The Annenburg Institute, a grant recipient of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, resource for community organizing, and associated with ACORN, recently issued a press release below.
Please read our comments in BOLD and ITALICIZED.
We also encourage you to read Jay Greene’s blog to truly understand what is going on on public ed. Annenberg is simply helping to further destroy “knowledge” and public education to promote Marc Tucker’s agenda of dumbed down workforce training.
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Angela Romans, Principal Associate,
Annenberg Institute for School Reform
angela_romans@brown.edu (401) 863-7712
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The “College Readiness Indicator Systems” Resource Series created by researchers from Standford University, Brown University, and the University of Chicago is free and widely available for download now.
Today is National College Decision Day, the moment when hopeful high school seniors select the schools where they will pursue their dreams of a college education. As greater numbers of students strive for a college degree, districts are struggling with how to prepare them for the challenges ahead—to build the critical attitudes, aptitudes, and skills necessary to succeed in college and beyond.
What attitudes are necessary? This is an organization that has been involved with pushing progressive political agendas. NOT academic excellence in the classroom.
To address this problem, education researchers from Stanford University, Brown University and the University of Chicago are releasing a “College Readiness Indicator Systems (CRIS) Resource Series”. The series is a suite of educational products designed to help school districts use data to identify students and the supports they need to graduate high school and have success in college.
Data on academics or having the right political attitudes?
Funded by a $3 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the CRIS initiative brought together the researchers with urban school systems in Dallas, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and San Jose. The aim of the initiative was to develop and study the implementation of a system of indicators and supports designed to deliver the knowledge and skills students need to be truly ready for college.
These are code words for the dumbed down Common Core Standards and dumbed down Outcome Based Education
“A CRIS, at its most basic, is really a strategy for promoting educational equity.”
If this were truly about equality, the focus would be on academic excellence for ALL students. Instead the solution is dumbed down standards and outcomes that push workforce skills that further dumb down the classroom. This is sometimes called 21st Century Skills but go back to SCANS.
“It is unusual in that it is not an early warning system, but a proactive approach that gets out ahead of the problem,” said Milbrey McLaughlin, the David Jacks Professor of Education and Public Policy, Emerita at Stanford University and founding director of the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities. “A CRIS ensures that meaningful opportunities are available for the long-term success of all students, particularly those who have been traditionally underrepresented in the post-secondary education system.”
So progressive political policies that eroded the culture are now going to be addressed by the progressives who helped to create the problem? And we are supposed to be excited about this?
The CRIS Resource Series is free and available for download by interested educators and administrators via any of the program’s partner websites: annenberginstitute.org, ccsr.uchicago.edu, gardnercenter.stanford.edu, and gatesfoundation.org
A Robust Tool for Districts
“Education leaders are grappling with the fact that students are not college ready when they leave high school,” said Jenny Nagaoka, deputy director of the University of Chicago Consortium for Chicago School Research.
The University of Chicago also produced one of the worst math programs in the country: Everyday Math. Fuzzy or Reform Math has contributed to math illiteracy in this country and now they are charged with fixing the mess they helped to create?
“Although many districts are starting to use indicators, too often they are not linked to practices and policies in ways that would enable action to create meaningful, lasting change. There is a great need for actionable resources that help districts and schools understand the problem and develop strategies that meet their specific needs and context.”
College readiness involves more than college eligibility. The CRIS Resource Series guides districts in selecting indicators that target three dimensions of students’ college readiness:
- Academic preparedness—students’ academic content knowledge and the key cognitive strategies necessary for college-level work
This from the same group of people who’ve brought us fuzzy math, whole language, Constructivism and a de-emphasis on rich academic content!
- Academic tenacity—the underlying beliefs and attitudes that drive student achievement, and
Translate: make the kids struggle… ie… get them to hate learning. We’ve seen it in presentations by administrators who no longer support a teacher directly teaching students but ‘facilitating’ learning with practices that leave children frustrated and lacking academic knowledge.
- College knowledge—the contextual skills that enable students to successfully navigate the academic and social intricacies of campus life once they arrive.
Actionable Indicators
The CRIS Resource Series can help districts use data more effectively as they adopt the Common Core State Standards – promoted at the federal level and adopted in nearly every state – which emphasize the knowledge and skills young people need to succeed in college. More states are also adopting longitudinal data systems that allow them to offer vision, guidance and support to districts and school networks.
Translate, Bill Gates paid us and we will carry out his agenda which is an agenda from Marc Tucker. The goal is to turn public ed into workforce development. It’s in his famous letter to Hillary Clinton. That’s why they need the data on your kids. Cradle to Grave workforce training for the Corp. elites and Big. Govt. progressives who think they know what’s best for your kids
The CRIS resource series consists of six tools to guide a district through the implementation of a College Readiness Indicator System. Each tool is customizable to a given district and contains detailed information, questions and considerations. The six tools are:
Beyond College Eligibility: A New Framework for Promoting College Readiness, including a dynamic, web-based representation that complements the Framework.
Menu of College Readiness Indicators and Supports
Selecting Effective Indicators
A Technical Guide to College Readiness Indicator
Essential Elements in Implementation
A Tri-level Approach
A CRIS works at three levels, individual, setting and system:
- First, for individual students, a CRIS tracks progress with indicators that include courses and credits, study skills, persistence, future expectations and general knowledge of college requirements.
- Second, at the school level, a CRIS helps teachers encourage students to achieve higher levels of academic performance, to anticipate campus culture and resources, and establish academic rigor.
Translate: Common Core rigor = kids crying over confusing math that kills their love of learning.
- Last, at the district level, a CRIS addresses the policy and funding infrastructure to improve counseling, professional development for administrators and teachers, and data generation efforts. The overarching goal is to move the student, school and district toward post-secondary success.
All aligned to dumbed down Common Core standards and workforce outcomes
“Individual-level indicators are key to identify both students’ progress and the supports they need. But they do not address the ‘inputs’ for students: school and district policies, culture, and equitable distribution of resources, all of which play a critical role in students getting the right supports,” said Angela Romans, principal associate at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University. “An effective CRIS also needs setting- and system-level indicators to drive the policies, practices, and resources that lead to college readiness for all.”
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For more information about the CRIS initiative and the CRIS Resource Series, please contact Angela Romans at angela_romans@brown.edu or (401) 863-7712.