"A child's learning is the function more of the characteristics of his classmates than those of the teacher." James Coleman, 1972

Sunday, March 19, 2017

NEA and AFT among Leaders of Blended/Personalized Learning

If you have been wondering why NPE, FairTest, BATs, Diane Ravitch's Basecamp, etc. have had almost nothing negative to say about the brave new world of competency-based, personalized blended learning, then you might want to sit down for a moment and follow the links below.  

It seems the corporate unions that all the anti-reformy groups serve became signatories in 2015 to a wide-ranging blueprint for the future of schools.  It is a future based on heavy doses of computer technology for instruction, curriculum, and assessment, with less teaching by real teachers in fewer school buildings, with great wads of money going to Silicon Valley billionaires. 

In a 2016 blog post from Gisele Huff, Executive Director of the Jacquelin Hume Foundation, we find this paragraph:
Personalized learning is an idea whose time has come. The Foundation was an early supporter of Education Reimagined and I participated as one of 28 strange bedfellows in the production of its vision document (http://ow.ly/ZmPpn). That document has become the North Star for the transformation of a 100-year old educational system which no longer serves America’s children. Among the other signatories of document are the two leaders of the NEA and AFT, evidence that there is a consensus for an entirely different approach to the learning experience.
Here's the Advisory Board for Education Reimagined.  And here are the principal corporate donors:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,  Chan Zuckerberg Initiative,  Jaquelin Hume Foundation,  Nellie Mae Education Foundation,  Oak Foundation.
Breathe deeply.  Now if you are a K-12 educator still sending money to any of the organizations named in the first paragraph of this post, you are contributing to your own burial fund each time you do it.

1 comment:

  1. Collusion is corruption. There is no consensus when the union leaders give their stamps of approval to policies that haven't been democratically discussed/approved by the memberships. Educators need to stand up--independent of their union leaders---and refuse to participate in these anti-public education, harmful to students policies. And...walk if necessary!!!!!

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