Jeb Bush’s ed reform show
His summit seeks choice, tests and tech
You could say that the only folks missing from the National Summit on Education Reform at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel were teachers, but that would be wrong, on a technicality; they were outside protesting. Teachers might have had a vested interest, or even an interesting viewpoint, in the issues raised during the two-day conference. Stuff like tenure, seniority, testing, Common Core standards, and using technology in education.
Governor Jeb Bush, Chairman of the Foundation for Excellence in Education. (Photo from Foundation website)
But, no, they weren’t invited into the inner sanctum of power brokers, policy makers, and politicians brought together for two days of learning and lobbying by former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education. It might have been awkward for them be in the room when Idaho’s schools chief praised his state legislature for eliminating teacher tenure, or when Indiana’s Superintendent of Public Instruction described the “herd mentality of the union,” and remarked that “it takes an act of God to get rid of a tenured teacher.”
Still, anyone expecting a strict conservative ideology would have been confused. Don’t get me wrong; the only bona fide liberal in sight was Ben Austin, director of Parent Revolution, the Los Angeles-based nonprofit behind the parent empowerment movement. And even Austin is having a hard time maintaining his pedigree these days, at least with the teachers unions. Still, he was on the inside with other players who also can’t be pinned down other than to say they’re all “reformers.”
For example, Checker Finn, voice of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, moderated a panel with Anne Bryant, director of the National Association of School Boards – who playfully quipped that she and Checker disagree about 100 percent of the time – at one end of the dais, and Joel Klein, the former New York City schools chancellor and current Vice President and COO of News Corp’s Education Division, on the other end.
News Corp’s main man, Rupert Murdoch, delivers a keynote address today; after all, he recently plopped down $360 million to buy Wireless Generation, a Brooklyn-based education technology and consulting company. You’ll recall that News Corp already knew a bit about wireless technology used in cell phones.
But last night, the keynoter was Melinda Gates, and earlier Thursday attendees heard from Sal Khan, the unassuming Silicon Valley genius behind Khan Academy, the nonprofit developer of thousands of high-quality online lessons available free of charge, who joked that he used to think YouTube was for cats playing pianos, not for serious mathematics.
Despite their seemingly diverse perspectives, the speakers all do fit together, each bringing a puzzle piece that gives shape to Jeb Bush’s vision of an American education system that’s once again an equal competitor among industrialized nations.
“My personal belief is there is no one single thing that needs to get done,” said Bush during his opening remarks. [Read the entire speech here]. What it will require, he said, is a combination of school choice (vouchers), Common Core standards, rigorous assessments, consequences for anything less than excellence, and using technology to transform education.
Bush reached out to odd bedfellows to make his case, though. At one point he borrowed from Stanford Professor and teacher advocate Linda Darling-Hammond, describing academic standards in the United States as a “mile wide and an inch deep,” while the rest of the world concentrates on fewer core concepts and teaches them in depth.
A few minutes later, when deriding the self-esteem movement, he quoted former Harvard President Larry Summers, whom Bush described as a “kind of politically incorrect guy,” as saying “we need to stop telling kids they need to have self-esteem to achieve and start telling them they need to achieve to get self-esteem.” It was the only line that drew loud applause.
It’s also interesting to note that Jeb Bush’s support for Common Core standards is consistent with his view of federalism: Washington can and should play a strong role by setting expectations, but then it had better step aside and let the states decide how to get there.
“We have 50 states, trying 50 wacky things through trial and error, which I think is the best way to try to solve problems rather than the kind of D.C. solution these days, which is top down,” said Bush. “I like the more dynamic solutions, and our federal system is designed exactly for this. We do have laboratories of democracy that are prepared to make the changes.”
Checker Finn? I believe you mean Chester Finn…
Bush thinks our federal system is designed for more dynamic solutions? I don’t know where to begin on that….
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
Same person. Nickname. Anyone at the party mention poverty?
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
@RichardMoore – They did mention poverty, especially the group of state superintendents roundtable. They said they are tired of people thinking kids in poverty can’t learn.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
By the way, teacher unions have conventions and summits every year. Do they invite reformer types to speak? I didnt think so.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
His name is Chester, but everyone calls him Checker. I don’t know the origin of the nickname.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
True, but teachers unions are membership organizations and their conferences are for plenary sessions and conducting business.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
Difficult to know where to begin with this one with all the information, documentation and validation of what some have been saying for a long time about who is orchestrating the “brave new schools” and moving rapidly to Distance Learning. It is a well oiled and orchestrated partnership between neocons, old line bureaucrats and old line foundations (Chester Finn, Fordham Foundation, etc.) who have been steering the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America for decades, and the” newbies” on the street such as Gates Foundation, venture capitalists, tech oligarchs, and Alinsky organizer such as Ben Austin with the Parent Trigger agenda. Quite a nest of change agents in high places all together in one place to plot the final “refreezing” of the system since the “unfreezing” has been successfully accomplished. Thank you, RAND Corporation for the descriptive terminology e: the planned process. The “refreezing” is to be modeled as a system of global Distance Learning. The warning bears repeating that teachers had better leave the concentration on the minutia of each maneuver in the process being carried by the all of the above and others, to concentrate on the big picutre of plans afoot for the function of teachers being planned and programmed for extinction or demotion to becoming tutors , monitors, or overseers to keep students on task in front of their computer screens with “direct instruction” being imparted from anywhere in the world. I repeat, wake up teachers, your jobs are about to be “offshored” just as manufacuring, engineering and other professions have been. Your unions won’t be able to counteract it any more than industry unions were able to do for the unemployed of empty factories and lost professional positions. Students will be phased into “programmed” curricula designed to produce worker bees for global economies. The authority of those elected to represent the voters and tax payers is already underway as charter schools are being used as a transmission to the final objective of Distance Learning.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
Digital technology is a sharp scalpel indeed and could lead to “brave new schools” as M Thompson fears, or it could lead to other directions, including the ability to empower teachers to teach and organize their practice in fundamentally different ways.
Education|Evolving continues to do some of the most cutting-edge and forward-thinking analysis in the country and has an provocative and engaging piece on point posted on their site (http://www.educationevolving.org/strategy/digital). I commend it in combination with their materials on teacher professional partnerships.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity
At the very same time Rupert Murdoch was speaking to reform advocates at the Sheraton Palace, the brilliant education scholar Yong Zhao was speaking to the Association of Latino Administrators and Superintendents at the Marriott on Market, just a few blocks away.
May we pause for a chorus of “Which Side Are You On?”
I missed Murdoch (though I had a press pass) and listened to Zhao instead — he was insightful, informative, amusing and inspiring. In San Francisco this morning, Murdoch was the symbol of the current brand of education reform (the status quo) and Zhao the voice of those who support teachers, call for smaller classes rather than virtual education, want high-stakes eliminated from testing, and believe in supporting our public institutions rather than privatizing them. Reform advocates should agree with me.
It is interesting, though — much of the reform movement makes a serious effort to portray it as consistent with liberal philosophy. Parent Revolution works especially hard at that, employing high-profile staff with liberal credentials. They announce their trips to Madison to be seen with the state capitol protesters while simultaneously attacking teachers’ unions.
Well, that pretense has ended now that they were at the Sheraton Palace with Murdoch and Bush.
Report this comment for abusive language, hate speech and profanity