Did you notice that transformations is plural? That added ‘s’ is not a case of early morning hyper typing. As I have mentioned numerous times with substantial evidence in my book Credentialed to Destroy and this blog, we cannot separate out the end goals in our real world from the intention of using education to change what “type of person” students will become as adults. That inextricable reality of global K-12 education reform that the Common Core is tied to was brought painfully home this week when I came across this new report from KnowledgeWorks. http://www.knowledgeworks.org/sites/default/files/Improving-Student-Outcomes-Through-Collective-Impact.pdf
In case you are not familiar with KnowledgeWorks, it is a well-connected nonprofit that has Clinton’s Education Secretary and Carnegie Vice Chair Richard Riley on its Board. It gets financing from the Gates, Carnegie, and Hewlett Foundations and pushes the Education reforms that were controversial in the 90s. This time though “There will be no Notice so There can be no Choice” could be the motto. So when KW creates a Policy Guide for Federal Policymakers (aka DC bureaucrats) that says that only those communities pushing a shared vision grounded in Uncle Karl’s vision of “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” will be getting “federal place-based education grants,” we are about to have a problem. Especially if the local mayor or city council or school board wants to tout the disguised communitarian mandate as a ‘local’ idea.
Committing to transforming workplaces, the built environment, economies, and all the things governments will now do for all citizens is rather a large transformation. Everywhere in the world that is pushing this, which unfortunately amounts to everywhere ordinary people have ever been free to make their own choices, sees education as the means for forcing this change, like it or not. Here is as succinct a description of the end game person to be carved out by all these reforms as I can find. It is as if people now are to be treated as a block of ice to be produced into a form ready for a tony reception centerpiece on demand. Apt snark in brackets.
“Individuals who: (1) are constantly authenticating or reconstructing their beliefs through experience and reflection [Dweck’s Growth Mindset]; (2) are capable of critically analysing and transcending given texts, contexts, systems and structures [ready to jettison the world as it is for a world that might be and may work even worse]; (3) are able to prosper in changeable social, cultural and economic environments [all those other transformations to be pursued above as collective impact partnerships to get federal funds like the WIOA I despise]; (4) have recognised and developed passions, talents, and capacities which they willingly contribute to productive and cooperative purposes [that would explain why putting others first ended up as a requirement of the Career Ready Standards and all the references to collaboration]; (5) have a strong sense of identity, autonomy and self-efficacy [precisely what Facing History and the Anti-bias Standards are determined to create]; and (6) have a genuine respect for themselves and others [remember the Affirmative Code of Student Conduct now mischievously required in all classrooms?]”
The Australians call that the Key Abilities Model created by Global Change Agent Michael Fullan’s New Theory of Education and we simply cannot get there via a fact-based, lecture curriculum that is about content knowledge in the traditional sense. I mentioned Opt-Out because that is the remedy I kept hearing about while I was out in California. If the model of Next Generation Learning and Competency-based is to get rid of traditional tests altogether, opting out may be the proverbial jump from the frying skillet into the fire itself. Let’s quote an April 2013 Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) document called “The Pathway to Possibility” on the new type of “measures of learning” desired. Please remember that KnowledgeWorks is closely tied to NGLC.
“Different approaches to learning and revised definitions of success require new metrics that accurately reflect both the process [of personal change] and the product [the changes in the student] of learning and attainment. Such a shift would mean enormous changes in measurement design by itself, but that level of change is compounded by new thinking about the role of assessment in learning, both in the United States and internationally. Rather than being used primarily (often solely) for summative purposes–e.g., an on-demand final exam–assessment is increasingly understood to be an essential, ongoing, highly integrated component of the learning process.”
Embedded then in classwork like gaming or the online software increasingly ubiquitous in classrooms, this change the student capability goes by the names “assessing for learning” and “formative assessment.” If parents are unaware that changing how the student perceives the world from the inside out is the new purpose of curricula and what happens in the classroom, they may miss that the Opt Out hype aids this always intended transition. I personally believe that the pain of constant testing has been deliberately heightened precisely so that frustrated parents will proclaim no more objective measuring of what is happening in the classroom. It’s too frustrating for the kids. Then the real extent of the psychological shifts and the lack of real factual knowledge will be easy to miss. At least until the transformation is irreversible.
That’s the hope anyway. Let’s go back to Australia then to once again appreciate that the student’s basic assumptions about the nature of reality are what these reforms are really targeting. http://www.aare.edu.au/data/publications/2004/sea04954.pdf lays out the New Global Educational Paradigm. It’s just a matter of social science theory and our children and society itself are the intended guinea pigs for real-world testing. Wish we could opt out of this. Maybe we can if enough people are aware in time. These are the 15 Constructs of the desired changes in identity, dispositions and orientations to the world K-12 education is to be creating in students. These are the “transformational outcomes” desired.
Construct 1 is “Reality is not discovered, but constructed“. The world is what a person perceives and believes and there is no objective reality. That would certainly explain the disdain for lectures, textbooks, and phonetic reading to allow a dialogue with the past.
Construct 2 is “Human life transcends the appearance of duality.” That stunner insists we are not in fact separate from the world we inhabit and this historic duality gets bridged by making action and experience the classroom focus.
Construct 3 is “Human life is purposeful.” How a person interprets “objects, concepts, ideas, speech, events, actions and contexts depends on the individual’s purposes or perceptions of a problem.” So facts gets minimised and values and beliefs get all the attention so that purposes and perceptions can be usefully manipulated.
Constructive 4 is “Human Consciousness is evolutionary.” Not in a way that has anything to do with apes. Here the brain must be constantly willing to adapt how it interprets that real world. This theory calls for deliberately introducing conflict [aka rigor] so that the frustrating inconsistency will force a revision of our “internal schemes or internal reference standards (the experiential goals which drive our behavior)”. That would be the authoritarian goals I mentioned in the previous post that are supposed to be superior to mere rote learning of facts.
Construct 5 is “Human individuals are autonomous agents.” This translates into a person will fight external demands or limits imposed by arbitrary authority. So of course the answer is to make the control invisible and internal via education. Construct 6 is that “Human beings need to be familiar with the world around them.” That one bluntly boils down to how people organize their experience impacts their willingness to act to transform the world. Construct 7 is that “Human beings are vulnerable to conditioning.” Exploiting that has become the entire basis for graduate education degrees.
