Gates Revives Tuckerism, the Plan to Make Senior High School for Elites Only

[tonysam]

This is from Schools Matter, and check out the links on that blog. Marc Tucker's proposals are truly insane, especially regarding teacher pensions (apparently this fool doesn't know teachers in some 15 states don't pay into Social Security and thus get screwed every which way).

In 2006 dweeb oligarch, Bill Gates, funded the writing of a plan to undercut American public high schools and to create an outlet for working class students to test out of high school and into a voc ed after 9th or 10th grade. The plan was called "Tougher Choices for Tougher Times," and it offered a vision of high school as contract charter schools that are funded at the state level without local input or oversight. Here is a review of Tuckerism by EPI, and here is part of a post from last year on how the plan was moving forward, all the help of the prostitutes who run the NEA:

____

Did I say something about union sellouts earlier today? Bracey just posted at ARN the Ed Week link below that announces the NEA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers have split the spoils from the corporate charter school blitzkrieg that is now being unleashed against public education. They have agreed to support the Tucker Plan (Tough Choices or Tough Times) that was pumped out of the sludge tanks in 2006. See here and here and here for reviews of the plan. Here is the beginning of the evaluation by Miller and Gerson:

The "Tough Choices or Tough Times" report of the National Commission on Skills in the Workplace, funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and signed by a bipartisan collection of prominent politicians, businesspeople, and urban school superintendents, called for a series of measures including:

(a) replacing public schools with what the report called "contract schools", which would be charter schools writ large;

(b) eliminating nearly all the powers of local school boards - their role would be to write and sign the authorizing agreements for the "contract schools;

(c) eliminating teacher pensions and slashing health benefits; and

(d) forcing all 10th graders to take a high school exit examination based on 12th grade skills, and terminating the education of those who failed (i.e., throwing millions of students out into the streets as they turn 16). . . . .

More

This is all about creating a two-tiered society, with the slaves serving their betters who have all of the great education.

[w4rma]

1. All of these bastards even remotely associated with supporting this need to go down and down hard.nt

[tonysam]

2. Exactly. Our very democracy is at stake. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

3. +100. the fucks pushing this are 100% *responsible* for the "tough times".

[tonysam]

5. +1,000

And get a load of the rest of the blog post, which says this shit is going to be piloted in EIGHT STATES as a result of RTTT.

We are absolutely fucked as a country. People don't even know what is happening to their schools.

[kristopher]

4. That system works well in some of the most egalitarian countries in the world

The quote you've provided totally misrepresents the program that is used in countries like Germany and Japan. I would consider both of those countries to be much more egalitarian than the US. It is also my opinion that their educational system is largely responsible for ensuring talented low income children have a truly equal opportunity to advance into leadership within the countries' business, political and academic establishments. That representation is what acts to promote the sense of social justice for all economic classes.

[Hannah Bell]

8. uh, I know very well how it works in japan, having lived there, worked in the japanese

system & been married to a japanese.

their ed system is *not* egalitarian. not at all. it is *distinctly* stratified, almost caste-like.

[kristopher]

9. So have I.

I also went to Japanese university and my children attended k-8 public school.

It IS one of the most egalitarian systems out there.

[Hannah Bell]

12. Please explain its egalitarian features.

[kristopher]

15. Literacy, income disparity and access to higher ed are all very good indicators.

Perhaps you could help me you on what you are referring to when you say it isn't egalitarian.

[Hannah Bell]

26. I'm talking about the *education* system. And don't know when you were in Japan, perhaps you

haven't kept up, but inequality in Japan has been growing since the 90s, to the extent that 1/3 of its workforce is now "casual," i.e. no guarantee of hours, no benefits, hire & fire at will. To the extent that homelessness (something I *never* saw when I lived there in the 80s) is now a visible phenomenon:

Income inequality shrinks Japan's middle class

TOKYO — Since he dropped out of college a few years ago, Takeshi Ito has bounced from job to job — washing dishes, waiting tables, selling mobile phones.

These days, he works for a temp agency, laboriously typing data into computers. Ito, 29, lives with his parents, trying to save enough money to marry his girlfriend, a kindergarten teacher.

