Peyton Wolcott - Conservative public ed commentary

For one thing, Checker collects a six-figure income from Fordham
Institute and from Fordham Foundation -- each; both are classified as
IRS public charities. Then there's the matter of how much money
Checker and Fordham have accepted from Bill Gates.

Bill Gates gave Fordham $1 million
"Bill Gates gets what he pays for," says Pioneer Institute executive
director Jim Stergios, who said in a recent interview, "I love when

Checker holds forth on how 'conservative' his position on national standards is. The fact is his views
are all over the intellectualand political map – and at this point pretty incoherent. He’s careened from

opposing the Blob (e.g., the Council of Chief State School Officers and
Marc Tucker) in 1997 to sitting in the passenger seat as they drive
home national standards in 2010. While claiming to be for strong state
standards, he aids and
abets those who undo
the best standards in the
country (read: Massa-
chusetts’). He’s for
content, but finds it
possible to embrace the
skills-focused framing
document for the national
standards, the so-called
'College and Career Readi-
ness Standards.' He’s for
a strong grounding in the Founding documents and then he is for 'Great
Society' centralization of the education agenda. He’s against a rushed
national standards effort in 1997 but for it in 2010.
"For my money, this is all about ambition," Stergios goes on to say.
"By now Checker Finn is a creature of DC, who contrary to most
every federalist principle and all practical evidence, believes Washington
should and can implement education policy better than the states. Can
someone point to the great advances in student achievement brought
about by US DOE? Was NCLB actually ever implemented well?
Meanwhile, Massachusetts and a handful of states have made real
progress. In Massachusetts, we paid a hefty price in state and local
dollars, as well as scars; but we’re expendable, because the 'natural'
pecking order for folks with DC-itis is that we’re all supposed to
worship at the altar of the big thinkers in DC."

Q3 - 2008
Chester Finn Donation of $1,500 to
Presidential elections 2008
Chester Finn
EDUCATOR
THOMAS B. FORDHAM FOUNDATION
HuffPost

Eric Osberg
VP & TREASURER
THOMAS B. FORDHAM FOUNDATION
Updated
Q3/2008
John McCain
$400 803 LOMBARDY CT
Silver Spring MD

NATIONALIZATION OF 13,900 LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICTS INTO 70 BY FEDS:
Click here for ex-IBM chair Lou Gerstner WSJ op=ed

Philanthropy -- or self-interest?
As most of us understand it, true giving is ideally without strings or benefit to the giver.

When John D. Rockefeller, Sr. died, leaving his heirs enough money that they could have paid off 75% of the United States' debt, instead
they set to work giving away the money with strings attached, including launching the United Nations and many other causes that suited
their social goals; there's a partial list at far right of this page.

Transparency history
Llano ISD FOIA conviction
Edge wood ISD PD re FOIA
Progress by March 2007
1st year ann'y: Oct. 2007
Gov.Perry & Comm.Scott

WHO'S ATTENDING
YOUR SCHOOL
BOARD MEETINGS?
Follow the money
in our vendor-driven
schools:
15 vendor s & special
interests to look for at
your next board meeting.

P E Y T O N W O L C O T T

How we take back our children's education:
one person, one question,
one school at a time.

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NOTICE: All individuals mentioned on this site are presumed innocent unless they have been found guilty in a court of law.

"Walk softly
and carry a big stick."
-- Teddy Roosevelt

"Trust but verify."
-- Ronald Reagan

Just because you can
doesn't mean you should.

ROCKEFELLERS / U.N.

IB (UN)

H o w w e t a k e b a c k o u r c h i l d r e n ' s e d u c a t i o n : o n e p e r s o n , o n e q u e s t i o n , o n e s c h o o l a t a t i m e . F o l l o w t h e m o n e y , h o n e y !

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SchoolNewsLinks Best
Practices FOIA Commentaries

A Z C A K S M D MO O H O K
KeyWest CreditCards SLAPP
TX Senator John Cornyn
Edgewood 1 2 3 4 5 Cleburne ISD
Katy ISD B remondIS D LlanoISD

Check Registers US TX
Flyer Ask your district
Set goals/organize A s k lots of
questions School Board Ethi c s
P ledge s Watchdogs:
A ngryA ctivist Alert P R

Ethics pledges Corruption
T eam of 8 Nationalization
NCLB/Pearson $1.4 B (TX)
Transparency 2006 Lax oversight
Lobbyists 1 2 3 PassTheTrash 1 2

Edu-Monopoly EduInc Internal
Control s Te ch Audits ERDI
Fi n ancial Exigency Laptops
Credit cards Su pe s
travel/meals Ed u-Conferences
TASA MidWinter GORGE-ous
Supes/Golf/Vendors 1

Terms & Conditions:
Sorry to have to include
this; some groups--God
bless them--have copied
my research and published
it as their own.

Robin Hood & 22 'equity'
failures: MALDEF's 22
Edgewood district s cost Texans
billions in failed academics &
extravagance.

How to persuade your
district: Friendly works
best-- take the Golden
Rule with you when
asking your schools to
post checks.
Testimonials: issues &
concerns solved.

Welcome, America -- glad you're
finding this no-ads website useful!
#1 on Google & Yahoo of
256,000,000!

Texas Hill Country - Mesquite and Wildflowers
Boerne

WELCOME, Washington
state! Public school
checks now online in 34
states, 600+ school
districts, in 3 years!

05.29.09

Questions reporters
& others ask most:

Q1: When did this grass-
roots check register
project start, and why?
A1: We compiled the first
national roster on October
1, 2009. There were
several precipitating
incidents, including this; it
was clear that
administrators, lobbyists
and vendors didn't like
public records requests.

Q2: How many school
districts are now online in
how many states?
A2: As of March 2010
there are over 800 in 36
states.

Q3: How quickly has this
grown?
A3: When we first started
asking districts to
voluntarily post, there
were only a handful in a
handful of states posting.

Q4: How can I find out if
my district is online? Are
any in my state online?
A4: You can look them up
on these rosters:
o A labama
o Alaska-Louisiana
o M aine-Tennessee
o Texas
o Texas financials
o Utah-Wyoming

Q5: How do I make my
district put its checks
online?
A5: Unless we're
dictators we can't make
anybody do anything -- but
we can persuade. Here
are some easy to follow
directions based on
treating your schools as
you'd like them to treat
you. (The Golden Rule
really does work.) Just
like in baking or anything
else involving special
skills or plans, the steps
we've found that work are
successful 100% of the
time when followed as
scripted; as with making
pastry, shortcuts lead to
failure.