Construct 8 is “Particular forms of experience alienate human beings from our selves and the world.” Book knowledge gets in the way of transforming current reality is the concern. Construct 9 is “Authentic human beings can help others to become authentic.” Authentic means transcending current definitions and given systems and changing everything that currently exists. No, there’s nothing about collective impact but it fits. Construct 10 is “Intelligence is adaptive action.” Beginning to see a pattern? A person should be willing to change how they see the world to fit with their aims. Yes, this is a construct only a tenured prof would come up with, not someone spending their own money.
Construct 11 is “Life is change.” So is drowning, but that’s no reason to actively pursue it. Construct 12 is “Particular forms of experience create a disposition to intelligent action.” Of course those types of experiences must become the virtual reality of gaming or apprenticeships in the new design of high schools. Construct 13 is “A human being’s identity can transcend definitions.” That is particularly easy if the education paradigm proclaims the Death of the Gutenberg Era in order to deemphasize the magical effects on the mind of print.
Construct 14 is “Every human being is a conscious and autonomous process of becoming.” That is almost precisely what the NEA, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers wanted to make the new focus of K-12 education back in 1962. Everything old is new again for the 21st Century as Next Generation Learning. Sounds better than Humanist Psychology, doesn’t it?
Finally, Construct 15 is “Human beings change ourselves and our world.” Education here seeks to create an “awareness that texts, contexts, systems, and structures are not unalterable givens, but things that challenge us.”
That sounds precisely like the goal of that Collective Impact report we started with.
What’s the correct word to describe the intentions of these 15 constructs?
What happens when all these sought changes are involuntary and undisclosed to the people being changed and the taxpayers funding it all?
My take,
Construct 1
” create your own reality”
New age EST type mantra
Construct 2
3. Human capital
4 barbara marx hubbard
5 UN convention on rights of the child… You belong to the community, the village. 11 year olds can give consent for sex sith adults ( see court case in Rome). Effort endeavor to take away or lower age of consent, ie human capital see construct 3
6 they mean the magical world or who the enemy is
7 ha ha do not get conditioned by the enemy
8 books history parents God
9 authentic means fake
10 be smart adapt or we eliminate you ( uh hunger games much?)
11 life is change ” be the change”
Uropian treadmill trotting
12 ” take risks”
13. GBLTQ weaponized
14. New age becoming jim jones, becoming hare krishna, becoming the god within you, becoming an alien…..enter the utopian collective age of Aquarius, occult/new age/ antiChristian/humanism/alice baily/aleister crowley
“Carl Rogers similarly wrote of “the curative force in psychotherapy – man’s tendency to actualize …. Self-actualization is at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – becoming ‘”fully human”…maturity or …”
15. Change yourself, you are not good enough for the collective, self doubt, narcissistic low self esteem, perfect citizen of 21st century conversion consiousness
Politico is pushing this Opt Out video this morning that is from last March. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ayYajsQjg8
Listening to the parents, this is definitely a push for formative assessment whether parents understand language being used or not.
The purpose of formative assessment though should be fully appreciated for what it is. I am not done yet, but I am done on the Opt Out. We are going to explore the specific visions of our imagined futures tied to what Knowledge Works is pushing. Did you know they worked with Institute for the Future on all this?
That means the alarming things Marina Gorbis said here http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/weak-humanscomputersexpert-modelling-of-captured-data-is-this-your-approved-vision-of-the-21st/
and what Jane McGonigal calls the Social Justice purpose of Gaming. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/when-gaming-intends-to-shape-and-distort-our-perceptions-of-everything-around-us-viva-la-revolution/
And to think KnowledgeWorks is tied to some of the lawyers representing school districts. No wonder everything is pushing for transformative change at the psychological level as if nothing can stop the intended predation.
Here is the site referenced in the video and it makes it clear that this is about pushing to performance assessments. http://changethestakes.wordpress.com/testing-info/alternative-assessments/
When Linda Darling-Hammond is pushing for the most radical type of assessment in her SCALE work tied to Equity, PARCC and SBAC are way too knowledge-based still and this NY Performance Consortium and IB Diploma exams are cited as the preferred alternative. That NYC Consortium was created for Ted Sizer’s Essential Schools Coalition. Grant Wiggins who created Understanding By Design that now guides teacher training for the new envisioned classroom used to head assessment for CES.
Again how many Opt Out parents get they are being used for a even more intense psychological experimentation agenda pursued for political transformation towards collectivism. I will prove the last word in the next post.
Here’s a disadvantage of a portfolio. How do we know if it’s good enough?
Duh.
Oh yeah, standards aren’t involving things like “good enough” any more.
What will happen to these piles of bull … er, I mean portfolios, after the end of the school year?
madmommy-I am afraid I have seen this coming ever since I first read that Affirmative Student Code of Conduct but here it is. http://specialeducationlawblog.blogspot.com/2014/10/dont-call-people-stupid.html
Same week the fed Ed releases a guidance letter seeing ‘bullying’ of students with disabilities as a civil rights violation that must be remedied. Now I would agree that stupid is a mean word, but where is this all going? When the quoted alternatives were read, I thought “where’s the eternal recognition that some people are just dense.”
The lack of that light in the eyes. Noticing that is no longer allowed? That just promotes the already nauseating tendency of the unremarkable intellect that has no clue it is nothing special and thus has no incentive to try to become more.
We are going to make education about changing perception and then muzzle any ability to overtly notice the unperceptive or to attach consequences to the lack of perception. Let’s face it. Even if we equalize credentials, the unperceptive and slow to grasp make really lousy employees.
Will employers be told they have to reduce all instructions to a visual powerpoint so that it is easier to comprehend what the boss needs from you? Oh, I forgot. This is the fantasy world of the collaborative workplace where the abilities of some are available to benefit all.
This stuff is already in the church! When I moved to Texas in 2001 I went to a church already using this type of language. “Authentic”, “purposeful”, “tangible”, it was all there. I had no idea about all this then, but I kept wondering why they used the word “authentic” in their sign by the road? “Authentic people having an authentic relationship with Christ”. I wondered, “Why are they using that word? Is everyone else fake and have a fake relationship with Christ?” It bothered me a bit then but I had no idea really why it did. I just did not like it.
Construct 1 is “Reality is not discovered, but constructed“.
