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jcd writes:
"The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the primary backer for the inBloom educational grading and service (which also acts as a platform for third-party applications), is catching flak for its role in encouraging the outsourcing of US Education. The article (cited by RMS today) argues that though the Common Core is a scary new concept that takes power away from state and local school governance, the real danger is allowing corporate enterprises to have so much control over our classrooms. The Washington Post also reports a case where Pearson included corporate logos and promotional materials inside its test booklets."
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Backlash for Gates Foundation's Education Plans
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I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 1) by janrinok on Wednesday February 19 2014, @06:37AM
I'm afraid I don't agree with you. Business, as well as religion and politics, should not be involved with education. Of course, you can teach about business, religion and politics, but any direct involvement will likely result in a bias in what the student learns. Do you not think if Bill and Melinda are sponsoring education they will not be pushing for Microsoft products in schools? What should be taught is computing skills, use of a word processor or spreadsheet, programming etc but not any particular brand or computer language. As a European, I am horrified by the influence that religion (specifically Christianity) has in some US states. As a religion, Christianity is fine, but the basics of all religions should be taught and the student can then make an informed decision based on sensible reasoning - he or she should not to be led by the nose along any one path.
Would you be happy if only the policies of one specific political party were spoon-fed to your children? Do you think that it would be good for the country's future?
It's always my fault...
(Score: 1) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:03AM
There isn't really time to do that: The largest 5-10 religions, as well as atheism, could be covered, but there are approximately 4300 [adherents.com] religious classifications in existence, and there would be a lot of controversy if you left something out, and even more controversy if something really far out of the mainstream was put in. Who's to say that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is in but the Raelians are out? How about the Moonies, Scientologists, Quakers, and Mormons? Does New Age qualify as a religion? Is Santeria a separate religion or merely something to be included under Catholicism? I for one don't want government and public school systems to be put in the position of making decisions like this.
I don't, but there are plenty of die-hard believers in a particular political party that would love to make sure that all children are indoctrinated to believe that that political party is good and all others are bad.
Every task is easy if somebody else is doing it.
(Score: 1) by janrinok on Wednesday February 19 2014, @09:59AM
In some European countries, the amount of time spent teaching a specific religion is (very roughly) proportional to the number of adherents worldwide (where known). A proportion of religious instruction is spent on teaching 'religion' in general without looking at any particular religion. This seems to be to be a fair distribution of time.
This way proponents of, say, Divine Creationism, do not get the chance to persuade young (and relatively easily persuaded) students of their particular belief to the detriment of any other.
As for your comment on political party support in education, I think that we are both arguing on the same side - perhaps I misunderstood something earlier. There should, in my opinion, be NO political left- or right-wing bias in education.
It's always my fault...
(Score: 1) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 19 2014, @12:31PM
In the US, the problem is that religious instruction varies between:
A. Steering completely clear of it and trying to pretend it doesn't exist or isn't important.
B. Teaching fundamentalist Christianity, complete with young-Earth Creationism.
Very rarely, you'll get a history or geography teacher that will do brief mentions of "This is what the Puritans of Massachusetts believed" or "This is why Mecca is important". What there definitely isn't in most American high schools is extensive and in-depth examination of the history, meaning, and belief structures of even the 5 largest world religions, because both fundamentalist Christians and atheists would be outraged and vocal about it.
And yes, we're mostly on the same side about this.
Every task is easy if somebody else is doing it.