Q6: Why don't you just
pass a law?
Q6: Have you ever tried
getting a law passed? As
the Texas Public Policy
Foundation and similar
groups elsewhere have
learned, the folks who
stand to benefit the least
from public ed financial
transparency are a very
active lobbying force,
especially in larger states
where more money is
involved in public
education. (With just 17
school districts, only
Delaware has a state law
requiring schools to post
their checks online.)a

Fox News mention

Texas Education
Service Centers
posting check
registers

Most of Texas' 20
Regional Education
Service Centers are
now posting their
check registers online.
Hats off to the
following for being
among the first:

Region 10 - Richardson
Choose your month here:
www.region10.org/admin istrators/C
heckRegisterP osting.html

Region 1 - Edinburg
Pick a month here
www.esc1.net/12931081 41351379
20/blank/brow se.asp?A=383&BM D
RN =2000&BCOB=0&C=555 65&129
3Nav=|&NodeID=1450

Region 9 - Wichita Falls
Pick a month here:
www.esc9.net/vnews/dis play.v/SEC/
Public%20Information%3E%3EChe
ck %20Register

Region 8 - Mt. Pleasant
Choose a month here:
www.reg8.net/default.as px?name=a
dmin.checkr egister

N EWSLT RS ARCHIVES BEST PRACTICES CONSTRUCTION MIAMI 2008

Public Ed Commentary

Here they are, the
updated US rosters!

Beyond FOIA: Why it's
more effective to
persuade your local
school district than to
demand; why it's better
for schools to post on
their sites than for you
to FOIA check registers
then put them on your
private or 501c website.

Is 'equity' equitable?
More about MALDEF &
Robin Hood

Printable flyer to share
with your board; print at
100%. Testimonials
from school leaders
who have already
successfully posted
their districts' checks
online countering all
usual opposition points
(cost, technology, etc.).

Special interests in your
district and at your
board meetings: Do
you know who they are
and what they have to
do with spending?

If there was a major
precipitating incident
behind the check
registers, this was it.

CHECK REGISTERS

Are your district's checks on their website?
If not, why not? Approximately 900 are, including
New York City, Miami, Houston and Dallas, in 37
states, in 3 years. Simple how-to.here works
100% of the time--if no shortcuts.

September 2010

ED PHOTO OF THE WEEK:
2 PRESIDENTIAL
TELEPROMPTERS IN
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
CLASSROOM (VA)

President Barack Obama,
accompanied by Education
Secretary Arne Duncan, speaks
to the media after a discussion
with 6th grade students at
Graham Road Elementary School
in Falls Church (VA), Tuesday,
Jan. 19, 2010. (AP)

Only Texas -- thanks to
Governor Rick Perry,
Education
Commissioner Robert
Scott, and our State
Board of Education --
all supported by those
who cherish individual
freedoms and local
control of our school
districts -- has had the
courage among the 50
states to stand firm
against the power grab
by the United States
Department of
Education, the school
equivalent of what Mr.
Obama's crew is trying
to do with healthcare.
As with healthcare,
Race to the Top's
national curriculum
standards have less to
do with education and
more to do with being a
vehicle for increasing
federal control.

Bringing you the information and tools you need in order to improve public education and lower taxes and spending; during the past two decades of the voucher debate an entire generation has grown up in the public school system.
If you don't think this is important look at the Nov. 2008 election where folks voted based on emotions and hope rather than facts. Let's put a stop to the school-to-prison pipeline -- and keep our public schools locally run, strong and free..

Region 7 - Kilgore
Public Information
www.esc7.net/default.aspx?n
ame=pub_info

Linebarger Goggan

ETHICS PLEDGES

ANGRY? TRY PR

TURKEY / CHARTERS GULEN J . PATTON

John Trumbull's original painting
Declaration of Independence.

NEW (ADDED JUNE 2010)
David SIMMONS

US CONST ITUTION

The 13 states who have stood up
to the feds and declined to apply
for Phase II of Race to the Top:

Alaska
Idaho
Indiana
Kansas
Minnesota
North Dakota
Oregon

South Dakota
Texas
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia
Wyoming

Money with strings: What's Bill Gates really cooking up?
By Peyton Wolcott
Updated Wednesday, July 28, 2010 / 8:01 a.m .

FOLLOWING THE ( RTTT / CCS ) MONEY

Remember when junk bond king Michael Milken bilked investors out of billions, went to
court then to prison, paid a stiff fine, got to keep millions, and turned to making money

Cookin' up some Chi-style Billanthropy:
Race to the Top, Common Core Standards, software giveaways....

Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry
(Munich, Germany)
School of Hygiene (London, England)
The Council on Foreign Relations -
David, David Jr., Nelson, John D. 3rd,
John D. IV (Jay), Peggy Dulany,
Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller
Brothers Fund.
The Trilateral Commission - David,
Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The Bilderberg Group - David, John D. IV.
The Asia Society - John D. 3rd, John D.
IV, Charles, David.
The Population Council - John D. 3rd.
The Council of the Americas - David.
The Group of Thirty - The Rockefeller
Foundation.
The World Economic Forum - David.
The Brookings Institution - Junior.
The Peterson Institute (Formerly the
Institute for International Economics) -
David.
The International Executive Service
Corps - David.
The Institute for Pacific Relations - Junior.
The League of Nations - Junior.
The United Nations - Junior, John D. 3rd,
Nelson, David, Peggy Dulany,
Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The United Nations Association - David.

Money with Strings: Some
Rockefeller-funded groups:

Bill Gates' giveaways to public education: Good for Microsoft's bottom line
Like Mr. Rockefeller and his progeny, Bill Gates has been generous; there's his foundation's cash (see chart below courtesy of the Pioneer
Institute). There's also the world-wide giving away of software, as part of his DreamSpark initiative. Like Mr. Rockefeller, the Gates'
largesse also comes with strings, as noted regarding Mr. Gates' "free" software to 32,000 South African government schools:

"Offering free software to schools
is not only good corporate
citizenship, it is good for business:
if MS software dominates South
African schools, it will be good for
Microsoft's bottom line and may limit
the adoption of other kinds of
software in this market. Embracing the
Microsoft donation is a smart
short-term move in a country where
free access to up-to-date software like
MS Office and Encarta will be a boon
for many schools that would
otherwise need to pay for software
licenses. However, open source
proponents point out that the real issue
for schools is not software licenses,
but the challenges and cost of
deployment and maintenance of
sustainable ICT infrastructure.
Microsoft products have rapid product
cycles and quick obsolescence, along
with expensive long-term maintenance
and support implications." (Ibid.)

