You can’t tell me Humble ISD isn’t becoming the next Douglas County! Upon my research I stumbled upon the “Common Sense Policy Roundtable.” This was founded by Kristin Strohm, who by the way, is the managing partner for the Starboard Group, a right wing political consulting firm. That’s the same firm that has been embroiled in some political shenanigans.
This is a never ending of who’s who in the “reformers” world. I know that Douglas County has a “think tank,” and I was warned we would probably have one too like the Independence Institute think tank funded by Americans for Prosperity and Koch Bros., who love to brag on their Facebook pages and their blog sites about what they are doing or have done. Well, as a matter of fact we do. The Koret Task Force:
The Koret Task Force on K–12 Education is a group of senior education scholars brought together by the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, who work collectively as well as individually on American public education reform issues. The task force was created in 1999 as part of the Hoover Institution’s Initiative on American Educational Institutions and Academic Performance. The group conducts original research and assessments of a broad variety of K–12 education issues, policies, and practices.
The task force supports three core education reform principles: accountability, choice, and transparency. In its scholarship and writing, the group has advanced reforms that ensure rigorous academic standards and assessments, competition among schools, parental choice, results-based performance incentives, and public access to information about every school and school system. The task force has written on such issues as accountability and academic achievement, charter schools, curriculum and learning standards, education finance issues, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, the politics of public education, and teacher certification, professional development, and incentive pay structures.
Chester E. Finn Jr., is chairman of the Koret Task Force and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and president and trustee of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. Well, fancy that!
Considering Superintendent Celania-Fagen knows we are on to her, my thoughts are, they might try to use different verbiage to disguise what she is here for, the “Reinventing of American Education.” I noticed some new terminology when scouring Koret Task force; “E. D. Hirsch Jr. is a member emeritus of the Koret Task Force on K–12 Education. He was a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution from 1999 to 2006. Hirsch is the founder and chairman of Core Knowledge Foundation.”
The Core Knowledge Foundation serves as the support system for Core Knowledge schools, educators, and parents. The Foundation conducts research on curricula; develops books and other materials for students, parents, and teachers; and serves as a training and communications hub for schools using Core Knowledge.
There are three levels of Core Knowledge schools based on the level of implementation and excellence achieved by the school—Friends of Core Knowledge, Official Core Knowledge Schools, and Official Core Knowledge Visitation Sites. Friends of Core Knowledge are schools implementing Core Knowledge at any level, beginning on the first day of implementation. Official Core Knowledge Schools implement 80% or more of the Core Knowledge Sequence and have an eventual goal of 100% implementation. They submit curriculum plans, alignment with state standards, and sample lessons for review by the Foundation. Official Core Knowledge Visitation Sites are schools visited by representatives of the Foundation deemed to be model schools for Core Knowledge implementation.
The Foundation has developed a number of publications, including general information packets about Core Knowledge, the Sequences, textbooks, and other supplementary materials for use in conjunction with the Sequence.
The Core Knowledge Foundation also offers a variety of staff development workshops to facilitate the process of implementing the Core Knowledge program in schools and hosts an annual national conference, which focuses on the sharing of ideas between educators at every level and making connections across the Core Knowledge network.
As of April 2006, Core Knowledge schools were 44% public, 35% charter, 15% private, and 6% parochial. Additionally, they were 39% urban, 39% suburban, and 22% rural.
Now, of course, this is just speculation on my part. but I’m just trying to be a bit proactive.
Diane Ravitch just posted about the Thomas B. Fordham, a place where Superintendent Celania-Fagen is a prominent figure as a “guest” speaker.
“The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, one of the nation’s leading advocates for school choice, commissioned a study of Ohio’s voucher program. To what must have been their surprise and disappointment, the study concluded that students in voucher schools perform worse than students in public schools.
I was a founding member of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation–now the Fordham Institute–and I will affirm that TBF told unpleasant truths, even to its own disadvantage and the disadvantage of its causes. I left the board in 2009, after I fell away from choice, competition, and accountability as answers to the needs of America’s students.”
Wow, unpleasant truths? This does not bode well for our new superintendent, who has been a speaker for TBF Institute.