"I can't be picky" about jobs, he says. "My choices are limited. ... I'd like to be independent, but realistically, I can't."

He speaks wistfully of a friend who finished college and landed on the fast track at an advertising agency. "He got a 1 million yen ($8,600) bonus," Ito says. "And he recently became an executive. I wish I could do such a thing."

Ito and his yuppie friend have found themselves on opposite sides of a widening gap: the one that separates Japan's economic winners from its losers.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-07-23-japan-usat_x.htm


I repeat: explain to me how the Japanese *educational system* is egalitarian. Not the Japanese income distribution, the *education* system.

[kristopher]

33. Why are you ignoring what I wrote?

I wrote of the OP: That system works well in some of the most egalitarian countries in the world. The quote you've provided totally misrepresents the program that is used in countries like Germany and Japan. I would consider both of those countries to be much more egalitarian than the US. It is also my opinion that their educational system is largely responsible for ensuring talented low income children have a truly equal opportunity to advance into leadership within the countries' business, political and academic establishments. That representation is what acts to promote the sense of social justice for all economic classes."



So I was talking about the country as a whole. However, the educational system is likewise extremely egalitarian. I know of the jukus and the private schools that track a great deal of success into higher ed, and if that is what you are going by your analysis is superficial IMO.

The income disparity remains about 20:1 between the highest paid employees and the lowest. While this enables the successful to provide an education for their children that has a higher success rate at university admittance, a few moments of thought shows it to be an largely illusory advantage.

The children having access to these schools are still competing head to head with students from all socioeconomic backgrounds for a slot at the prestigious public universities. The prep and curriculum advantage afforded by the private schools and jukus are going to make a difference only at the very margins of the cut-off. If that cut-off is at the 85th percentile and you have two students who are on the edge, the advantage would probably go to the one with the private tutors. However, when you have a low income student of high intelligence (say 90th percentile) the education offered by private schooling isn't going to allow a higher income student in the 80th percentile to deprive the 90th student of his/her slot. It never becomes an issue of who can pay the tuition, it is strictly on the merit of the student.

A major benefit of this system is its transparency and the way that all parents can understand EXACTLY what their child needs to do to succeed. Here if a child is low income the parents are often ashamed to encourage their children to strive for college because they KNOW they can't afford to pay for it. I know it sounds perverse, but if the child doesn't present the parent with the dilemma of being accepted to a college then the parent doesn't have to be the one to disappoint the child.

There, on the other hand, there is no downside whatsoever to having your child accepted into a top tier school. None. Consequently the parental support is much stronger.

ETA: My wife is middle class and went to public school. Her sister went to university with the Empress.

You don't have to agree with me, but let me ask you this: What percentage of students in the top 100 US universities are from the bottom 50% of the income scale?

[Hannah Bell]

37. I'm not ignoring what you wrote, but you're ignoring what I wrote.

I'm not just talking about juku. I'm talking about the entire class-divided system of schools that starts at *preschool*. If you get your kid into the *right* preschool, it greatly increases your chances of getting him into its affiliated kindergarten, elementary -- all the way up to uni, for example. Do you *really* think the "merit of the student" is distinguishable in *pre-school*?

There are entrance exams for private schools at every level, not just at uni level. There are entrance exams for both public & private schools upper level HS, & the risk is to get tracked into voc options, some of which are dumping grounds. E.g. at one I met a gang of huffers who went to class high.

I'm not just talking about "university admittance." It matters *very* much *which* university you get into; not just any university will get you a decent job. And tuition isn't free, as you seem to be implying.

The prep, private schools, private tutors, juku *don't* just make a difference just "at the margins". I worked in an Osaka city HS (hired directly by the Osaka City public schools, not a "JET" hire). The classrooms had 50 students. The students slept, read, ate lunch while the teachers (for the most part) droned on without noticing. The students told me they didn't learn anything much in HS: they did their heavy study in juku & prep school. The only thing I admired about the HS I worked in was their clubs.

I'll put it to you this way: what percent of students in Todai come from low-income backgrounds v. the percent at Harvard?

In Japan, kids' futures are basically settled by 10th grade, & there are few second chances.

