Photo credit: World Economic Forum (CC-By-SA 2.0)
Microsoft Founder Bill Gates during his remarks at the USP Education Learning Forum in Seattle on Wednesday said that the nation is on the right track with Common Core.
But I believe we are on the right track. For today, and for the coming years, this is our vision: Every student deserves high standards. Every student deserves an effective teacher. Every teacher deserves the tools and support to be phenomenal. And all students deserve the opportunity to learn in a way that is tailored to their needs, skills, and interests…
….There’s one other pivotal step in the movement for strong feedback and improvement systems, and that is the adoption of high, consistent academic standards throughout the country. Today 42 states and the District of Columbia are using the Common Core State Standards.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the Common Core, the attacks have drowned out the facts—and the fact is, the standards are starting to work for students and teachers.
If we want to achieve excellence, we have to define excellence. And you can’t define it based on politics or individual preferences. You have to define excellence by anchoring it in something real—like getting a good job, or getting a higher ed degree that means something in the workplace. That’s what these standards do: They ensure that students are gaining the skills and knowledge they need to get a good job or succeed in college.
If students leave high school without that, their next stop is probably a dead-end job or a course in remedial math. And that’s just inexcusable. Every kid in America deserves high standards.
Most everyone would agree. I believe much of the difficulty with the Common Core standards came because the advocates—and I include our foundation in this category—didn’t do enough to explain them early and clearly. Once states adopted the standards, parents needed to hear from principals and teachers and superintendents about the reason for the changes, how they would help their kids, and how things would be bumpy for a number of years as teachers adjusted to the new standards. But I also understand why this step was missed. Principals and teachers and their supporters were busy working urgently to figure out how to make the standards real in classrooms.
Oh yes, we are against the standards because they were not explained “clearly” enough. More effective propaganda wouldn’t hide the fact the Common Core are poor standards – period. Drowning out facts with cheap talking points is his speciality not ours. Truth in American Education has been committed to bringing you the facts you did not hear from Gates and company. The only track the Common Core has us on is taking us to further mediocrity.
Jackie says
Would you be open to talking to ONE, just ONE teacher?
Christina says
There is so much crap in Gates’ remarks it is truly disturbing that a man with his amount of money and muscle chooses to spend both on bullying a nation to educate children as he desires. All he talks about is the job, the career, the path to the workforce – he sadly defines excellence with, “like getting a good job, or getting a higher ed degree that means something in the workplace.”
I cannot stomach the fact that he dropped out of school to pursue his dreams but wants to shoe horn our children into a less-than-education because that is all he knows now. Too sad for words.
Dear Bill:
Please take some of your money and get yourself a highly recommended shrink… Or, for God’s sake take a vacation and try to remember what it was like to dream.