See Mao’s “Great leap Forward” in which 35 million Chinese starved to death. See his mandated backyard furnaces for making steel. That was reality. See current ‘green jobs’ and ‘green energy’ and ‘sustainability.’ There is such a thing as reality which exists apart from the mind of the observer. Some people have to freeze and starve in the dark to believe in reality, if then. More likely, they make others freeze and starve in the dark.
Opt out of traditional testing? OK, I’ll bite. What happens then? No tests in tech school or professional schools either? Will pilots or doctors have to pass tests? What happens when these kids have to face a real test for the first time? What happens when they have to face the reality of meeting a deadline or selling a product or making a customer happy? Those are tests as well. Not everyone can work for the govt.
BTW can anyone recommend related blogs or forums? I don’t want to take things off topic here.
Look what Cass Sunstein wrote about the Chinese ed reforms. http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-05-20/open-brain-insert-ideology Formative assessments are so helpful.
I actually have the Chinese statement somewhere tying these reforms to the polytech vision that is the object of the new kind of high schools in the US.
I am reading Jung Chang’s book on Mao now, partly because the model is being pushed so by Pearson and also because the professional development trainer being used locally, Spence Rogers of PEAK, wrote about his admiration for Mao. I have wondered what is wrong with the people pushing education for this kind of transformative change. Some it is greed. Others political. While others simply push whatever gets the next promotion and do not care how it hurts kids. Teachers then get caught up in what the administrators force on them as they seek more lucrative promotions to get that taxpayer 6 figure pension for life.
I did not make it all the way through the Mao book but may some day. I concluded that Mao was a monster megalomaniac who was in it for himself. Communism may have just been his hustle. His treatment/murder of fellow communists for personal gain (not any ideological differences) was chilling, especially of fellow military leaders.
China is complicated and I do not understand it. One author challenged the reader to name the Chinese dictator and asked how many dictators have to work their way up over 30 or more years through various assignments then serve two terms then step down?
I then read the book The Party, by Richard McGregor. I was still confused but learned much. Many dissidents, even those writing books are simply ignored and the govt lets the story die, similar to the US MSM. I concluded that China is a ‘Democracy’ but that only 10% of the people can vote; party members. There is corruption (how much relative to the US banks, politicians and Wall Street???) but if you push things too far you get a bullet in the head. A Jon Corzine would likely be be executed.
BTW Any push towards teaching Confucius is likely a push to restore traditional values. Such teaching was forbidden under Mao.
http://www.amazon.com/Party-Secret-Chinas-Communist-Rulers-ebook/dp/B003L77ZTS/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414521020&sr=1-1&keywords=9780061998089
Eclectic-you will probably appreciate this talk about a week ago from Alfred Spector of Google on where education is going. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141022-are-we-getting-smarter
For this reporter to state that there is no research that this changes the brain is just sloppy or ignorant. That change is the whole point and very well-documented. It’s why this technology is called a Trojan Horse–because it eliminates genuinely analytical thinking. Yes, let’s substitute students interacting electronically via social media. Good way though to push Christos’ Structured Design Dialogue that was also trumpeted in Australia as a means of driving cultural evolution.
That’s actually what the Google exec is saying too. Shades of Brameld’s vision described in my book.
Even more alarming insights from Google from last week. http://mag.e-180.com/en/2014/10/googles-education-evangelist-wants-to-know-what-the-heck-you-mean-by-virtual-learning/
The source can be virtual but learning occurs within one’s being.
Please notice it is on a sight dedicated to shifting to a Sharing economy. Told ya, this is about broader transformations.
The Google exec was refreshing. “JC: … Of the 80 superintendents in the room, more than half stood up and said “virtual learning”. I got up and said: “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I don’t know what virtual learning is. All learning is learning. There’s no such thing as virtual learning..”
“JC: Right, right! But there is no such thing as virtual learning. Technology is not the solution. Technology is a tool.”, and other quotes.
The public schools worship of and money spent on technology made me gag when I saw it. Long ago I read two books by Clifford Stoll: _Silicon Snake Oil_. and _High-Tech Heretic_. I did not agree with his opinion on distance learning, especially now after having taken two MOOCs. I did agree with his dismal opinions of computers in the classroom.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&field-author=Clifford+Stoll&search-alias=books&text=Clifford+Stoll&sort=relevancerank
It is designed to be lucrative to cronies, limit what is to constitute ‘knowledge’ to the vetted desired concepts and ‘skills’ heavily influenced by sel and the visual, and stop the liberating effect that symbolic print and access to the minds of the Best and Brightest can have. Dewey recognized it bolstered that sense of individual uniqueness and that’s no longer OK.
Never forget too that the Khan Academy is physically next door to Google. If you have never watched the Edutopia video where Salman talks about Blended Learning allowing for the collaboration in the classroom around CUN problems, everyone should. That’s the new helpful insider acronym by the way.
Here’s an announcement from this week on how the flipped classroom gives more time for classroom ‘role playing’. http://www.kokomotribune.com/news/innovative-educator-wms-teacher-flips-class-to-offer-more-interaction/article_d83ab0e2-5ab4-11e4-8978-076e2e490e10.html Remember these local stories hit my radar because they are being trumpeted as national models to emulate.
Complex, unfamiliar, non-routine problems where there is no correct answer and students can collaborate and share their approaches and strategies and come to a shared understanding about what to do next. That’s a big part of both this role playing and all new ‘assessments’ and learning tasks. What actions to take based on beliefs, not genuine factual knowledge about what worked in the past or led to disasters.
Anon-read this explanation of the purpose of literature now and how it must be emotionally charged. http://www.teachingquality.org/content/blogs/jessica-keigan/good-writing-will-make-you-cry
It gives you a lens on human experience and changes you. How transdisciplinary, which is the official name for the 15 constructs described in this post. It’s about changing perception at the level of the student’s psyche. What could go wrong with such a vision.
I wanted to add who funds that Ctr for Teaching Quality that wants emotionally charged lit. http://www.teachingquality.org/about/funders
Anon-be sure and see this TED Talk on MOOCs that came out yesterday. http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/10/what-moocs-are-teaching-universities-about-active-learning/
Remember MOOCs are coming to the high school now as well. The online aspect caps what is ‘knowledge’ and the shared group experience component is what Courtney Cazden called the Discourse Classroom and why her colleague Ann Brown created the related concept of Fostering Communities of Learners. It’s what Christos called Structured Design Dialogue and what the Rockefeller Foundation calls Communication for Social Change. All are in agreement that students may come in with different perspectives based on their life experiences but the interaction is to leave them with a shared common understanding.