[kristopher]

42. I'm sorry but that is absurd.

I specifically addressed the fad tracking in my comments. The prep and private schools DO make a difference at just the margins. You can deny it but that is about what I've come to expect from the people populating and perpetuating abysmal system we've created. You point to hangnails in the Japanese style systems and ignore the total train wreck you support.

I asked a specific question, can you answer it?

[Hannah Bell]

47. I asked you one, can you? The "top 100" universities in Japan aren't "top"

in either a japanese or american context, sorry.

Japan has about 750 universities.

The US has about 5000.

Your comparison compares the "top 13%" in japan with the "top 2%" in the US.

Try the "top 10" & see how your comparison fares.

1 University of Tokyo
2 Kyoto University
3 Osaka University
4 Tokyo Institute of Technology
5 Tohoku University
6 Keio University
7 Kyushu University
8 Nagoya University
9 Hokkaido University
10 Tsukuba University


Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford
California Institute of Technology
University of Pennsylvania
UC system
Columbia
University of Chicago



one difference: your kindergarten probably won't enter into the calculus in the us. nor if you were born in "certain neighborhoods" (i.e. traditionally burakumin-majority neighborhoods).

i love japan, but i don't mythologize it. it ain't heaven.


Family income affects students' academic performance: survey+

TOKYO, Aug. 5 (AP) - (Kyodo)—Elementary school students from high-income families scored notably higher than those from low-income families in last year's nationwide achievement exam, a government analysis of the results showed Tuesday.

Sixth graders at public elementary schools whose parents earn 12 million yen or more scored 8 to 10 percentage points more than the national average in the Japanese language and mathematics, while pupils from families with income of less than 2 million yen scored more than 10 percentage points less than the average.

A panel of experts under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology made the finding after conducting a survey on the parents of some of the elementary school students who took the standardized achievement exam, introduced by the ministry in 2007, revealing links between household income and the exam results for the first time.

The survey found the largest gap, as much as 23.3 percentage points, in the ability to apply basic mathematical knowledge.

The percentage of questions answered correctly by students with a family income of less than 2 million yen stood at 42.6 percent, while those with a family income of between 12 million yen and 15 million yen got 65.9 percent of the questions right. The national average was 55.8 percent.

Sixth graders whose parents spend more than 50,000 yen a month on education other than school had 71.2 percent of the math questions right, compared with 44.4 percent among those whose parents spend none.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D99SDNO02&show_article=1.

12 million yen = $131K
2 million yen = $22K

50,000 yen/mo = $549

How many families in the US spend $550/mo ($6000/yr) on their 6th-grade kids' education? And these are *public* school parents. Public school is free up to the equiv. of 10th grade in Japan.

They spend to get their kids into the *best* schools they can, because everything hinges on where they are when they're 15-16.

[proud2BlibKansan]

51. Japanese kids are also more likely to commit suicide

We don't need to do what Japan does to its children.

[virgogal]

6. (d) forcing all 10th graders-------------etc. I cannot believe I'm reading

this.

[tonysam]

7. Yep. Just look what these fucker reformers are doing now.

Despite all of the research into child development, these bastards such as those in Detroit want reading tutors for FOUR YEAR OLDS, and shoving pre-algebra on sixth graders, LONG before they should be handling such high-level math (it's already being done inappropriately in middle school). These bastards want to track kids when they are barely out of the cradle.

[HeresyLives]

13. Why is that too advanced?

My only quibble is that everyone should have this level of education.

[Grand Taurean]

10. So someone who is not uniformly strong in all subject should

be forced to take a job they may not want? :wtf: This is what happens in Germany and Japan.
Bill Gates is a SHYSTER! He uses all that America offers for himself then closes the door to others.
It is TIME for massive tax hikes on the top earners!

[ProgressiveProfessor]

38. You are aware that he does not take a salary from Microsoft?

[Hannah Bell]

50. what does that have to do with anything? He's retired from MS.

"Gates has several investments outside Microsoft, which in 2006 paid him a salary of $616,667, and $350,000 bonus totalling $966,667."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates.