Following the money (SOURCE--Pioneer Institute)

Rockefeller Foundation total assets as of
fiscal year 2008: $4.6 billion. For more
information (salaries, lobbying expenses, etc.)
here's a link to the foundation's IRS 990 form at
GuideStar; list of grants starts on page 37.)

Billanthropy: The press has finally started to do its job. The Common Core Standards are "an agenda propelled in part by a flood of
money from a billionaire prep-school graduate best known for his software empire: Bill Gates," reported Nick Anderson at The Washington
Post recently; his colleague Valerie Strauss also seems to have just noticed:

In the past eight years, the [Bill & Melinda Gates] foundation has spent nearly $4 billion promoting his personal education agenda; at first
providing subsidies to districts that would agree to close down large neighborhood high schools and start small schools in their place;
and now encouraging the rapid and widespread proliferation of charter schools. Gates also is aggressively promoting efforts to create
programs that link teacher evaluation and compensation to standardized test scores. And his generosity has not merely been expressed
through his foundation. In 2008, he contributed $4 million to help persuade state legislators to extend mayoral control in New York City. As
Gates explained at the time: "You want to allow for experimentation.... The cities where our foundation has put the most money is where
there is a single person responsible." In other words, he supported mayoral control because it allowed him to impose his large-scale
experiments on inner city public school students, without fear of resistance from communities; instead, he has only to convince one
person. No wrestling with elected school boards, nor with parents who resent having their children’s schools closed, privatized, or
otherwise radically transformed; no need to bother with any of the messy artifacts of democracy which might stand in his way.

Meanwhile, BusinessWeek's Daniel Golden in th e magazine's current cover story reports, "The Gates Foundation and Education Secretary
Duncan move in apparent lockstep....The Gates Foundation, which bankrolled development of the common curriculum standards, is also
funding outside evaluations—by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington and the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education—
of those same standards." This is news? Where has Dan been for the past two years?

Another question many of us are asking: Why is the MSM suddenly reporting on this, when we're in the 11th hour and it's almost too
late? So that they're on record? Or is it because Mr. Obama's polls continue to drop and now they feel it's safe to speak up?

Last May, [Bill] Gates, [George]
Soros, Warren Buffett and David
Rockefeller Jr, Rockefeller’s great-
grandson, held a long private
meeting in New York, not far from
the UN, along with an assortment of
media potentates such as Ted
Turner, Oprah Winfrey and Michael
Bloomberg. It was reported that
Gates had been involved in
summoning them all together and
that the “Good Club,” as it
supposedly called itself, discussed
the world’s economic,
environmental and health problems,
the dangers of over-population and
how rich people could better help
poor people..

The Sunday Times quoted an
unnamed participant at the meeting,
who said that without anything “as
crude as a vote” the gathering had
agreed that the world’s problems
“need big-brain answers...
independent of government.”

GATES & SOROS & BUFFETT
& ROCKEFELLER: When the
'Good' Club billionaires met
last May, was it for the
common good -- or for their
good?

From The Seattle Guardian's Andy
Beckett (via The Taipei Times):

RTTT/CCS CONSORTIA
The word "consortium" carries
unpleasant if not scary connota-
tions, doesn't it? Has anybody taken
a good look yet? Who's profiting
from these public/private partner-
ships? Let's follow the money:
(1) Achieve, Inc.'s
SMARTER
Balanced Assess-
ments Consortium.
(2) Partnership for
Assessment of
Readiness for College and Careers
(PARCC consoritium).

Remember who invented the
modern day public/private partner-
ship concept? Benito Mussolini; he
and his blackshirts (with their bottles
of cod liver oil) called it "fascism."

o
The Gates
Foundation gets
what it pays for.
--Jim Stergios, Pioneer Inst.
o

Bill Gates -- without that trial and prison sentence thingie
-- appears to be headed in the same general direction, so
much so that it's not hard to envision US DE Secretary
Arne Duncan heading up a Microsoft division or a Gates-
funded foundation after his patron leaves the White House.

Mussolini

Posted 07.21.10

Posted 07.19.10

Publishers & testing co's
driving Common Core
(national) Standards;
5 fronting trade orgs:

Achieve, Inc. (national &
international standards)
The College Board
American College Testing
(ACT) (originally Iowa Basic
Skills Test); offices also in
Spain, Singapore, Indonesia,
Australia, Korea, China
National Governor's Ass'n
(NGA & NGA Center)
Council of Chief State School
Officers (CCSSO)

(Source--Damon Hargraves)

object width="480" height="385">

"independent of government" =
independent of citizens.

R t tT

"DEAR HILLARY"

TX SOC.STUDIES MAR. MAY

MR. OBAMA'S TAKEOVER OF ALL US WATERS

from taxpayer-funded public schools (Knowledge
Universe with former US Education Secretary William
"Big Bill the Big Gambler" Bennett) -- all the while
maintaining a philanthropic stance on public ed?

Did Mr. Milken's making of money from public schools
while simultaneously throwing a few dollars at them --
a small percentage of his disposable income and
fortune -- seem just a tidge too koinky-dinky to be
believable? This reviewer uses the word "predatory."

Education philanthropists
Michael Milken (L) and Eli Broad

NATIONAL STANDARDS

Who is Checker Finn? Why is a privileged boarding school grad pushing for national standards?
And are the Fordham Institute's 'Thumb on the Edu-Scales' folks really conservative?
By Peyton Wolcott
Updated Friday, August 13, 2010 - 8:47 a.m.

3 generations of privileged preps, Finn
Exeter grads: Chester E. Finn, Sr.(1938);
Chester E. "Checker" Finn, Jr. (1962);
Arti Finn (1988). (PHOTOS--Fordham, Real Simple)

Tracking RTTT/Common Core Standards money & muscle

Phillips Exeter Academy (NH)

Pioneer Institute (above) follows the Race to the Top /
Common Core Standards money and muscle.

Developing . . . .

Looking for last week's commentary on Bill Gates?
It's here.

Looking for info on the feds' nationalization scheme
and how it crept up on us? It's here.

Looking for other archived commentaries? They're
here.

Paranoia Roundup
By Neal McCluskey
Cato Institute
June 21, 2010 @ 11:43 am

Last week, national standards
super-advocate Chester Finn called
me “paranoid” for arguing that
“common” curriculum standards
states adopt in pursuit of federal
money will somehow end up being
federal and, as a result, bad. Well it
seems that Jay Greene and I — the
two paranoiacs Finn identified by
name — are not alone. Here’s a
roundup of some recent rantings
from other realists Finn would no
doubt accuse of wearing tinfoil
helmets:

•The Heritage Foundation’s Jennifer
Marshall, cutting through the joke of
“voluntary” national-standards
adoption and dispelling several of
the shallow arguments trotted out by
national-standards supporters.

