standards are not a problem. Common tests across the nation to give comparative data is not a problem. The problem is that the execution and development of these has been a total failure.

Systems like MCPS made the whole situation worse by combining ineptitude, political desires to hide the achievement gap by lowering standards, and obsession over test scores to create the awful 2.0. If this wasn't bad enough, they screwed up the implementation and its a mess across the county.

I am surprised that the DOE has allowed Pearson to take advantage of dumb school systems like MCPS. Its understandable that Pearson as a company copyrights everything and wants to resell it. They can do this. However, if a school system agrees to these rules then they are IMO violating FERPA by restricting access to student educational records to protect the agreement with the company.

FERPA basically protects a student's right to have any material that constitutes an educational record. While the DOE has supported exceptions for things like copies of SAT tests, the Pearson model takes this so much further for basically everything in the curriculum. Students in MCPS do get back their quizzes, tests, or exams. Teachers can not make Pearson materials available to parents. It places a burden on teachers to come up with alternatives to provide anything that goes home.

What do you mean by this -- teachers can't make Pearson materials available to parents? If your child completed a worksheet or test with his/her name on it, then it's an educational record subject to FERPA, whether or not Pearson created it. The school might not send it home, and instead require you to come to school to see it, and/or require you to sign a non-disclosure form. Schools even have to do this for major standardized tests (whether created by Pearson or whoever) like the MSA, etc.

If you're talking about curriculum materials created by Pearson, then that's true, curriculum materials aren't subject to FERPA because they're not attached to any one student, so they're not educational records. And, I think that's a really big problem because parents don't actually know what their student is doing.

You make it sound so sinister, OP. But, you know, it's not.

Anonymous wrote:

Maybe you are okay with these corporations taking over American Education, I for one am not.

I'll indulge your irrationality for just a second.

Considering that big corporations employ huge numbers of American workers and therefore have a pretty good idea of the skills they require from the workforce, I'm actually perfectly OK with corporations having a tremendous influence on American education.

I find your fixation to be truly bizarre though.

Anonymous wrote:Systems like MCPS made the whole situation worse by combining ineptitude, political desires to hide the achievement gap by lowering standards, and obsession over test scores to create the awful 2.0. If this wasn't bad enough, they screwed up the implementation and its a mess across the county.

Not sure how this is going to "hide" the achievement gap. ?

Anonymous wrote:Systems like MCPS made the whole situation worse by combining ineptitude, political desires to hide the achievement gap by lowering standards, and obsession over test scores to create the awful 2.0. If this wasn't bad enough, they screwed up the implementation and its a mess across the county.

Which MCPS standards are lower than they used to be?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is your point? That the educational publishing companies that make money from selling educational materials will make money from selling educational materials?

Also, neither Pearson nor the PARCC consortium owns the copyright to the Common Core standards, so I don't understand the connection between the copyright and states pulling out of PARCC tests. Especially since many states are now going to use their own, individual, state tests aligned to the Common Core standards.

Many states have pulled out due to cost, It's cheaper for states to design their own standards.

Ask yourself why it's cheaper for an individual state to design a test, instead of using a commercial product that would be used for multiple states that has received 186 million dollars from the Fed? Where is that money going?

Design their own tests, you mean?

How do you know that it's cheaper for states to design their own tests? How do the costs of PARCC compare to the costs of Smarter Balanced?

As for why it's cheaper (if it is) -- if the state paid me to design the test, it would be a lot cheaper than either PARCC or Smarter Balanced, but it might not necessarily be as good...

Surprised by this as McKinsey usually does good work. Standards are not a problem. Common tests across the nation to give comparative data is not a problem. The problem is that the execution and development of these has been a total failure.

Systems like MCPS made the whole situation worse by combining ineptitude, political desires to hide the achievement gap by lowering standards, and obsession over test scores to create the awful 2.0. If this wasn't bad enough, they screwed up the implementation and its a mess across the county.

I am surprised that the DOE has allowed Pearson to take advantage of dumb school systems like MCPS. Its understandable that Pearson as a company copyrights everything and wants to resell it. They can do this. However, if a school system agrees to these rules then they are IMO violating FERPA by restricting access to student educational records to protect the agreement with the company.

FERPA basically protects a student's right to have any material that constitutes an educational record. While the DOE has supported exceptions for things like copies of SAT tests, the Pearson model takes this so much further for basically everything in the curriculum. Students in MCPS do get back their quizzes, tests, or exams. Teachers can not make Pearson materials available to parents. It places a burden on teachers to come up with alternatives to provide anything that goes home.

Anonymous wrote:What is your point? That the educational publishing companies that make money from selling educational materials will make money from selling educational materials?

Also, neither Pearson nor the PARCC consortium owns the copyright to the Common Core standards, so I don't understand the connection between the copyright and states pulling out of PARCC tests. Especially since many states are now going to use their own, individual, state tests aligned to the Common Core standards.

Many states have pulled out due to cost, It's cheaper for states to design their own standards.

Ask yourself why it's cheaper for an individual state to design a test, instead of using a commercial product that would be used for multiple states that has received 186 million dollars from the Fed? Where is that money going?

Where does that diagram come from?

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 <-- Pearson Gates big data connection.

When you dive in and connect the Common Core policy makers it becomes a myriad of connections, education in the US is in the trillions of dollars. Google it for yourself, you start seeing former CEO's of the largest corporations in the US/world are also involved. Barrett (former CEO Intel), Gerstner (former CEO IBM), McKinsey - multinational Big Data company.

Maybe you are okay with these corporations taking over American Education, I for one am not.

What is your point? That the educational publishing companies that make money from selling educational materials will make money from selling educational materials?

Also, neither Pearson nor the PARCC consortium owns the copyright to the Common Core standards, so I don't understand the connection between the copyright and states pulling out of PARCC tests. Especially since many states are now going to use their own, individual, state tests aligned to the Common Core standards.

I started a new thread because I was about to hijack another thread with this topic.

Anonymous wrote:MCPS curriculum is open to interpretation. So the same indicators are taught and assessed differently from school to school. It's so frustrating!!!

Textbooks, workbooks, & websites aligned to MCPS's version of common core should be provided. Teachers need to be on the same page and instructing the same way. And parents need to be able to reference these methods for remediation at home, if needed.

It's always about the money, follow the money and you find the truth. Quote from Bill Gates the largest financial backer of Common Core. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/media-center/speeches/2009/07/bill-gates-national-conference-of-state-legislatures-ncsl

When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching.[b] For the first time, there will be a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better. Imagine having the people who create electrifying video games applying their intelligence to online tools that pull kids in and make algebra fun.[/b]

WE are that large base of customers who will be eager to buy products, both as parents and state school systems. Parents will spend any amount of money for their kids to learn, and all these resources are not going to be opensource. Common Core Standards are copyrighted. This is why many states have pulled out of PARCC testing. Pearson makes Halliburton look like a charity compared to what they are going to make on education.