People envision MOOCs as this series of lectures where you have the approved textbook as well, but that’s not the desired paradigm at all.
Emphasis on people NOT caring about children. NOT caring about Hurting harming destroying demeaning debasing and grooming and using our flesh and blood.
Our babies. Our families. Our tribes. Our people. The immorality born of narcissism and damaged souls.
How do they live with themselves? How can they not be called monsters.
Note olympic opening ceremony scene of terrorized children in hospital beds with child catchers and cruellas of all brit lit hovering lordship over
them. .. I think sir michael barbour. It fits with the methods and outcomes desired by his collegues friends and products.
I find it all evidence of evil. Ideology that treats human life as a resource for exploitation is monstrous. Ergo evil.
Shades of medieval dungeons full of starving abused captors fodder for pederasts and deranged megalomaniacs. Instead the damage is employed from within, but the outcome will be the same.
Hello mao. We know this.
They’re already changing the MCAT exam that is used for entrance to medical exam. More psychology, less organic chemistry.
https://www.aamc.org/students/applying/mcat/mcat2015/
… entrance to medical school …
Well, knowing a bit about medical schools and their penchant for accepting students on the autism spectrum, who may not exactly relate to patients, I understand why this change is being promoted. I am far more alarmed at the Khan Academy tutorials for the new MCAT. What is next? The Khan Academy Step 1 and shelf exams? The Khan Academy residency program? Googleapps for physicians?
Khan treats learning as a closed loop system. These are the desired concepts. This is an illustration of their use in the real world. Let’s practice using them that way and develop those skills.
Then in the blended, interaction part, the students take that limited knowledge and practice reaching a shared understanding. Ever since I heard Daphne’s TED talk, spoke with software developers I know, and remembered all the determinations to create “new kinds of minds,” it becomes apparent that this is how to do it. It is just harder for us to see because we all have lots of facts at our disposal and read phonetically or we would not chart on an informational blog. That’s not the mind or habits that the K-12 students will be bringing to these MOOCs. Even the vocab at their disposal for thinking and all that ‘reflecting’ has been carefully parceled out.
Why do you think Lauren Resnick and the LRDC, that is so heavily involved in everything going back to the 60s, trademarked the term “Accountable Talk” for this go round?
David-if I remember right, you found me after I made a comment connecting the Climate scaremongering to what is going on in ed. You should take a look at this new report http://newclimateeconomy.report/
As I always say Climate is the excuse and ed is the way in whatever the reality. Notice that the vision in that report fits with the KnowledgeWorks/ Strive Together and Bruce Katz’s Metropolitanism vision of how the future should look. There is a consistency here. Also notice that Angel Gurria of the OECD who I talk about in the Book’s conclusion is there as is the pastor harassing Mayor of Houston. Houston uses the Appreciative Inquiry variation on creating the desired common understanding. David Cooperrider created it working with Kenneth Gergen, who was on the Gordon Commission that wants formative assessments.
This reminds me of that scene from that Steven Speilberg war movie where a Nazi soldier is politely gesturing his victim to be quite while he is slowly and quitely stabbing him in the neck. Now I understand that disturbing scene; this is that mentality.
The correct word for these 15 constructs is “Anti-Christ”, defined as a system “in place” of Jesus Christ, standing “against” Jesus Christ, and standing against “Truth”. This is the complete reversal of “the way, the truth, and the life”, “testifitying to the truth”, and “bringing life more abundantly”. These 15 constructs specifically turn these concepts completely upside down and was specifically prophesied these would be turned upside down in the end times:
II Timothy 3: Evil in the Last Days
1This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, 4Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; 5Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. 6For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, 7Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. 9But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.
Was the movie “Shindler’s List”?
Juxtapose that movie with this document:
“Humanistic_Morals_And_Values_Education-Vince_Nesbitt-19
81-34pgs-EDU.sml.pdf
Education for Social Change Humanistic education began in the U.S.A. in the progressive education movement, which dates from about 1905, and its founder is John Dewey, a pragmatist (“what works is good”) and a Humanist (first President of the American Humanist Society, and a signatory to Humanist Manifesto I). He aimed to introduce into the U.S.A. National Socialism, later known in Germany as Nazism, which he called “Collectivism”, and to use the schools as instruments of social change to bring this about . (18) Dewey changed the aim, content and methods of education in the U.S.A. In 1905 he organised, along with some Fabians, the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, which in 1921 changed its name to the League for Industrial Democracy, and this in turn formed in 1962 an action arm called the Students for a Democratic Society. The aim of the League was to put into the classroom teachers, into the pulpits preachers and into the trade unions leaders who were collectivists (reflecting the Fabian method) . Early in the century, Dewey formed the Progressive Education Association, and the American Association of University Professors, also committed to the goal of collectivizing the U .S.A. (19) The schools were seen as essential to the task: “Nothing less than thoroughgoing reconstruction is demanded, and there is no institution known to the mind of man that can compass the problem except education.” (20) Implementation of the plan was to be mainly through social studies, developed chiefly at that time by Dr George Counts .”
The entire document is posted here: http://www.americandeception.com/index.php?page=searchkeyword
I agree, all these words are in the church, and have been there since at least 2001 when I moved to Texas and noticed it. “life change”, “authentic”, “changing the world”, “change the culture”, “purposeful” is a big one, and many others. I think this type of thinking must have infiltrated seminaries and bible colleges before elementary schools in order to get religious families used to this language, where they would accept it? There is this concept going around that Christians need to put down their Bible and go “do something” for their community. You must be “experiential” and “be the church” in the community. Totally mixing up and changing definitions.
Robin–I very much enjoyed hearing you speak during your visit to Southern California. I’m sorry I didn’t get the chance to speak with you (although I leaned over and thanked you for the work you do here), but it was late and you were about to be mobbed.
Our public educational system no longer affects me directly, as I pulled my son out when he was in 7th grade, and he has since “graduated” (we unschooled, which is the reason for the quotes). I have attended several anti-Common Core meetings, but I don’t think I can stomach another one. The “Opt Out” business absolutely chaps my hide: it gives parents the illusion that they’re doing something to protect their kids, without actually making too much of an effort. Parents are woefully (and perhaps willfully) uninformed if they think that opting out of a single test will make ANY difference in the brainwashing of their child…and that’s exactly what they’re doing to our kids: brainwashing them.