•The Home School Legal Defense
Association, warning that “as
homeschoolers know, if the federal
government funds something, the
federal government is going to
control it.”

•The Pacific Reasearch Institute’s
Lance Izumi nailing the voluntarism
deception; noting that national
standards will have to be paired with
national tests (indeed, they’re
already in the works); and pointing
out that the proposed national
standards are likely worse than
some state standards.

•Ben Boychuk of the Heartland
Institute going after the big
voluntarism lie and explaining how
much worse a process national-
standards setting is than was even
the Texas Social Studies Standoff of
2010.

•The Pioneer Institutes Jim Stergios
exposing the State of
Massachusetts’ national-standards
trickeration.

It looks like national-standards
paranoia is starting to run kinda
deep.

Recommended reading:

Chester Finn, Jr.,
Fordham Foundation:
The ‘Fix’ Is In
By Donna Garner
July 30, 2010

What Dr. Sandra Stotsky is much too
nice to say (Article #1 posted below) is
that Fordham Foundation under
Chester Finn, Jr. did a sorry job in
comparing the Common Core
Standards to the Massachusetts
standards. In fact, it could well be said
that the “fix” is in.

I remember well when we in Texas
were writing our English / Language
Arts / Reading (ELAR) standards back
in 1995-97. Because we classroom
teachers on the state writing team
knew NCEE/Marc Tucker had pushed
their nefarious agenda by training the
Texas Education Agency staffers and
facilitators at a cost of $1.5 Million
(paid by us Texas taxpayers and never
approved by the elected State Board of
Education members), we teachers
wrote our own document and named it
the Texas Alternative Document (TAD)
for ELAR.

Chester Finn, Jr. of Fordham
Foundation was impressed with our
work and sent us a letter of support.
Other people such as Dr. Sandra
Stotsky , Robert Sweet, Robert Holland
, and E. D. Hirsch, Jr. were supportive
also.

Gov. George W. Bush was the
Governor of Texas and was mounting
a run for the Presidency. Karl Rove
was brought in to quell the controversy
that we TAD writers had managed to
generate over the TAD vs. the TEA’s
document because Bush was running
as the “Education President.” He could
not afford to have controversy in his
own state.

Politics being what they are, Rove
managed to crush the TAD; and the
miserable ELAR document influenced
by NCEE/Marc Tucker was approved.
This document was called the ELAR-
TEKS. These have been our ELAR
standards for ten years until new-and-
much-improved ELAR standards were
adopted in May 2008 not by the TEA
this time but by our elected State Board
of Education members.

Back to Fordham Foundation and
Chester Finn, Jr. -- In the throes of the
battle in May - July of 1997, it looked as
if the TAD would win largely because of
the national press we classroom
teachers had been able to arouse.
Right when we needed Chester Finn
and his national presence to come
alongside us and take a stand for the
TAD, he buckled. It is my opinion that
he wanted to make sure he and
Fordham were in good standing with
the Bush administration.

Now in 2010, it appears Chester Finn,
Jr. has done the same thing except
this time he wants to get in good
standing with the Obama
administration.

My take is that Finn will go with the flow
so long as he and his organization
reap the rewards. Whether this is in
the form of publicity, funding, and/or
control, I cannot say; but I see the
same pattern this time as in 1997.

It is obvious by Dr. Sandra Stotsky ’s
article (Article #1) that the evaluation
done by Fordham was “fixed” to lower
the score for the Massachusetts
standards (considered by many as the
best standards in the entire United
States and with comparable student
scores on NAEP to prove it) and to
raise artificially the score on the
Common Core Standards.

This “fixed” evaluation from Chester
Finn, Jr./Fordham gave Governor Deval
Patrick and his cohorts exactly the
ammunition they needed to dump the
Massachusetts standards and adopt
the inferior Common Core Standards.

It was not enough that Gov. Patrick in
one fell stroke sent the Massachusetts
schools down the slippery slope to
mediocrity or worse; but he also
purged the Massachusetts Board of
Elementary and Secondary Education
of Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Dr. Thomas
Fortmann, the two members who were
honest enough to cry, “The Emperor
Has No Clothes.”

I am not a voter in Massachusetts; but
if the voters in that state care one whit
about the future of their public school
children, I suggest that they “Dump
Gov. Deval Patrick” as fast as they can
get to the voting box.

Rasmussen, who polls registered
voters, shows Gov. Patrick at 38% with
Republican Charles D. Baker, Jr. not
far behind with 32%. The good news
is that 12% of the registered voters are
undecided. I sincerely hope that that
12% soon realizes that Gov. Deval
Patrick is a blight on their children’s
schools.

To read more about the monied
people and organizations behind the
Common Core Standards, please go
to www.PeytonWolcott.com. To say the
least, education has become a very
lucrative feeding trough for vested
interests.

The conservative think
tanks weigh in:

====== ARTICLE #2 =======

Expertise lost
at crucial time
STATE EDUCATION BOARD |
BOSTON GLOBE EDITORIAL
July 29, 2010

GOVERNOR PATRICK has purged
the state Board of Elementary and
Secondary Education of the two
members who held the deepest
suspicions of the newly-adopted
national Common Core standards
in math and English.

On a number of other issues,
Sandra Stotsky and Thomas
Fortmann were the two board
members who posed the most
challenging questions — in public
— to state education officials. In
declining to reappoint the two,
Patrick sacrificed a diversity of
opinion that has served the board
well.

The education bureaucracy rolls
unimpeded without Stotsky, a prickly
expert on English language arts,
and Fortmann, an exacting math
consultant. Board meetings will be
more collegial. But enormous
subject expertise has been lost. And
it’s the kind of expertise that will be
needed as the state aligns the
curriculum with the new national
standards and seeks to lead
national efforts to create new tests.

Patrick’s appointment of Clark
University ’s James McDermott is
sensible, in that he played a key role
in developing the state’s English
standards in 1993. His classroom
experience includes five years at the
innovative University Park Campus
School in Worcester . Unknown is
whether he’ll make his presence felt
or simply be absorbed into the
board’s low-key operation. The loss
of Fortmann, the math expert, may
be more damaging. A new member
with a deep background in raising
academic achievement among non-
native English speakers would at
least have filled a different niche. But
new appointee Vanessa Calderón-
Rosado runs a nonprofit focused
mainly on low-cost housing — not
education — for Latino residents.

The Board of Education recently took
a big leap of faith when its members
voted to replace the state’s highly
respected standards with the
national Common Core. The board
and state education department
made reasonable arguments that
the new standards would do a better
job at getting Massachusetts
students ready for college and
careers. While the new standards
should lead to great advancements,
Patrick has jettisoned the two
members most likely to raise a cry
at the first sign of retreat.