[Warpy]

11. This is a stupid and cruel plan. HOWEVER

following the European model that OFFERS a general diploma at 16 and an academic diploma at 18 might be a better idea than trying to keep kids in academics until they're 18 no matter what. It's not working. Students without the aptitude or inclination for academics are dropping out in record numbers, always having that "dropout" label hanging over them and killing their chances at jobs that don't even require academics.

The plan would only work if schools for the last 2 years were divided into academic and trade tracks. Kids working in trades can make decent money if they don't have that "dropout" label hanging over them and restricting them to grunt work. It works that way in Europe: kids who are bored to death by academics jump at the chance to learn something practical and concrete.

While Tuckerism is a stupid idea that leaves people who have devoted their lives to education in poverty in their old age while simply ejecting students who fail to live up to some set of arbitrary standards and abolishing the very things that allow community input into the schools, clearly what we have now isn't working, either.

It's worth a thought, anyway.

[tonysam]

14. The trouble is they are already "tracking" kids, and

I don't want the United States to be like European countries which have had a history of class differences. I don't want that here.

This is what it is really about--creating a two-tiered society, and I definitely don't want ignorant fuckers like Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and Marc Tucker trying to "reform" education.

[Warpy]

17. We already have a two tiered workforce

and high school dropouts are the underclass.

[tonysam]

22. Sure, but THIS is a deliberate attempt to create one.

Why do you think there has been all of this standards mania for so many years? It was to force kids to learn more and more inappropriate curriculum at an earlier and earlier age so that there WOULD be more dropouts.

Gates and his ilk want MORE dropouts and pushouts.

[Warpy]

36. What part about calling this a bad idea didn't you get?

I'm suggesting an alternative. If you want to fight with Gates, go ahead. Just don't try to conflate my idea with his.

[tonysam]

44. I am not. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

32. but there *is* a path to get back into the higher-paid workforce, & i've seen

a lot of people move from unemployment/tanf into decently-paid work via ged, community college, university. including middle-aged people.

that option is basically non-existent in japan. very, very difficult. job opportunities are *highly* class-bound, to the extent that even what kind of elementary ed you had can figure into the calculus. Thus the phenomenon of "education mama" whose function is to force her kids to study constantly so they can get into the "right" school all the way through the system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoiku_mama

By the time kids there are high-school age, their futures are pretty much set in stone. Undergrad university = "vacation". Once they've gotten into the "right" uni, they can kick back a bit until it's time to enter the workforce.

[kristopher]

18. You have it exactly backwards.

Just look at income distribution the Japan/German model is a meritocracy, the US is an aristocracy.

[Hannah Bell]

27. Income inequality in both Japan & Germany has been growing since the

90's, & both Germany & Japan have education systems which are significantly segregated by class.

The authors of Policy Insight No. 4 shows that although income inequality in Germany is a long way from reaching US proportions, the trend is in that direction. Germany rich are getting richer, and its super-rich are getting super-richer.

Inequality of market incomes in Germany, as measured by standard summary indicators such as the Gini coefficient, moderately increased in the period from 1992 to 2001. This finding is consistent with those reported in previous studies that failed to incorporate both tails of the income distribution.

However, we have found that standard summary measures of inequality disguise important changes in the distribution of market incomes.

On the one hand, a third of the German population receives almost no market income, and the share of market income going to the middle deciles sharply declined since the early 1990s. Consequently, median market income declined substantially, both in absolute terms and relative to mean income.

http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/247

[kristopher]

34. Relevant quote: "income inequality in Germany is a long way from reaching US proportions" nt

[Hannah Bell]

41. Relevant quote: "a third of the German population receives almost no market income,

and the share of market income going to the middle deciles sharply declined since the early 1990s. Consequently, median market income declined substantially, both in absolute terms and relative to mean income."


More on this subject: 2008

Germany: The shrinking middle class and the rise of inequality

A recent study of income distribution carried out by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) has unleashed a debate in Germany. The study concludes that the middle class in Germany has shrunk from 62 percent of the population in 2000 to just 54 percent in 2006.

