Common Core: Rupert Murdoch & DIBELS Setting Students Up For Failure

The one "common" thing about Common Core is that it is more about personal enrichment than it is quality education for our children...

From Lace to the Top --

Yesterday, I wrote a piece on Fountas and Pinnell. It was clear that the newly identified below grade level readers were not a result of a sudden reading crisis, but a shifting of F & P cut scores.

Rupert Murdoch (who once claimed ed was a $500 billion industry) and happens to own DIBELS, also decided to raise the bar for children. Under the guise of Common Core, the cut scores for DIBELS have been changed. For instance, pre Common Core a 1st grader was expected to read 40-64 words per minute. Under the Common Core, they are now expected to read 69+ words per minute.

There is no money to be made in labeling children as successful, but labeling them failures has continued to fuel the perceived crisis in education and increases profits.

I was in finance before I became a teacher. If someone tried to push this through, they would be laughed right out of the door. Yet, we are making decisions for millions of children with these flawed metrics without giving it a second thought. Time for a close read… 

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