A month ago I set out to write 30 twitter size sound bites capturing the hypocrisy of the corporate education reform movement. Here is a compilation. If you have some defintions to add to the collection please send them along to me.
21st Century Skills - a broad range of abilities, enumerated in the Common Core , that 21st century children need to thrive in the 20th century.
accountability - holding the 99%, especially teachers, students and administrators, responsible for the damage done by the 1%.
achievement gap - symptom of income inequality and segregation treated by education reformers by testing children and punishing teachers and public schools.
blended learning - a unique blend of educational experiences that combines inferior online learning with inadequate classroom instruction.
Broad Superintendent's Academy - a place where people who are totally ignorant about education go to have their ignorance reinforced.
choice - allows parents to choose a school by "voting with their feet" as long as their children's feet are not attached to a child with special needs.
Common Core - what a group of private school graduates think public school kids need to learn to be ready for a college they can't afford.
competition -applying market forces to education to insure that private companies can feed at the public trough.
cut score -manipulating the proficiency level of standardized tests in order to punish children, teachers and schools.
cyber charter - an innovative school design that turns public funds into private profits and low student achievement.
education philanthropy - tax dodge for the very wealthy that allows them to advance a personal agenda over the dead body of public education.
education reformer - a curious breed of American entrepreneur who tired of abusing employees and moved on to abusing teachers and children.
grit - the kind of dogged determination required to sit through a David Coleman explanation of close reading.
market forces - applying the same principles that destroyed the American economy to schools in an attempt to destroy public education and turn a profit.
MET Study - rigorous, wide ranging study of teacher effectiveness designed, funded and promoted by Bill Gates that proves that Bill Gates can buy what he wants.
No Child Left Behind - the soft bigotry of stupid federal education policy (see also Race to the Top).
no excuses - a type of child abuse reserved for inner city minority children attending charter schools (see also on the bench).
on the bench - solitary confinement for inner city minority children in no excuses charter schools.
parent trigger - a law designed by education reform carpetbaggers to dupe well-meaning public school parents into shooting themselves in the foot.
poverty - the elephant in every urban classroom that education reformers want teachers to ignore.
Race to the Top - federal bribery scheme designed to get state departments of education to race across the Bridge to Nowhere and into the the clutches of standardized test companies.
rigor - a Common Core instructional practice designed to make students think deeply and critically about everything except the Common Core.
school choice - right of parents to make a choice of the school for their children, unless their choice is an adequately staffed, well-financed neighborhood public school.
seniority - a roadblock for education reformers on their way to providing an inferior education on the cheap.
standardized test (1) - ever growing practice of interrupting student learning in order to collect unreliable data for bubble-headed policy makers.
standardized test (2) - multiple choice test given to public school children to determine how much money their parents make.
Teach for America - way station for the young and privileged on the road from the Ivy League to Wall Street.
tenure - due process for teachers that stands in the way of replacing highly qualified professionals with cheap labor.
turnaround - what reformers want parents teachers and children to do while they shut down their neighborhood schools.
value added measures - sophisticated statistical measures that prove with 100% confidence that statistics can't be used to measure teacher quality.
vouchers - a bit of modern day alchemy that turns public education tax dollars into private corporation gold.
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