Anti CCSS Warriors and those Against the CCSS Machine, have you seen the delusions of grandeur being manufactured at almost break neck speed lately?!
Between the stacked deck of pro CCSS folks being tagged for leadership and the main stream media cranking out plenty of false positives about education, it’s enough to make our heads spin.
For example, recently Tom VanderArk’s “Getting Smart” website shared a guest written article about personalized learning in the classroom. Now, if you’ve heard of Mr. VanderArk, you know he is a master deceiver when it comes to a quality education. He’s absolutely, 100% sold out to the CCSS Machine’s reform. Part of the reoccurring message he (and others like him) shares is how fantastic ‘personalized’ learning is.
What these deceivers don’t count on is that we, the Warriors, are onto their delusions. “Personalized” learning in the “Era of ESSA” is code for ‘competency based education designed to NOT teach, but to CONFORM’.
“Personalized” learning is also code for digitally based data mining. “Personalized” learning is also being used to create false positive results when it comes to assessing how much our students are learning. Put another way, the digital based ‘personalization’ constantly grades on a steep curve.
In this context, the CCSS Machine banks on the fact that the general population HEARS ‘personalized’ as ‘custom’. It banks on the fact that when we hear ‘custom’, we PERCEIVE it as ‘exclusive’.
As a society, we are taught that ‘exclusive’ is special, is to be sought after. That somehow ‘exclusive’ means BETTER than everything else.
We are taught that by having something ‘exclusively’ means we have something NO ONE else can have.
Warriors, ‘personalized learning’ via ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) is a masterful delusion of epic proportions. ESSA also has a tremendous amount of Competency Based teaching/learning. ‘Personalizing’ it mocks true teaching/learning.
EVERY student will have the same type of education, there is NO true “personalization”! Only illusions.
As long as education is funneled through competency based Common Core/Career Tech Education/College and Career Readiness and all that goes with it, the delusions live on.
The Article:
“Getting Smart” featured a letter to the President-elect/new administration written by a KnowledgeWorks staff member, Lillian Pace. Warriors, KnowledgeWorks is another 100% sold out to the CCSS Machine member organization. I’ve researched them in the past and have shared with you how deeply their allegiance to the education reform runs. This group is not after our students aligning, it is after our ENTIRE communities being aligned to conformity based education, life, and everything connecting the two. Below is a screen shot from one of my 2014 articles. This was the first one I wrote about KnowledgeWorks (KW).
To access the entire article: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2014/10/24/fom-friday-knowledgeworks-or-knowledge-quirks/
A big selling point for ‘personalized’ learning is digital badging, or coding. To see how KnowledgeWorks has been involved in this:
So, What Did Ms. Pace Direct To Mr. Trump’s Attention?
The link to “Getting Smart”, where her article is featured:
http://www.gettingsmart.com/2016/12/how-the-president-elect-can-scale-personalized-learning/
The link to the 5 page document KnowledgeWorks has created for the President-elect and his administration:
http://www.knowledgeworks.org/sites/default/files/knowledgeworks-recommendations-new-presidential-administration-2016.pdf
The Deluded Sales Pitch Points:
a) “leverage the vast amount of innovation occurring across the country to help States and school districts build an education system that provides all learners with access to a personalized education that enables them to master the knowledge and skills critical to success in college and career”
How did KW propose the President-elect and his staff accomplish this?! MORE incentives! As if Race to the Top’s incentives didn’t teach our nation about how badly the carrots-on-a-stick delusion worked.
b) Post-secondary Transition Innovation Funds where the money would be “administered jointly by all Department offices with a stake in K–12 and post-secondary policy”
c) Create a Pathway Program for employment.While WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) already ‘gave’ us ‘personalized learning for employment’ (Career Tech Education, Career Pathways, Career Tracks, Career Clusters, American Apprenticeships, etc.), this NEW Pathway “would have the “federal government and the employer would equally share the cost of tuition; however, the federal government would reimburse the employer if it employs an individual for two years after obtaining a credential.”
d) Increase dual enrollment and early college high schools. Warriors, each of these are already ‘personalized’ to not only WIOA, but to CCSS, CTE, and will increase via ESSA! We do not need MORE of what has already been passed into law. The same can be said for Points A, B, and C!
Closing:
If you’d like to see the slick CBE (Competency Based Education) ‘personalized’ learning sales pitch KnowledgeWorks has produced to help our nation see how valuable it is.Listen for the key educratic buzzwords, as well, Warriors. Especially ‘every child succeeds’.:
https://youtu.be/IGLJWAQn1CU
If you’d like to see how KnowledgeWorks is ready to help every school, every teacher, and every student transition to CBE, http://www.knowledgeworks.org/schools/cbe
We are all subject to the future Hunger Games!
Thanks, Kevin.
Please contact me as soon as possible re: new administration and the dismantling of CCSS. This is very important and I need to speak with you. Lawrie Sikkema, Frontline Ministries, Inc. and Exodus Mandate Project.
Lawrie, will do!