Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I’m excited for competence. I just hope we don’t see a bunch of feelgood social engineering policies that dumb down the schools in a failed attempt at equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity.
Do you ever think your knee jerk reaction to new policies means you aren’t evaluating them fairly?
DP. No, we've tried dumbing down schools. It fails everyone. Now we're ready to return to academic excellence.
No, I’m saying why are you assuming that anyone is talking about “dumbing down” anything? That’s the knee jerk here that I’m talking about. Are you in education? I’m not; my kids’ education - even in distance learning - doesn’t seem dumbed down. It sounds like a right wing talking point.
Let me google the people/groups represented for the Dept of Ed:
Linda Darling-Hammond at Learning Policy Institute: “ LPI conducts and communicates independent, high-quality research to improve education policy and practice.” Darling-Hammond was from Stanford, and LPI was to focus on recognizing that school looks different now than it did 50 years ago, looking at strong early ed programs with measurable outcomes to scale them up, attracting talented new teachers, and looking for ways to increase equity so that poor and homeless students and their schools aren’t left in the dust.
https://edsource.org/2015/new-institute-in-palo-alto-aims-to-help-shape-state-national-k-12-policy/86100 No dumbing down here.
Ary Amerikaner at The Education Trust - “Fierce advocates for the high academic achievement of all students — particularly those of color or living in poverty.“
https://edtrust.org/ Huh. Sounds like no dumbing here, either.
Beth Antunez at American Federation of Teachers. Probably good to have teachers represented for once. No dumbing down here.
Jim Brown retired, but here’s the relevant bit of his bio: “Jim is also a trustee of several educational institutions, including Immaculata University, the Gesu School and the Young Scholars Charter School. He is a director of the Pennsylvania Center for Excellence in Education (the advisory board for the Pennsylvania Governor’s Schools) and serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Foundation.”
https://www.casey.senate.gov/newsroom/releases/senator-elect-casey-announces-key-staff-positions Sounds like he might support excellence.
There are 16 other people, and I’m going to guess they all bring as much to the table as the first four listed. So now after googling I think your sour grapes about “dumbing down” are a right wing talking point. But maybe you think Betsy Devos, hater of both teachers and secular education, was a better woman.