Do you happen to know much about MK Ultra, the covert CIA brainwashing experiments carried out in the 50s and 60s (and possibly beyond)? This was only one of many similar black-ops programs. While I’m not suggesting that our kids today are being surreptitiously drugged with LSD (as far as I know, anyway), it is becoming increasingly clear that many of the same methods that were used during MK Ultra (and since perfected) are being used in the classroom…and there is no “opting out” without removing the child from school altogether.
So here is the question I have to ask: If homeschooling isn’t the answer, what is? And if there is no other alternative, then WHY isn’t it being presented as a solution at these meetings? What else will starve the beast AND protect our kids? I do appreciate the fact that not everyone can do it, but what difference does that make…since when did a solution have to be universal? Does it bother you that you expend all the time and effort you do to collect and present all of your research, without having any real solution to offer?
Our own conditioning and close-mindedness will be the downfall of this country…proof of how effective those brainwashing techniques are (and they’re only getting stronger). I pray that fear for our children’s safety will be a motivating factor and not a paralyzing one. We all know that our kids are OUR responsibility…what parent wants it any other way? But it’s time to step up and stop expecting the ones who got us into this mess to fix it for us. Why would they? It suits them just fine!
I don’t mean to sound judgmental or preachy, but I’m scared and MAD. I’ve been going to Common Core meetings for nearly two years now, attended by what I presume are the most concerned and involved parents, and it scares me witless that the “Opt Out” form is the best we’ve come up with.
I used to think there was no solution, but awareness is one. As a parent with Robin`s insights and book I have taught my daughter (5) to read by phonics, therefore blocking some of the damage. We are now in an old fashion private school, still teaching old school knowledge. Also by being aware of the techniques they use we can talk to our kids about values, daily and attempt to correct what might be done. I still think there is no fool proof way around reformer revolutions,even homeschool, awareness is certainly a start. They bank on people not knowing what they are doing in class.
n talk about how our kids are perceiving this worls
Susan-My solution is the extent to which I truly understand this. I truly nailed it down at multiple levels again today. Some of it was confessional from an international player that I can now read as if it were a foreign language. Other flows from little details that are stuck in my brain, like Jeremy Kilpatrick wanting to do his doctoral work on George Polya’s problem solving technique. That little detail shone a needed light today on something that turned out to be huge.
Another detail came from a parent who heard me in CA asking me about a particular group of charters I was not familiar with them, but the person I asked sent me a link that included another player I did recognize and suddenly we both had a huge amount of more solid links.
As an attorney conflicts of interest are something I basically presume until I am assured otherwise, but so many people never think to look for a stake in an outcome when they hear a pitch. Education is the single largest business in the world and so many people want that money into their coffers.
It looks to me now like the Opt Out is an organized effort not just to push digital learning and formative assessment, but it also gets the Gordon Commission’s agenda implemented without anyone being the wiser.
My knowledge in this area is not simply useful for protecting kids now and making parents and taxpayers aware of the broader transformations. Honestly, if we do wake enough people up, it will take the level of detail I have to roll this back. I know precisely where the primary poisons come from and essentially where the trigger points are. Somebody had to gain that level of detail who did not have a conflict of interest.
I learned a great deal in California. It’s why I like to get out and about now. People’s stories immediately fit with my knowledge and then augment it.
I did look at my book sales for the month and I was sad. It’s lower than last month and that means kids at risk from something that is genuinely evil.
I do not know anything about Ultra, but virtually everyone who has ever pushed this template at a high level has done a tour through the Center for Advanced Studies of the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. Cybernetics when properly understood is the way to make people work like predictable systems because this model does seek to fire up the nonrational instinctual, emotional parts of the brain and train the student to respond from there. That will be much harder to sell if we can ever really break through all these conflicts because it is documentably what is going on.
I am mad too. Now you know why I was so determined to tell this story and why I keep at the blog even if I then go upstairs and make Red Beans and Rice for dinner because it’s depressing not to be getting more traction on something so crucial.
I think I will splurge tonight and bake Granny Smiths to go with dinner.
Thanks for your kind words and support.
Robin, Perhaps you could include a recipe now and again to give the rest of us a little comfort vicariously 🙂
The connections you’re making of late are mind blowing and USEFUL. This post alone is a great tool to share with those who want to be rid of CC but mistakenly see Opting Out as the solution. While I feel parents should refuse the SBAC and PARCC tests, it’s a very small step in the battle. What makes this fight difficult, especially in CA, is so many parents know absolutely nothing about CC, so jumping into the reformers’ plans to globalize education via shaping minds is a wide chasm to leap, even though the facts are there to do so. As for me I just keep pointing those willing to listen to this page and to your book. Thanks, Robin, for all your knowledge–keep cooking (figuratively and literally).
http://nfnrc.org/files/resourceFiles/Jun%2011%20Cluster%20Action%20Clinic.pdf is a Sector Strategies doc specific to California.
The WIOA gives even greater powers. I am also concerned on the implications to Orange County of the Irvine Foundation being behind Linked Learning.
Must go be mom.
Jt-it really is a mistake to dwell on CCSS. It is a conduit to workforce readiness via 21st century skills and the global competency focus I laid out in book. I knew I was right but the stunning missing nature of any mention of the Common Core in virtually every official vision now is breathtaking. CCSSO itself now says it is to make students ready for “life, meaningful work, and citizenship.” That has been the slogan in 2013 and 2014 at their conferences.
Here’s a recent example from North Carolina http://www.ncpublicschools.org/docs/profdev/resources/skills/futurereadystudents.pdf Withdrawing formally from CCSS would mean nothing with this as state policy and WIOA on the books.
The feds launched another initiative that is not really being reported called Future Learning that touts the digital aspect in terms of workforce readiness. http://www.hawaiipublicschools.org/DOE%20Forms/FRL/FRLpledge.pdf Hawaii is the 9th largest school district in the country, but that is a form. 150 of the district supers who sign it will be invited to the White House in mid-November. Pictures for the Christmas cards indeed.
This is the announcement from the participating Alliance for Excellent Education yesterday. http://all4ed.org/school-district-transformation-through-the-future-ready-initiative-futureready/
Did you know Anthony Carnevale is there? Remember he wrote those troubling handbooks back around 1990. This simply furthers that dream by a slightly different route.
