No Vendor Left Behind
A month ago, Common Core issued a challenge to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21). The statement reiterated some of the concerns raised by scholars and education experts over the last year about P21’s approach to learning. Our statement attracted a diverse and distinguished list of signatories, including Mark Bauerlein, Kevin P. Chavous, Checker Finn, E.D. Hirsch, Diane Ravitch, John Silber, Whitney Tilson, and Randi Weingarten.
This week, P21 issued its own statement signed by, well, mostly vendors. There are other signatories—including some schools—but no individuals signed. And if you take a minute to parse the lengthy list a few interesting things emerge.
For example, just 11 of P21’s 13 member states signed. The holdouts were New Jersey and Massachusetts, where P21 has encountered very strong resistance. A number of the mostly for-profit heavyweights that sit on P21’s Strategic Council also were absent, including Ford Motor Company, Lenovo, Nellie Mae, Verizon, Walt Disney, and CPB.
Among the lengthy list of other “Organizational Signatories” was a laundry list of vendors who undoubtedly either profit from or would like to profit from P21’s work. Here are just a few:
- - Aha! English, which sells software for English-language learners.
- - CCS Presentation Systems, which sells audio and visual equipment.
- - Colon & Associates, LLC, a firm specializing in fundraising for nonprofits.
- - The Critical Path Institute, an organization that “manages industrial consortia of companies willing to share pre-competitive knowledge and work in support of projects that are identified as high priority by the [Food and Drug Administration].”
- - eMINTS National Center, an independent business unit of the University of Missouri which sells professional development programs.
- - Gaggle.Net, which sells email products to school districts.
- - Georgia REAL Enterprises, “an economic education consortium working to assist young people to research, plan, set up, own, and operate economically viable small businesses in Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.”
- - Jacob Burns Film Center and Media Arts Lab, a movie theater.
- - Kinderguarded, which sells computer monitoring software.
- - LogicWing, a technology consulting firm.
- - MoWerks, which sells education products.
- - North American River Runners, which “specializes in running the two best rivers for white water rafting in West Virginia.”
- - PolyVision, which sells education products.
- - Steph Brown Workshops, which provides workshops for alcoholics and their families.
- TREP$, an “award-winning entrepreneurship” product that “teaches kids in grades 4-8 the basics of business ownership.”
The closer we look, the more P21’s unproven educational program appears to be just another mechanism for selling more stuff to schools.
Lynne Munson and James Elias
October 16th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Hallelujah! Finally some one has come out and said what I’ve been seeing for a while: that when we focus on what our students “supposedly” need for the 21st century, it seems to center around more “stuff,” and less about better thinking, observing, comprehension.
Thanks.
October 19th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Has educational technology done anything to raise achievement in American schools since it started pouring in around 1990? I’d reckon that, if anything, it’s helped degrade our schools since it tends to siphon teachers’ mental energy away from subject matter and toward gadgetry and its intricacies, demands and infinite maintenance needs. Yet new technology has become synonymous with educational improvement. When will this fatuity stop?
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:46 am
[...] Common Core continues to treat P21 like its personal chew toy. In his book review, Mathews sees “no [...]
November 6th, 2009 at 7:37 am
Opposition to Core Knowledge is an effort to place the blame for lack of quality education on everyone else and not taking the responsibility for lack of quality teaching.
November 9th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
[...] vendors who provide assessment-related services and products.” Readers will find numerous vendors of assessments on P21’s website. On page 5 of the Professional Development Guide P21 argues that school [...]
December 4th, 2009 at 9:51 am
[...] Ed Week by Stephen Sawchuck gives big play and credibility to one of Common Core’s more troubling charges: that P21 is “a veiled attempt by technology companies—which make up the bulk of the [...]