The war on standards — dumbing down the SAT

Even worse than dumbing down the SAT is making it "align" with Common Core. Now nobody can escape CC; not private schools, not home schools. This is a thoroughly diabolical move by the regime.

Common Core 'architect' deals blow to opponents with SAT revamp

FoxNews
March 07, 2014
By Perry Chiaramonte

“It’s a roundabout way to put pressure on states that opted out of Common Core,” said Whitney Neal, director of Grassroots at Freedom Works. “If you are legislator from Virginia let’s say, this will put pressure on you obtain material to make your district more appealing especially to homebuyers. SAT averages are often included in realtor information and high school success rate is always a selling point.”

The man known as the "architect" of Common Core has used his new job running the College Board to deal a devastating blow to critics of the national education standards.

The SAT was revamped to align with the Common Core Standards Initiative, the broad language and math standards adopted by 45 states despite growing complaints that it will result in nationalized control of K-12 curriculum. The announcement on Tuesday was made by College Board President David Coleman, who before taking the post in 2012, played a key role in designing Common Core.

Re David Coleman, the College Board educrat who is driving the changes to the SAT, here is a post to Diane Ravitch's education blog by a non-admirer of Coleman's who lays it out with a solid basis of his own, being an educator himself. Herewith the poster's squawk (a few standard edits supplied):

Jeff Ludwig March 9, 2014 at 10:25 pm Mr. Coleman is a wicked, self-centered educator. Dr. Ravitch you don’t know how much hurt is in my heart reading about the changes to be made in the SAT. After 50 years as an educator in colleges and secondary schools. His philosophical base is all wrong. The new SATs will discriminate against achievement, against math and language standards, and favor certain ethnic groups over others — all points completely against SAT philosophy since its inception. It is a revolution that will produce even more confusion and chaos than we have now (is that possible?). Further, Mr. Coleman is one of those politically correct individuals who is always mouthing off about our becoming more internationally competitive in education. Yet, with further diluting of the SAT (the “readjustment” of the mean score a few years ago was the first diluting step), we shall actually be less competitive. I do not consider myself to be a maudlin or sentimental person, but when I read about the changes, tears literally came to my eyes. I have dedicated most of my life to the intellectual development of students of all races, religions, and creeds, and regardless of their economic standing. My own father was a blue collar worker, and I had the opportunity to obtain degrees from Ivy League institutions. Like Mr. Coleman, I am Jewish. I read about his bar mitzvah. I also was bar mitzvahed. What did he learn from being Jewish? I learned that you shall not bear false witness (it’s one of the Ten Commandments). Watering down a standardized test is bearing false witness. It’s saying that your score is just as valid as someone else’s who received the same score but answered more difficult questions. Is that not a lie no matter how sophisticated your defense of the change might purport to be? Reply Jeff Ludwig March 9, 2014 at 10:34 pm
One other point …. Mr. Coleman’s longtime association with Michelle Rhee is, as you clearly state, a “red flag” regarding the philosophical foundations of his educational goals. Michelle Rhee lacks educational values and ideals and sees education as a form of marketing rather than as a system of passing on knowledge and values. The teacher is not a mere facilitator, nor is he or she to be evaluated according to cost-benefit parameters. Rather, the teacher is the key to unlocking student achievement for a better future and for independent thinking. Further, Michelle Rhee and her ilk are reversing the time honored ideal of in loco parentis where the teachers being placed under the control of the master puppeteers of the Core Curriculum and administrators, teachers, students, and, lastly, parents are under the control of an impersonal system run by technocrats, software engineers, and arch-manipulators, not by loving adults who care about kids. So, to coin a phrase, we now have in loco educationensis where parents must submit to the values and premises of the schools, and the schools must submit (all personnel) to the values and premises of the master controllers. It’s Plato’s Republic, Book VII, writ large. Or, eventually (tomorrow?) will be 1984 or Brave New World.

Source (cold link): http://dianeravitch.net/2012/05/19/who-is-david-coleman/

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