I am reading Richard Pipes, Harvard emeritus history prof’s 1998 book Freedom and Property and he and I are definitely on the same wavelength on the impossibility of what is being sought. My comfort again is that the facts are not in dispute. They are well understood by me. They are easily documentable. This is an agenda that is not OK with a braod spectrum of American society on a bipartisan basis. It’s not something any politician can justify in the sunlight. Any chance this could be put in place without it being recognized for what it is is gone. Just a matter of getting the word out.
Happy Halloween!! Hope everyone enjoys treats and no tricks. We will leave that to the advocates and creators of this vision.
Not sure if I’ve ever mentioned much of my school years were spent on Oahu. It is part of the US, but really has it’s own culture. Schooling is different there, not as much of a focus. Very liberal, I can see this taking over with full implementation.
LL-look at this. http://www.educationcommunities.org/welcome.do
Founding members, 3rd row at bottom, its your favorite symbol used to illustrate “Academy of Innovation–Interface Space”. Think of it as a way to say it’s all Dewey’s vision without saying it aloud. Good thing that vision is thoroughly explained in the book.
Ridiculously close to the Humanist symbol.
Oh, and one final thing: If you have the chance, there’s a French documentary about the cybernetic revolution that you might find valuable (I did): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLqrVCi3l6E&index=83&list=WL
As I was doing my civic duty I noticed this measure on education.
Have a not so good feeling about it.
http://www.oregon.gov/treasury/AboutTreasury/Pages/Opportunity-Initiative.aspx
Given the nature of higher ed these days, it may not be much of an investment, but that reminded me of Gar Alperowitz and the Democracy Collaborative pushing union pension funds to invest in businesses with the desired collaborative workforce and creating the desired sharing economy.
What a topsy turvy world.
Ha! I’d love to see unions, especially teachers unions, invest their pension money in “businesses with the desired collaborative workforce and creating the desired sharing economy.” They would learn something, for sure.
Typically taxpayers remain on the hook when there is an investment shortfall. Would also be on the hook for the dysfunction created by the investment.
Look at what I just put up on 18-26 year olds. Too immature not to be treated as wards in need of constant guidance but able to vote repeatedly.
18 – 26 year olds are also deemed mature enough to become debt slaves by signing student loan documents to keep classrooms full and professors and administrators employed. Auto dealers would love such contracts if they could enforce them. As I recall indentured servants got off after only 7 or 14 years?
The Great Recession which was caused primarily by government interventions and the escalating costs of higher ed, also caused primarily by…, are being used to justify “providing educational, economic, social, and health supports will help young adults assume adult roles, develop marketable skills, and adopt healthy lifelong habits that will benefit them, their children, and the nation.”
The federal agencies and philanthropies are quietly funding and mandating all this. If I did not follow closely and already comprehend the Human Development Model and where it comes from literally, none of this would be tied where it pointedly belongs. But we are hobbling our young people via education and then encouraging them to rely on governments at all levels being there to “meet the needs of marginalized young adults.”
Creating dependence that gets withdrawn at 26? That explicitly “shifts the focus from individuals’ difficulties or limitations to how society portrays and treats them”?
Let’s sell a narrative of funded unicorn rides and an ability to fly while we are at it. Perception may get their votes, but reality still determines what works and what destroys the existing capital and goodwill in a society. This treats all that as a given-the false fixed pie.
Here’s the 4 page summary in lieu of the full 388 page report for a taste. Just think how this fits into the push to grant amnesty to illegals after the election if we have committed to meeting all their ‘needs’.http://iom.edu/Reports/2014/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2014/YAreportbrief.pdf
Promise Zones are the federal initiative involving like 9 or 11 agencies to remake all aspects of the inner city. http://www.strivetogether.org/sites/default/files/images/Promise%20Neighborhoods%20and%20Strive%20Alignment_FINAL.pdf shows the connection to Strive Together, a sub of KnowledgeWorks and the co-issuer of this Collective Impact report.
This is truly the full Needs vision and this http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/19/obama-administration-launches-second-promise-zone-competition-create-eco from about a month ago shows the number of Promise Zones is to be expanded.
Found it while looking into LISCs–Local Initiative Support Coalitions and their pushing of charters and their ability to get bond financing. As a former bond lawyer, I can tell you that means the due diligence should have focused on precisely what would constitute student achievement and school performance. Measures focusing on changing the Whole Child at a behavioral level would be the most objective measures that would ensure that contracts could be reliably projected for likely renewal.
That Link shows PolicyLink manages the Promise Zones initiative and this shows http://www.policylink.org/ their determination to get to an equitable economy. I remembered they were a co-issuer with Ctr for American Progress of a very troubling report.
Well now that is quite clear isn’t it. Did you see the connection to the equity atlas, and coalition for livable future?
Yes. Don’t forget Living Cities. In the 100th anniversary book created by the Rockefeller Foundation, it explains that Living Cities may have virtually all the major foundations involved now, but it was started in the early 60s under a different name. With the Ford Foundation.
And here’s even more current proof that every major institution or employer in a community must now be working together with K-12 and higher ed. http://www.edcentral.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/20141013_BeyondTheSkillsGap.pdf
Notice the Joyce Foundation funding and remember who used to be on that Board.
That Turchenko model is just everywhere now, isn’t it? All planned, but changing who the student is and what he believes and priming how he will act from an early age is always central. What a dystopia we are creating.
Oh, and look who just announced they were creating a Policy Insights journal? http://www.fabbs.org/about-fabbs/ Robert Sternberg shows up on the Board. His work is behind so much sel K-12 ed focus. When we follow the trail this Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences turns out to have been established in Chicago in 1980. Always Chicago as developmental ed Ground Zero. Benjamin Bloom was still alive then and at U-Chicago.
And the needs drumbeat just gets deafening. Subjective well-being of 18-26 year olds. http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=18869
Issued today.
I forget his name but a congressman came to our philly burb ( from portland) to speak about ” livable communitiez) with his bill cosponsor Allyson schwartz, capo for obamas election in our area. Apparently our Rea was not livable enough, it wS puzzling until we connected it to smart growth and HUD. Now of course amnesty.
Oregon is doomed. While this candidate is better than our repeat of the last , yes, nearing the 12 year mark with the same progressive Gov. I found myself shouting No!!! At my tablet while reading this.