============== ARTICLE #1 ================

Stotsky on the Common Core Vote in MA
(Guest Post by Sandra Stotsky at JayPGreene.com )

As the nation knows, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and
Secondary Education voted to adopt Common Core’s English
language arts and mathematics standards on July 21.

At least one Bay State English teacher is aghast at what the
Board has imposed on the state’s English teachers. A member
of the Blue Mass Group, she immediately blogged an open letter
to Governor Deval Patrick, Secretary of Education Paul Reville,
and Commissioner of Education Mitchell Chester the day after the
vote, explaining:

There is no way that I, as a high school English teacher with a
Master of Arts in English Literature, am going to be either
interested or particularly successful in teaching kids to read
primary documents in American history or assessing the content
of Physics II papers (after I’ve had my intensive five-year
retraining program). The idea is simply preposterous.

Apparently, none of the reviews generated by the Commissioner
of Education’s own staff and appointed committees, or funded
indirectly by the Gates Foundation to elevate the quality of
Common Core’s standards and demote the quality of the Bay
State’s own standards, addressed this teacher’s overarching
question: Do Common Core’s ELA standards reflect what
English teachers typically teach or are trained to teach?

At any rate, the Board never saw fit to discuss the matter on July
21 or earlier, after I called national attention to the problem in an
invited essay published by the New York Times online on
September 22, 2009.

We don’t know if most Board members even took the time to read
Common Core’s ELA standards, in addition to the barrage of
“crosswalks” sent to the Board within a week of the vote.

The one Board member who called me before the July 21
meeting to talk about them (the night before the vote, as a matter
of fact) said he had read them all but had not looked at Common
Core’s mathematics or ELA standards themselves! Although he
commented that Achieve, Inc.’s materials read like propaganda,
he unhesitatingly voted to adopt Common Core’s standards the
next morning.

Achieve’s materials, however, were not the only problematic
materials the Board received. The effort to elevate the quality of
Common Core’s ELA standards and demote the quality of the
Bay State ’s current standards is apparent in Fordham’s report.
Anyone reading the pages of critical comments on Common Core’
s ELA standards would wonder how such a deficient document
ever merited the B+ it was given, which meant that Fordham could
say that the differences between Common Core’s ELA standards
and those of Massachusetts (whose document was graded A-)
were “too close to call.”

On the other hand, the only critical comments on Massachusetts ’
ELA standards are as follows:

“Unfortunately, some of these excellent standards are difficult to
track, due to a somewhat confusing organizational structure. As
discussed above, the 2001 document provides standards by
grade band only. The 2004 supplement provides additional
standards, but only for grades 3, 5, and 7. While the intent of this
supplement is to help teachers piece together grade-specific
expectations for grades 3-8, the state doesn’t provide explicit
guidance about how these standards fit together, leaving some
room for interpretation.

Furthermore, no grade-specific guidance is provided for grades
Pre-K-3 or 9-12. While the standards are clear and specific, the
failure to provide specific expectations for every grade, coupled
with a complicated and difficult-to-navigate organizational
structure, earn them two points out of three for Clarity and
Specificity.”

In fact, however, Massachusetts does provide explicit guidance in
the supplement itself because these additional grade-level
standards were developed for testing purposes for NCLB and
have been used every year since 2004. There is no wiggle-room
for interpretation and there has been nothing confusing to the Bay
State ’s elementary teachers about what standards were for
MCAS and for them to teach.

Moreover, because of the supplement, there are specific grade-
level standards for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 in the Massachusetts
document. Fordham demoted the Bay State ’s ELA standards not
only by setting forth an outright error in its critique but also by
using a double standard.

Massachusetts has standards for PreK-K, 1-2, and 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
and 8, as well as for high school, which are organized in two-year
grade spans exactly as Common Core’s are: 9-10 and 11-12.
But, Common Core’s standards were not criticized for not
providing Pre-K standards or grade-level standards in high
school—in either ELA or mathematics.

It is worth noting that, for full credit for “organization” in earlier
Fordham reviews, standards had to be presented for every grade
or two-year grade span. This definition for organization no longer
appears in the criteria used by Fordham in 2010.

It should also be noted that the abandonment of this definition for
“organization” as well as a puzzling approach to “rigor” clearly
contributed to the rating of A- for Common Core’s mathematics
standards. By themselves, its high school standards do not
warrant that grade. They are not organized by grade level, by
grade span, or by course. Instead, they are listed in five
unordered categories of mathematical constructs, leaving it totally
unclear which standards belong to each of the three basic
courses of: Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II. Moreover, its high
school geometry standards reflect a new approach with no record
of effectiveness to support it. Thus one cannot say that they are
rigorous because we don’t even know that they can be taught in
grade 8 and high school. In fact, there is some evidence to the
contrary.

In sum, one cannot discern the rigor of Common Core’s
mathematics standards “for the targeted grade level(s)” in grades
9-12 since there are no grade level standards for grades 9 to 12.
Nor, more important, can one readily discern the academic level,
or rigor, of the high school standards addressing Common Core’
s goal of “college readiness.” Nevertheless, Common Core’s
mathematics standards as a whole received full credit on the
“Content and Rigor Conclusion”

“The Common Core standards cover nearly all the essential
content with appropriate rigor. In the elementary grades,
arithmetic is well prioritized and generally well developed. In high
school, there are a few issues with both content and organization,
but most of the essential content is covered including the STEM-
ready material. The standards receive a Content and Rigor score
of seven points out of seven.”

There needs to be more public attention to the quality of Common
Core’s ELA (and mathematics) standards. There also needs to
be public attention to the methodology of the reports of several
national organizations all claiming to show that Common Core’s
ELA standards are among the best in this country, all being used
to sway the vote of our state boards of education.

No Ruling Class Education 'Reformers' Left Behind
in the Race to the Top: They went to pricey prep schools
Speaking of DC, President George W. Bush graduated from Andover
Academy, Senator Ted "Don't Worry, Mary Jo, We'll Cross That
Bridge When We Get To It" Kennedy graduated from Milton
Academy; and Checker Finn graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy.
Approximate annual costs and expenses for all three average $50,000
per student.

Checker Finn appears
to be the education
equivalent of Sen.
Lindsay Graham, the
lone "conservative"
progressives like to
trot out as examples
of Republicans who
go along with them.
Like Graham,
examples of Finn's
conservativism are
hard to find.

