Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Susan Ohanian of Charlotte, a longtime teacher and author of 25 books on education policy and practice. Her website is at www.susanohanian.org.
With the new year, in conjunction with Gov. Peter Shumlin’s power grab for control of public education policy, we get a name change: the Department of Education is now the Agency of Education. The American Heritage Dictionary points to the close association between agency and public relations, and increasingly, the Vermont Agency is tasked as PR conduit for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Common Core State Standards and the federal Department of Education obsession with data stockpiling. Vermont kids are not yet wearing Gates Foundation-funded Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) bracelets, but as teachers obey their assigned function as data dumpsters this is on the horizon. As Pulitzer awardee David Goldman wrote in Businessweek, “The Microsoft founder’s foundation is betting billions that a business approach can work wonders in the classroom.”
There’s a jarring disconnect between Vermont’s traditional values and the Gleichschaltung promoted by an agency acting as an echo chamber for interests that order public schools to process human capital for the global economy. Recently, Shumlin’s Vermont agency sent out a Tweet inviting educators to watch a webinar: What Teachers Can Learn from the New PARCC and Smarter Balanced Assessment Items, a PowerPoint presentation from the Council of Chief State School Officers, recipients of $71.3 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation — for work in planning and promoting school fealty to the Common Core State (sic) Standards. (I use “(sic)” to indicate that educators in individual states had nothing to do with this initiative.) Two national tests — PARCC and Smarter Balanced — will measure Vermont kids’ proficiency on these standards.
Bill Gates, President Obama and Gov. Shumlin claim these national standards and tests resulted from a grassroots concern that our schools weren’t educating workers for the global economy. In reality, Bill Gates’ foundation paid for the standards. States signed in fear of U.S. Department of Education threats to cut funding if they didn’t. The U.S. taxpayer paid for the assessments — around $400 million — so far. Nobody’s admitting what this will cost Vermonters down the road.
That webinar was just a tiny droplet in a tsunami of Gates-supported projects promoting national standards and testing. The National Governors Association received $30.68 million to help out. The Teaching Channel’s $12.99 million went for videos showing how to teach the Common Core. The James B. Hunt, Jr. Institute got $5.07 million for “Common Core communications support.” The PTA received $1 million for a cheerleading role. And on and on. Bill Gates has billions to get what he wants.
For 10th graders, a sample test item for exhibiting “what students need to know and be able to do” is the Daedalus and Icarus section from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”:
But Daedalus abhorred the Isle of Crete —
and his long exile on that sea-girt shore,
increased the love of his own native place.
“Though Minos blocks escape by sea and land.”
He said, “The unconfined skies remain
though Minos may be lord of all the world
his sceptre is not regnant of the air,
and by that untried way is our escape.”
And so on. The Common Core folk claim this is an appropriate assessment item because “it is based on complex literary text.” This is pure speculation, an experiment. No field tests have been done. There is no research evidence showing that these peculiar standards written by an entrepreneur and a lawyer will educate kids to be “better than anybody else in the world.” And there’s no evidence that we Vermonters want this as our goal.
As Wendell Berry points out, “Good teaching is an investment in the minds of the young, as obscure in result, as remote from immediate proof as planting a chestnut seedling.”
In his second inaugural address, Gov. Shumlin put Vermont’s economic future on the backs of teachers and children, saying that “to ensure our success, we must embrace change in the way we both view and deliver education. The rapid change that is required of us is not optional; it will define our success or deliver our failure.”
No options. Having grabbed control of education policy, the governor now defines education as a delivery system. His emphasis on “rapid change” is both disingenuous and dangerous. Harry Shum, computer scientist and speed specialist at Microsoft told the New York Times, “Two hundred fifty milliseconds, either slower or faster, is close to the magic number now for competitive advantage on the Web.” Maybe so. But teaching is much more like watching what Whitman called the “trickling sap of maple,” which matures and intensifies slowly, than about timing computer response speed. As Wendell Berry points out, “Good teaching is an investment in the minds of the young, as obscure in result, as remote from immediate proof as planting a chestnut seedling.” One of my third grade students, a deaf child in public school for the first time, recently found me on Facebook to tell me what Amelia Bedelia meant to her 30 years ago. I think of this as teacher wait time.
In 1978, when the Vermont Department of Education still looked to its own people for information and inspiration, they commissioned Mary Azarian, a former teacher, to produce a set of alphabet posters depicting the rural landscape. Montpelier sent a set of these posters to every K-3 classroom. Later, Azarian received the Caldecott medal for her illustrations for “Snowflake Bentley,” the story of the Jericho boy who became famous for his extraordinary photographs of snowflakes. In her Caldecott acceptance speech, Azarian noted, “Vermont has always loved its eccentrics, and Wilson Bentley certainly met the qualifications. A dairy farmer by profession, he was also a dedicated scholar and scientist, largely self-taught in the nineteenth-century tradition, who placed more value on satisfying his intellectual curiosity than on earning money.”
Loved its eccentrics. Now, in the name of a competitive workforce in the global economy, the governor is determined that instead of allowing individual children different paths to a high school diploma, every kid must get on the Common Core treadmill. Algebra and geometry for all.
Look again at Gov. Shumlin’s words:
“[T]o ensure our success, we must embrace change in the way we both view and deliver education. The rapid change that is required of us is not optional; it will define our success or deliver our failure.”
Even in a hyper-technological, global economy-driven education system, a passion for snowflakes should be nurtured. For some students lumberjack skills are more important than deconstructing Ovid. Or algebra.
I would remind the governor that nobody asked us if we want what Bill Gates wants. I challenge the governor, as Vermont’s self-declared education chief, to test himself and his Agency. Read Ovid’s classic, completed in AD8. Read “Snowflake Bentley.” Then reconsider what we want for our children in our Vermont schools.