I have met Mr. Richardson several times, I want to believe he’s not aware But he is a politician. Not shocked just frustrated.
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2014/10/dennis_richardsons_education_p.html#comments
Apparently I can’t respond to comments that are nested beyond a certain level,. This is the case in some other forums as well, in a different way. When I have found something great that works for me it is hard for me to shut up about it. Sorry if I ramble below or get on my soap box.
I wanted to address the comment on MOOCs. I have taken and completed two, one on intro interactive Python programming and the other on machine Learning. It is hard to have a discussion here because the ‘educators’ and CC people have tried to give many words their own perverse definitions. I mean, who could be against ‘competencies’ or measuring ‘outcomes’ etc. See George Orwell on language.
I read both _The Story Killers_ and _Credentialed to Destroy_. Both were very good and more detailed than I expected. In many large research universities intro (huge) classes are taught by professors who drew the short straw; hate teaching; dislike undergraduates; and delegate teaching the small discussion sessions to TAs who don’t speak English very well and also do not want to be there. Many MOOCs have very senior profs teaching who enjoy it and are good at it.
The linked TED speaker on the MOOCs creeped me out and he added nothing.
I understand Coursera was started by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng. IMO they deserve a Nobel prize. Her 2012 TED talk on MOOCs was VERY VERY good if you are interested in education. Her accent is apparently Israeli BTW. I had a hard time placing it.
http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education?language=en
I would have done better in HS if I had access to a MOOC instead of most HS science classes, due to my own learning foibles. In college access to MOOCs would have been a God send.
In many subject areas the MOOCs are better than having a lousy teacher IMO. If I were homeschooling for at least math and science I would try Khan Academy or UdaCity (not free) or EdX or Coursera. I have NO idea how they would do in literature etc. I have NO idea if they will be changed by the CC zombies. I think MOOCs are the greatest thing since the printing press. BTW I have started some Coursera courses (free) but not finished them. Detractors call this ‘dropping out.’ No harm to me.
The MOOCs DO have graded HW with right and wrong answers. They DO have graded assignments with right and wrong answers and results. Same for quizzes. Some have timed final exams. Any peer assistance is purely voluntary and is great when you get stuck. No points for group hugs.
I have no idea what ‘student centered learning’ means in ‘educator newspeak’ but it works for me.
I hate fads in education. Always have. My son fell WAY behind in Spanish during the divorce. He had a 30% grade with one month to go. I enrolled him in an on-line Spanish tutor service ‘Speakshop’ using Skype. You can do just audio skype or use the video also.The tutors in Guatemala keep most of the money themselves. It was around $12 per hour. He used Milvia Vásquez three hours per week and was happy with her. I was very pleased. He raised his score past 60% in one month and passed the course. I like things that work. people here are interested in education so I thought they might like this info.
http://www.speakshop.org/spanish-teacher
eclectic-I think MOOCs need to be differentiated between where they were originally and where they are designed to go.
Christos touched on this and Australia has picked up on their ability to create a shared understanding that may in fact be false.
I have watched that TED talk and it bothered me as Daphne concedes the ability to turn knowledge into a closed system.
I have written 2 posts in the past on this. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/inventing-the-education-of-the-future-by-insuring-planet-wide-activity-to-produce-unified-outlooks/
and the next one http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/hyping-personalized-digital-instead-of-closed-loop-learning-sounds-better-omits-all-that-troubling-data-gathering-too/
As usual I am using people’s declarations of intent to discuss.
Those should clarify my concerns.
The Structured Design Dialogue post, more recent, is here http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/framing-then-refining-lasting-webs-of-mutual-social-understanding-to-fulfill-aspiration-grounded-in-infamy/
I am having a Mama Do afternoon but those 3 should relay my concerns even more clearly. They are not philosophical.
I read your past posts. I don’t trust the ‘educators’ and CC people at all regarding the future of MOOCs or anything else. The fact that they obfuscate their activities and goals speaks for itself. They seem to speak some ‘educator gibberish newspeak’ which makes any discussion difficult. When the Google exec said he had no idea what ‘virtual learning’ was he was speaking for me as well. I have no idea what much of these people are writing most of the time. It is exhausting to have to parse every gibberish word and common (now co-opted) word for their intended meaning. You slogged through their gibberish newspeak in your book.
‘Sustainability’? Double plus bad.
In my experience, my MOOCs dealt with content and measurable skills and my son’s Spanish teaching dealt with the same. I know nothing first hand outside of these examples.
I think all the evidence is that the MOOCs are designed to produce all sorts of useful data to these consortiums and as I noted they are inherently closed loop systems. A textbook actually is not.
I am pointing out some troubling declarations, and I think we will have a Bait and Switch. What the MOOC involves will shift over time to an online interactive community. That said, to me MOOCs are like charters, I could create a first class one, but given the language I consistently read tied to actual implementations, we should be wary of this as a panacea.
Pres. Obola doesn’t want American moms to stay home with kids. He says it right here.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-moms-who-stay-home-raise-kids-thats-not-choice-we-want-americans-make_817807.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed
Of course not. The Village cannot wait to start its programming on little Johnny or Jane until kindergarten! No no no. The Village needs them even sooner. For the Common Good.
Below a certain earning potential it does not even make economic sense for some women to work outside the home, especially with multiple children. They don’t make enough to justify paying for day care and the added costs of working.
That’s true, and so I think Obama’s push is at the more educated mothers. Those who could either be building solid careers, or creating clever little monsters at home who read well, are used to thinking and are hard to brainwash. At all costs the latter is to be avoided.
Madmommy,
Blumenauer is the Oregon fellow. He is or was the chair of livable cities. A big part of the movement here. Mr. Carbon tax himself.
http://planphilly-prod.punkave.net/articles/2010/05/19/how-livable-communities-can-be-realized
LL-are you familiar with HOST–the Housing Opportunity and Services Together program? It is being piloted in Chicago and Portland, Oregon and is a partnership of the Annie B Casey F, Soros’ Open Society, Kresge, Paul Allen, the Kellogg F along with HHS. Remember HHS is involved with the Promise Zones along with that Work Skills letter with Ed and Labor.