The researchers define the middle class purely from an economic standpoint, according to household income, taking no account of education, occupation or other social indicators. The research data is calculated using the median, which divides incomes into two halves: 50 percent in Germany receive more than this value, 50 percent receive less...

Using this definition, the middle class in West Germany in the 1980s encompassed approximately 64 percent of the total population. Following German reunification in 1990, the middle class in West and East Germany were still approximately of the same order. In 1992, it comprised almost 62 percent, corresponding to somewhat more than 49 million individuals. This figure remained largely stable for the next eight years until 2000. Since then, however, this middle-income layer has fallen to approximately 54 percent o f the total population in 2006—approximately 44 million people, or some 5 million fewer than six years earlier.

The DIW researchers point out that far more people have fallen below this middle layer than have risen above it. “Available real incomes increased only moderately in Germany since reunification; from 2003 to 2006 they have clearly decreased.” The spread of incomes has increased. In particular, family households comprising parents with children under 16 years have fallen below this middle-income level. Compared with 2000, more than 3 million people in such households in 2006 are no longer counted in this middle layer.

Within the middle layer, the DIW researchers noted that the contraction could be found above all in the group it defined as “average earners,” those with an income of between 90 and 110 percent of the median. This group alone has shrunk in the recent past by around 5 percent. Accordingly, the bounda ry values of this income distribution curve have gained in significance.

The DIW registered a clear increase of the lowest layers. In 2006, those with an income of less than 70 percent of the median constituted more than a quarter of the entire population. The proportion in this category has risen since 2000 by nearly 7 percent.

In 2006, the proportion of those with an available income of more than 150 percent of the median was over a fifth, approximately 2 percent higher than in 2000. Interestingly, this increase is limited “exclusively to the group of those with the highest incomes (more than 200 percent of the median).” This constituted approximately 9 percent of the total population in 2006.

The incomes of those in the top 50 percent have risen more rapidly than those in the lower half. Income inequality has increased, and this is substantially more pronounced in West Germany than in the former East Germany.

The DIW study also ex amines so-called “income mobility.” Politicians, and most recently Social Democratic Party (SPD) Chairman Kurt Beck, like to speak about equality of opportunity, by which they mean the possibility for anyone to rise up the ladder socially and financially. But this has become increasingly more difficult, according to the study, which finds there has been a “clear hardening of the income brackets.” “Only at the bottom is it stable,” according to Spiegel on-line.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/mar2008/germ-m22.shtml.

[kristopher]

45. That is a red herring...

1) The problem is vastly worse here.
2) The representation of low income families at in the higher levels of government and business is what has preserved their system against our influence.

That they may have lost come ground during the world's Bush inspired financial catastrophe speaks not at all to the issue at hand. If that's the kind of discussion you are geared for, you are now talking to yourself.

[Hannah Bell]

48. You haven't defined "the problem". In fact, germany & most countries in the EU

have large relatively permanent underclasses who survive on state payments & part-time work.

Europe is more class-ridden than the US, & "low-income families" are not represented "at the highest levels of government" any more than they are here.

Bush, last I heard, took office in 2000 - not in the 90s. Last I heard.

Which Japanese uni was it that you went to, again?

Which city was it you lived in when your kids were in school?

[Hannah Bell]

16. "offers" is the operative word, with the option of going back for higher ed later in life

if desired, and a *real* path to do so.

[tonysam]

19. Many people DO want to go to college later on in life. I was one of them.

In the Tucker/Gates world, I would NEVER have that opportunity.

They can shove their ideas up their asses.

[Grand Taurean]

24. What about someone such as myself?

I worked through college and changed majors. It took me eight years to finish my degrees(double major).
I had some great experiences working while in college.
Why should we force people to take one track or the other. I took both. It is who I am, and I enjoyed it greatly.
We need a punitive tax on wealthy estates to stop this nonsense.

[tonysam]

25. +1,000

I am sick of all of our public institutions being sold to the highest bidder.

This is a deliberate assault on our democracy, nothing more, nothing less.

[Hannah Bell]

28. yes, that's what i mean. i wouldn't be opposed to the option of going to tech

school/trade school instead of traditional HS -- IF there were a clearly defined, achievable path to returning for higher ed later in life, if desired.