Checker Finn's probably
a nice guy. Lives in a
million-dollar house in
Chevy Chase with his
cardiologist wife. His
dad, a successful lawyer
in Dayton, Ohio, was on
the board of Thomas B.
Fordham Foundation
(assets $40-57 million
range) and bingo, Junior
gets a job at Fordham
paying $227,520 --
almost a quarter mil at a
public charity, guys and
dolls. Nice work if you
can get it.

OFordham payroll

Mike Petrilli, vice
president (was with U.S.
Department of Education,
worked on No Child Left
Behind); paid $175,000.
Diane Ravitch, trustee;
paid $5,000 annually for 2
hours/week; also: $1,000
for consulting.
Rod Paige, trustee; paid
$5,000 annually for 2
hours/week.
Terry Grier, consultant
(Houston ISD
superintendent); paid
$1,000.

Fordham gets it:

Fordham gives it:

$25,000 to Phillips Exeter
Academy (in honor of
Chester Finn, Sr.)
$10,000 to Philanthropy
Roundtable (lobbies to
protect secrecy of 501(c)
donors)
$1,520 to So Others Might
Eat (holiday donation)
$145 to Jesuits (holiday gifts)

Eli & Edythe Broad
Foundation; $10,100.

The Hoover Institution on
War, Revolution and
Peace at Stanford
University (CA)
1919

and Race to the Top) than Chester E. "Checker" Finn, Jr., president
and trustee of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and Fordham
Foundation.

But is Checker really a conservative? Can he legitimately be called
"right of center*"?

Educator James R. Patrick cautions us in his America 2000/Goals
2000 Research Manual: Moving the Nation Educationally to a New

5. MONEY FROM
GATES
Please describe the
donation(s)/payment(s)
for services rendered
including the $959K (I'm
still verifying this amount,
by the way) from the
Gates Foundation to
Fordham for providing
evaluation and how much
that did or did not
influence your decision to
embrace the CCS; I'll have
to be honest with you --
some of the comments on
this topic from readers
have been lively; as with
all of the above you
certainly deserve an
opportunity to present
your side. Along those
lines, any thoughts
regarding the complicated
relationships depicted on
this chart [above right] by
our friends at Pioneer
Institute? Going back to
the mid-1990s, what if
any considerations (other
than perhaps simple
friendship and gratitude)
do you recall were
extended to you and/or
Fordham for your
embrace of the curriculum
standards that Messrs.
Bush, Rove and Kress
were promoting here in
Texas over the Texas
Alternative Document?
[Please see veteran
educator Donna Garner's
comments below.]

6. NATIONALIZATION
OF U.S. PUBLIC
SCHOOLS: How would
you describe your role,
going back to the NAEP,
NCLB, etc.? What are
your thoughts regarding
the ultimate central (in DC
or elsewhere)
consolidation of student
data elements issue similar
to the Chinese dangan
portfolios? Did you agree
with Lou Gerstner's Dec.
1, 2008 WSJ op-ed calling
for nationalization [here]
of our 13,900 local public
school districts into 50,
one per state, plus another
20 for the major urbans?

7. YOUR
APPROXIMATE
CURRENT ANNUAL
INCOME FROM ALL
SOURCES: While the
money Fordham pays you
is public information, I've
been unable to find any
numbers from Koret, etc.
To the nearest $100,000
okay.

Checker, if you have any
questions please let me
know by return email.
My cell is xxx.xxx.xxxx
but email's better plus in
that way you can rest
assured that your thoughts
will be published exactly
as you write them.

ADDITIONAL: Please
talk a little about the
overlap between Blouke
Carus' Philanthropy
Roundtable activities and
his role in bringing
UNESCO's International
Baccalaureate program to
North America, and how
that sits with you.

1. POLITICS: Although
you've long been described as
a conservative, perhaps for
having on occasion supported
Republican officials such as
then-Gov. Bush here in Texas
during the mid-1990s, in
viewing your activities you
appear to be more aptly
categorized as a political
progressive or moderate.
Where would you put
yourself on the political
landscape?

2. COMMON CORE
STANDARDS (CCS):
Please describe your activities
in Colorado this past weekend
where you were spotted
(according to impeccable
sources) lobbying the state
board to adopt the CCS;
whom did you meet with and
where, and for what purpose?
  Which other states have you
traveled to in the past two
years (other than of course
Ohio) where you met with
state board of education
members and for what
purpose(s)? Speaking of
Ohio, any advice for
would-be charter school
operators? Also, other than
running public charities, have
you any experience working
in the business world other
than Edison?

3.   TAX-EXEMPT PUBLIC
CHARITIES:   (A) Please
describe your association
with The Philanthropy
Roundtable and their lobbying
for less rather than more
transparency as regards
donors even though 501(c)
public charities benefit from a
favored IRS no-tax standing.
What are your thoughts on
fiscal transparency in general
among public charities or
public education?   (B) Please
describe the IRS 60-month
ruling on page 22 here and the
Thomas B. Fordham
Foundation's subsequent
509(a)(3) standing.

4.   IT'S A NICE LIFE: (A)
Which social club(s) is
Fordham paying your dues
for and how much are they?
(B) Speaking of money, in
one way or another compared
to the average American
you've made a lot of it from
taxpayer-funded public
education; why did you send
your own children to a very
expensive private boarding
school in another state, and
would you say you spent
more or less on each child
than the reported $50,000 per
annum usually associated
with an Exonian secondary
education?

QUESTIONS FOR
CHECKER FINN
(Submitted Aug. 3, 2010;
response to date; none)

There may be no other figure in America today more widely considered to be the face of conservative
support for the federal government's nationalization-of-our-schools scheme (Common Core Standards

BILL GATES

NEW! 1776-2010 TIMELINE

World Order, "Do not put your trust in conservative rhetoric; actions always speak louder than words."

This seems a prudent time to take a closer look at Checker using the common markers that describe us
all: How does he spend his time? How does he earn and spend money?

Marc Tucker (top left) with David Rockefeller
and Hillary Clinton; if you've not read it lately,
Marc's prophetic "Letter to Hillary" mentioning
David Rockefeller's involvement is here

Can anyone explain this? It appears from this part of Fordham's IRS form 990 for 2008 that
Fordham spend $3.4 million to give away $250,000 -- after some meetings. Any CPAs
out there have a better understanding of what this IRS lingo means in real life?
Checker Finn sits on the board of directors of The Philanthropy Roundtable.

AUG. 10, 2010
NOTE: Checker Finn
and other Fordham
executives have not
responded to
telephone calls and
emails despite having
been given many
opportunities to do so
this past week.