I am finally tackling that “Investing in the Health and Well-being of Young Adults” report and just came across it. So much of what I am reading is what Pipes would call the assertion of a fantasy with moral philosophers and psychologists trying to then make it so while being paid to pontificate or experiemnt in the schools.
Yes. I believe HUD is involver and there are immigrant placement programs, free education, food stamps, etc. The officials in PDX, say refugees. It used to be the housing authority.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/oni/article/84790
Forgot this portion
http://blog.metrotrends.org/2012/08/tailoring-place-based-services-immigrant-families-portland-oregon/
The community participants are in SUN school systems. Huge on opt out movement.
http://optoutoregon.org/
I take what you write about and attempt to match the information up with local activities and find sources in my state where it comes into our communities. This is a good example.
http://www.joomag.com/magazine/2014-national-convening-skills-presenations-portland-plan/0289664001407878200?page=158
These are services for refugees who have already had 5 years of services, but the poor vulnerable families have run out the 5 years and now need more special help!
Also help with immigration. I thought that was considered legal work, not social work. But I guess the legal authorities are OK with it if it pushes a certain agenda.
Story at the link says:
“Gattuso defined livable communities as those that are safe for every resident, provide the means for a decent education and quality recreation, offer a quality of life that retains residents and students, and attracts those who do business there. “If you provide those qualities, jobs will follow,” he said.”
He is describing a cargo cult. Build all this new stuff and jobs (and wealth creation?) will return, says he.
That’s him. I have a video of local yocals preaching his snakeoil doublespeak
( diablospeak) about our town, Schwartz included. They sound bizarre and idiotic. And they lied to their neighbors and friends, which is sickening betrayal.
Its the buttinsky helpers of narcissistic progressivism. Stating weird obviousness, and sort of stealing the reins … They will come to your meeting and boldly steer it to their agenda. So fake and pretentious with their repetative doublespeak and delphi surveys. All for the community good. Rubbish.
Our self appointed ” community Alliance” is aligned with both our town council ( fabian leader) and the regional planning commission. They actually check in with the IISD, canadian or euro org… International institute of sustainable development. Oh and ICLEI too..
Now why would a US local govt org Send its progress off to another country to keep tabs? UN? WTH??
“Burning down the suburbs ” comes to mind… Its all connected.
mad mommy-I find this confession of how Microsoft is transforming education globally http://www.ortamerica.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_art_5_11_11_Microsoft_and_ORT_Partnership to be far more interesting than that MENA conference in Dubai that certain sites started hyping. If it’s news that CC has ties to global initiatives, then CC is poorly understood by way too many people who hype it regularly.
This is also a reminder that Gates bankrolled Big History and its ties to Moscow State. Sir Michael Barber is a long-time faculty member there. One of those facts that is hard to find unless you already know it, but easy to confirm once you do.
Here’s more that is certainly pertinent to both the bankrolling of the Common Core, GELP, and ATC21S. http://www.pil-network.com/schools
Or this 2014 Forum that says it is sponsored by USAID From the American People. http://www.meducationalliance.org/event/microsoft-partners-learning-global-forum-2014 Do Tell.
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Here is a link to an Oregon paper that shows the design of ‘assessment for learning’ as Robin discussed in this post. The design has been in the works for a year. Oregon is not highly active in the opt out movement. Students have not yet taken the first round of sbac tests. I believe Robin is accurate in saying the opt out movement will push us toward this. It already has.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=3tfcVPDNMIq1ogSqyYGoCg&url=https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2015R1/Downloads/CommitteeMeetingDocument/44416&ved=0CBwQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNHFmv4-0bXpBwrZMi7EUN5TKFiRsg&sig2=5TpDD1WNdDk4jPceMyDJbw
http://www.pnnl.gov/about/staffawards/awarddetails.asp?awardid=635 is a Board member of the ACT Foundation that produced the vision I linked to on the Abolishing the First Amendment post. Thought this NSF-funded STEM collaborative should be on your radar. Makes so much continue to fall into place.
If the sheep in America give my colleagues in psychology free rein with computer adaptive assessment/learning/technology without sufficient adherence to ethics or transparency, our children are pretty much screwed.
I’m a “nice guy” along with the other doctors I have hired in our clinic, however, trust me, the last thing America needs is to place all of us arrogant “idiots” in the drivers seat as the “all knowing gurus” of all things good and worthwhile.
I gotta grudgingly admit that “these guys” are damn good. The biggest Trojan Horse in the history of the world was snuck into my backyard without so much of a peer from the “collective”.
The “Borg” would be proud.
Thanks Gary and welcome to ISC.
I wish I was wrong on all this, but I am not. The administration just made my book Credentialed to Destroy more pertinent than ever because it laid out the why of formative assessments, learning tasks, and learning progressions.
I am going to cover all this today as soon as I get my youngest off to school. Thank goodness she is a high schooler and only being assigned propaganda on Climate Change to ‘annotate’ for IB English.
You will want this link that just came out. http://nextgenlearning.org/sites/default/files/grants_download/ALP_RFL.pdf Grant money for schools and districts pushing this psychological and neurologically oriented vision of ‘assessment’ from the Gates and Hewlett Foundation. This also ties to Hewlett’s longstanding Deeper Learning push where they hired Peter senge of MIT and Robert Kegan of Harvard to look at PARCC and SBAC. This is referenced in this ALP-RFL because of the Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Comepetencies being measured. That is Kegan’s work and is also covered in my book. Also known as the OECD’s Key Competences that PISA looks for.
Kegan is partners with Ken Wilber who pushed transpersonal psych and what is called Integral Theory. You have the professional training to appreciate what is really being aimed at. I just know the facts and named relationships and what the terms all mean.
I do need help in sounding this alarm. The authorization to meddle at this level came into place in Georgia first in ‘soft skills’ language in a statute, then the NCLB waiver, and finally in a Student privacy statute adopted last year that explicitly authorized adaptive learning. That bill and its sponsor, Buzz Brockaway, were touted last week in Denver by the Data Quality Campaign at the jeb/condi Excellence in Education industry bash. The one where Nicholas Negroponte, the MIT Media Lab head, spoke in a keynote. Negroponte has long worked with systems thinker Ervin Laszlo to create the Holos Consciousness concept for the Club of Rome affiliate–Club of Budapest. CoB handles the cultural work globally that of course encompasses education. It pushes the idea of guided evolution by neurologically changing the brain and central nervous system by making responses habituated that are tied to emotions.