Friday, June 27, 2014

Teachers protest money in education

Kids in class

Teachers marched Thursday to protest Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s involvement in K-12 education. They marched from Westlake Park to the Gates Foundation across from the Space Needle. I don’t know if they blocked any traffic, but the city was warning of traffic disruptions.

Gates Foundation is putting a lot of money into K-12. Do they want less money?  But if the Gateses were NOT putting money into education they would be begging  for them to.

And they are shocked that strings are attached to private money. Yes, strings are attached to most money. When the federal government funds K-12 education they are very clear about what must be done; those are strings.

Gates spent a lot of money on writing and implementing the Common Core standards which have been adopted by Washington and 44 other states.  The NEA says 75% of teachers support it/them - NEA. But here they are concerned that Gates supports teacher evaluations being tied to student test scores, though Gates has recently called for a delay of two years while implementation of Common Core progresses.

Seattle Times - This was written before the event.

KING 5 today. The link to the story says “More than 100 teachers, parents and advocates marched…” But the story itself does not include information about the number of protesters.

The photo: Found at Users.sch.gr.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Only 7% of our grade 8 students reach the advanced level in mathematics (on TIMSS tests), suggesting why little advanced coursework in mathematics and science can be taught in our high schools. ... http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/04/What-We-Need-Instead-of-Common-Core