About the "Don't Tread on Me" Gadsden flag:
"it was in the fall of 1775 when the United States Navy was
established. Their main job was to intercept British ships who
were attempting to deliver supplies to the British troups in the
colonies. To support the Navy, five companies of Marines
were mustered to accompany them on their first mission.
These first Marines originated from Philadelphia and carried
drums painted yellow with a coiled rattlesnake with thirteen
rattles. These thirteen rattles represented the original thirteen
colonies. The motto painted on these drums was "Don't
Tread On Me". This is the first recorded telling of what the
future Gadsden flag would symbolize. This flag was designed
and named after American patriot Christopher Gadsden."
(SOURCE)

Developing . . . .

Before Chester E.
Finn, Jr. got a job at
Fordham, Chester E.
Finn, Sr. was a
Fordham trustee

Wow, what a powerhouse
Mr. Finn Senior was. No
wonder Fordham gave a
$25,000 gift to Exeter in his
memory ($23,480 more
than Fordham gave to "So
That Others Might Eat"
during the same period).

Here's Mr. Finn Senior's
bio at Fordham:

Chester E. Finn Esq.
(1918-2007)
Trustee Emeritus

Chester E. Finn, Sr.
(1918-2007) is a Trustee
Emeritus of the Thomas B.
Fordham Foundation and the
Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Prior to retiring in 1999, Mr.
Finn was an attorney. He
served as an associate and
later partner with the Dayton,
Ohio-based firm of Estabrook,
Finn & McKee from 1947
until 1983. Upon that firm's
merger with Porter, Wright,
Morris & Arthur, Finn served
as a partner there until 1990
and as counsel until 1999.

Mr. Finn graduated from
Phillips Exeter Academy in
1936, and received his
Bachelors degree from Yale
University in 1940. He entered
Harvard Law School in
September 1940, and studied
there until February 1942,
when he left to volunteer for
the U.S. Navy, in which he
served for three and a half
years as a deck officer in the
Pacific. He returned to
Harvard Law School in
September 1945, graduating in
October 1946.

As a long-time member of the
Dayton community, Finn was
a trustee, director, or member
of numerous organizations. He
was president of the Dayton
Bar Association and a member
of the Ohio and American Bar
Associations. He was a
founding trustee of the Miami
Valley Health Foundation,
Wright State University
Foundation, Cox Arboretum
Foundation, and Miami Valley
School. Mr. Finn was a
trustee and President of the
United Way of Dayton, trustee
of the Dayton Art Institute,
Buckeye Trails Girl Scout
Council, Community
Research, Inc., Dayton-Miami
Valley Consortium, and the
Dayton Area Chamber of
Commerce. Former
directorships include The First
National Bank of Dayton,
Cassano's Inc., Dimco-Gray
Company, Neff Folding Box
Company, and others. Mr.
Finn was a long-time member
of the Area Progress Council
in Dayton.

More about Race to the Top, Common Core Standards
and the student dangan portfolio issue:

ED gov launches ED Data Express
The Ethicist column
NY Times magazine
August 6, 2010
The Classroom Showroom
By RANDY COHEN

The U.S. Department of Education launched a new interactive
Web site aimed at making accurate and timely education data
available in a single place. A key element of the Department's
open government plan, ED Data Express consolidates relevant
data collected by the Department from several different
sources and provides search tools that allow users to create
individualized reports. The data is available at
www.eddataexpress.ed.gov

ED Data Express users will be able to access data collected by
several of the Department's program offices, the National
Center for Education Statistics, and The College Board. Data
include results of state tests and the National Assessment of
Educational Progress, graduation rates, and school
accountability information. ED Data Express also publishes
budget figures and demographics. Before today's launch,
almost all of the data was available on the Department's main
website, www.ed.gov

But the data weren't in a centralized location, making it difficult
to find. Often, it was in formats difficult to sort and compare.
On ED Data Express, users can quickly find information they
need and view it in several different ways. The site provides
tools that allow users to search and explore the data, create
customized reports, and view state profiles with charts, tables,
and key data points for every state. It also allows users to
download their customized reports for further analysis. The
Department is committed to continually updating the data and
to enhancing the tools available to users. A version 2.0 of ED
Data Express will include enhanced data visualization tools and
the ability to post data on social networking sites. It is under
development and is scheduled to launch this winter.

(SOURCE--Fordham 990s/2008)

FORDHAM'S MONEY

One Size Fits None
by Jay P. Greene

The Obama administration and Gates Foundation are orchestrating an effort to get every
state to adopt a set of national standards for public elementary and secondary schools.
These standards describe what students should learn in each subject in each grade.
Eventually these standards can be used to develop national high-stakes tests, which will
shape the curriculum in every school.
National standards are a seductive but dangerous idea. People tend to support national
standards because they imagine that they will be the ones deciding what everyone else
should learn. Dictatorship always sounds more appealing when you fantasize that you will
be the dictator.
But the reality is that we are a large, diverse and decentralized country with strong
democratic traditions, making national standards-setting a futile task.
Either the standards are too prescriptive and are unable to attract the broad consensus
necessary for adoption, or they are vague enough to form a national coalition but so
vague that they are entirely useless.
The past two efforts at developing national standards illustrate each type of failure.
During the early 1990s, under President George H.W. Bush, an attempt at writing national
standards faltered when the history standards were perceived to be prescribing a left-wing
agenda. The U.S. Senate actually rejected those standards 99 to 0. Then in the late
nineties under President Bill Clinton the national standards push avoided attracting this
type of opposition by making the standards very loose and general. The result was that
they had no effect. So now we are like Sisyphus, rolling the national standards stone back
up the hill yet again.
Even if we could somehow thread the needle and win national adoption of standards that
were rigorous and specific, there is no reason to believe that they would stay that way.
Once the automobile of national standards is built, eventually someone will gain control
of the wheel and drive it in a direction you oppose. And if the entire nation is governed
by those standards, there is no hopping out of the car. We’ll all drive over the cliff
together.
The virtue of developing standards at the state, district and school level is that it
accommodates the legitimate diversity of opinion about how children could best be
educated. No one suggests that math is fundamentally different in different places, but
whether, for example, all children should be taught long division in 3rd grade is not a
settled question. If we adopt national standards, then we destroy the laboratory of the
states that might help us learn about which approaches are more effective for which
students.
The idea that all students nationwide should be learning the same thing at the same age
denies the reality of how diverse our children are. Some of our children are more
advanced and would be bored silly if we don’t allow them to progress at a more rapid
rate. Other students need more time to master their material. Some students would
benefit from a greater emphasis on the arts, while others might thrive with greater
emphasis on science. To impose a single curriculum on all students is to build a system
where one size fits none.
We don’t need national standards to prevent states from dumbing down their own
standards. We already have a national test, the National Assessment of Educational
Progress (NAEP) administered by the U.S. Department of Education, to show how states
are performing on a common yardstick and to shame those that set the bar too low.
Illinois, for example, isn’t fooling anyone when it says that 82% of its 8th graders are
proficient in reading because according to NAEP only 30% are proficient. The beauty of
NAEP is that it provides information without forcing conformity to a single, national
curriculum.
Nor is it the case that adopting national standards would close the achievement gap
between the U.S. and our leading economic competitors. Yes, many of the countries that
best us on international tests have national standards, but so do many of the countries
that lag behind us. If there really were one true way to educate all children, why stop at
national standards? Why not have global standards with a global curriculum?
We would oppose global standards for the same reasons we should oppose national
standards. Making education uniform at too high of a level of aggregation ignores the
diversity of needs of our children as well as the diversity of opinion about how best to
serve those needs. And giving people at the national or global level the power to
determine what everyone should learn is dangerous because they will someday use that
power to promote unproductive or even harmful ideas.