In Japan, for example, once one's on the trade school path, that's a passingly rare occurrence, & getting into a "good" school near-impossible.

[Grand Taurean]

30. Germany and Japan have junk school systems.

With it's flaws, the American system is far superior.

[tonysam]

31. That's what I believe, too.

It's amazing that with the continual assault on public education that it functions as well as it does.

[kristopher]

35. Keep telling yourself that...

[Hannah Bell]

40. yes, the 50-student classrooms in the osaka city public high schools were top-notch.

The classrooms had no heat in the winter & the students learned a lot sleeping behind their books while the instructor lectured at them. World-class. Then they got on the train & went to juku or yobiko. They got home at night, got fed, studied, & got up the next morning to do it again.

World-class, I tell you.

[kristopher]

46. You are just frightened you'd be required to dedicate yourself like the Japanese teachers.

You have one small peak into that system and you think you understand it all. You couldn't be more wrong. They start out in kindergarten with absolutely no discipline; the children are never forced to do ANYTHING they don't wish to do. That continues through gradeschool with the children learning to cooperate and work together with each other and the teachers without threats or any type of intimidation.

As they enter Jr high the screws start to tighten and by the time they are at the tenth grade (the time when teenagers are most prone to getting into trouble) they are worn to a frazzle by the system for a productive purpose.

You really haven't got a clue.

[Hannah Bell]

49. lol. I knew lots of japanese teachers -- not only in the school i worked in, but among my

husband's friends. I don't deny some are "dedicated" (though you can find dedicated teachers anywhere in the world). It's a Japanese social virtue to be "dedicated," at least so far as one's public face goes. Personal attributes, however, don't mitigate against WW2-era unheated classrooms of 50 students. This is a *public* school. Private ones were generally better.

Low-end voc schools much worse. Paint-huffing students marking time.

I'm beginning to doubt the depth of your experience in japan. your description of kindergarten & gradeschool is boilerplate. tain't so, mcgee.

where was it you went to uni?

& which city was it you lived in?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

39. I would not be so sure of that. I have taught in both places and consider them different but equal

certainly at the secondary school level.

[Warpy]

21. Absolutely.

The chances always have to be there.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

43. We still need to address the needs of the non-college bound students who are being ignored today

There are very few secondary schools that offer anything in the way of vocational or technical training. Mostly its a weak college prep curriculum for all. There is a significant percentage of the school population that will never really want to go to college. For them vocational (construction trades, auto mechanics, comsmetolgy...) are the best answers. For others (cops, graphic artists...) a targeted set of courses in HS would be more appropriate as well. We are failing our children by not providing viable alternatives to college.

As for the claim of creating societal classes, consider the following: A student graduates from HS and goes off to college for your generic liberal arts degree. 5 years and $100K+ later they are lucky if they can find upon graduation will pay $35K. They live a life of poverty to pay off their student loans for the next 10 years. That student's best friend goes to trade school and an apprentice program. After 5 years they are making $50K, with maybe 1 year of loans to pay off. The number speak for themselves. The classism that exists today is that if you don't have a degree in *something* you ain't shit. This kind of approach addresses that kind of bias and elevates blue collar or service labor to a option of choice, not one of last resort.

I love to teach 150-200 level classes. Its where the students are figuring out what to do with their lives. However there are too many kids on campus today because they felt they had no other options. They are ill prepared and just not cut out for serious academics. There need to be options for them too and right now there are none.

[Warpy]

52. No kidding, we've sorted them into two classes,

college bound and trash, for far too long. The ironic part is that a good hairdresser who gets into a top salon can make more than a college educated middle manager. The same goes for a lot of other skilled trades.

Again, what we're doing is a failure. We need to consider something else and the European model is well worth considering, IMO.

[gulfcoastliberal]

20. Looks like Tavistock brain washing is getting some hard core results.

All the tax free foundations are destroying the remnants of the USA.

[tonysam]

23. They've bought our politicians off, including and especially

Obama and Duncan.

[Hannah Bell]

29. you know it. foundations = policy-making arm of the ruling class.

using tax-free money, they force whatever initiatives they decide on.