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My a-ha moment came when I realized CCSS and testing arent the real problems. Theyre symptoms of a bigger problem. The real problem is a systemic, far-reaching one that can be stopped only by a revolt among parents and educators. The real problem is that a very few, very wealthy individuals override the voices of thousands upon thousands of experienced educators and parents.
The real problem is that Bill Gates, who has put more than $200 million into the CCSS, has more influence than his millions of customers. The Walton family has more influence than the 1.4 million Americans who try to scrape together a living working at their stores. The Broad Foundation carries more weight than the 15,000 elected school boards in this country.
The huge education companies, with Pearson at the head of the pack, have a hugely profitable lock on the education system. They write the tests, which favor their own textbooks and packaged teacher training. They administer and score the hundreds of thousands of tests administered each year. They pour huge amounts of money into the coffers of politicians and so-called reform organizations.
Friends, this is, pure and simple, a corporate takeover of American public education. When the education companies have more say-so in developing standards than experienced educators, we are out of whack. When education decisions are driven by profit instead of real student achievement, we have utterly surrendered control of what happens to our children in public schools.
The federal Department of Education was designed to be a clearinghouse for good ideas and an administrator of federal grant money for schools. It now produces inequitable funding schemes like Race to the Top that tie getting our own tax dollars into our own schools to corporate-driven, untested and unreliable processes. We are losing voice in how our children are educated. When the Congress of the United States lets the DOE get away with such a travesty of justice and wisdom, it makes the problem even more intractable.