Jay P. Greene is the endowed professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas.

———————————————————————————————

All Need Same Knowledge
by Sandra Stotsky

Many Americans support the idea of common, or national, standards. They believe
national K-12 standards would ensure that all students, no matter where they live and
what school they attend, are taught a body of common national and world knowledge,
acquire a mature understanding and use of the English language, and gain enough
mathematical knowledge and skill to participate competitively in the 21st Century global
economy. However, we have good reason to be skeptical about this rosy expectation.
There is no evidence that national standards by themselves lead to or guarantee high
levels of academic achievement. And, the Common Core initiative, a joint project of the
National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, has yet to
come up with first-class standards in mathematics or English/language arts that would
make this country competitive.
The U.S. is one of the very few countries in the world without national or regional
standards. While some have high-achieving populations, many others do not. In other
words, there is no direct relationship between high student achievement and having
national standards. What does seem to make a difference in many countries with high-
achieving students is the presence of high-stakes tests. Moreover, many of these countries-
Korea, the Netherlands, Japan, for example-test a lot and use multiple-choice tests-tests
that entrepreneurial testing experts disdain in favor of portfolios, project-based
assessments, and other costly and generally unreliable measures.
Everyone knows that the real spur for higher academic achievement will come from the
development of common assessments, funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The
catch here is that these assessments are supposed to be based on the standards being
developed by Common Core. And a number of significant improvements need to be
made, especially at the secondary level, before its mathematics and English standards
can be judged as internationally benchmarked and as the basis for reliable and valid
grade-level and high school exit level assessments. So, the push from the education
department to compel all states to adopt (voluntarily, of course) and implement Common
Core’s standards will not in itself raise academic achievement in the 40 or so states with
poor or uneven quality in their K-12 standards-the major reason we have been told we
need national standards.
A critique I co-authored with Stanford University mathematician R. James Milgram, “Fair
to Middling: A National Standards Progress Report,” published by Pioneer Institute, spells
out the major deficiencies of Common Core’s draft standards and compares them with
those in our top-rated states. As our report notes, the leisurely development of basic
arithmetic skills in the upper elementary and middle school grades and the failure to offer
an optional pathway to prepare students for an authentic Algebra 1 course in grade 8
mean that its mathematics standards are at a significantly lower level than those in
California, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Indiana (the states with the most rigorous
mathematics standards) and in the highest-achieving countries.
Similarly, Common Core’s English standards are distinctly inferior to those in California,
Indiana, Massachusetts and Texas, all top-rated states. The central problem with
Common Core’s English standards is its organizational scheme-a set of generic, content-
free, and culture-free skills that are incapable of generating coherent grade-level
academic standards. Until an academically sound scheme is used, Common Core’s draft
writers will not be able to generate sequences of sound standards through the grades that
lead to common curricular expectations-what national standards should give us. Nor will
they be able to assure the states that common assessments based on the kind of standards
we see in the March draft will lead to reliable and valid assessments of student learning.
The country is well aware by now of the possibility that the U.S. Department of Education
will require states to adopt Common Core’s finaldraft if they want their Title I funds in the
future. It is not clear why our national standards in English and mathematics cannot be at
least as good as those in states that have empirical evidence, within the state, nationally,
or internationally, attesting to the effectiveness of their current standards. Why were the
most rigorous sets of standards, here and abroad, ignored?

Sandra Stotsky is Professor of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, holds the
21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality, and is a member of Common Core’s Validation
Committee.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 11th, 2010 at 10:50 am,

JAY GREENE & SANDRA STOTSKY: Jay's blog

* Fordham vice
president Mike Petrilli,
November 19, 2009
podcast.

Sandy and Jay on National Standards
Sandra Stotsky and I have pieces in today’s Arkansas Democrat
Gazette on the current national standards push. We take slightly different
approaches — Sandy thinks national standards are a good idea in general
but the current draft has bad standards, while I think national standards
are a bad idea altogether. But we end up with the same policy
recommendation — the current national standards push should be
stopped. I’ve reproduced both pieces below:

COMMON CORE STANDARDS/FORDHAM INSTITUTE UPDATE
Has Checker Finn caught the Diane Ravitch disease (be for something
until after the check's cleared then change your mind)?
By Peyton Wolcott
Wednesday, September 15, 2010 / 5:41 a.m.

Mark your calendars. September 9 was the date that Checker Finn and the Fordham Institute began to turn against the national
standards movement they so enthusiastically championed. We’ve been predicting this reversal ... but who knew it would happen so
soon? Last week Checker noticed that the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), which directs the current national
standards push fueled by Gates Foundation money and financial rewards and threats from the U.S. Department of Education, is
merging with P-21, the 21st century skills nonsense organization. Checker noted that the incorporation of P-21 into CCSSO could
provide additional traction for the organization’s current agenda [which] would be bad for the country, bad for the new ‘Common Core’
standards and the assessments being developed around them, and possibly bad for CCSSO as well.

Checker also suddenly became aware that even good standards may well be undermined by bad assessments: Indeed, P-21 isn’t
the only risk here. At least one of the two new assessment-development consortia could—probably in the name of “performance
assessment” and “career readiness”—easily drown in the soft stuff, in which case the tests it is building may not do justice to the
academic standards with which they are meant to be aligned.

Checker's apparent Common Core Standards recant should come as no surprise; he and Diane have
been on-again off-again buddies for years and Diane's still a (paid) trustee on both Fordham boards.
Accept the check, pay the light bill on your million-plus swankienda, then recant appears to be the
pattern. Question is, what do either Checker or Diane really believe in other their their own purses?

From Jay Greene:

Chester E. "Checker" Finn, Jr. (left)
and Diane Ravitch

With friends like these two, do American schoolchildren need enemies?