David Coleman – Onboard At College Board

11 Replies to “David Coleman – Onboard At College Board”

1. I suppose we should give credit where it’s due — the English standards look much stronger than the mathematical ones, and Mr. Coleman was apparently more involved in designing the former than the latter. But someone’s going to have to do something about those mathematics standards, because their adoption guarantees that our public school kids will be two years behind their overseas competitors, which is a violation of the mandate the standards committees were given. And part of Mr. Coleman’s new mandate should be to rein in the excessive profit-seeking, elitist aura the College Board has developed in recent years, as the organization has come to resemble the American Medical Association as a professional trade organization so dedicated to driving up costs as to become an albatross about the neck of the American people.

2. The Navy fired its 10th commanding officer of the calendar year, relieving Cmdr. Derick Armstrong, CO of the guided missile destroyer USS The Sullivans, “as result of an unprofessional command climate that was contrary to good order and discipline.

   Food for thought for the world of entirely unaccountable edu-reformers whose only metric is to shoot off their mouths and then run.

3. I suppose we should give credit where it’s due — the English standards look much stronger than the mathematical ones, and Mr. Coleman was apparently more involved in designing the former than the latter. But someone’s going to have to do something about those mathematics standards, because their adoption guarantees that our public school kids will be two years behind their overseas competitors…

   Wow, some logic. Living and working in CA, and working at a UC physics lab as an assistant, I know the professor emeritus at Berkeley who wrote CA’s first set of standards and then moved on to author these standards. There is nothing light about these standards. In fact, CA’s standards ARE the new core standards.

   IF the new math core standards were easy, then you would NOT be writing about high failure rates. I suggest that the English dopes stay the heck out of math and science where the real experts are.

   Mr. Coleman’s gargantuan salary means a lot in the scheme of edu-reform. A scarce physics teacher RIGHT NOW is contributing MORE to this country sitting on their butts reading this column than Coleman every will.

   And yet, the physics teacher makes scratch.

   More food for thought. The REAL value adders make nothing. Those who mooch along make it all.

   Case in point for the broken labor markets in this country.

   The disincentives for powerful, effective math and science instruction in this country are overwhelming, and intractable. English teachers are falling out of the sky: Physics and math are not even under the rock half way around the world.

   Cheers to edu-reform. Let this kind of success continue to drive us to the bottom.

4. To Mr. R,

   Why do the SAT’s matter to students? Why do student standardized tests NOT matter?

   Why do students NOT cheat on standardized tests?

   They DO NOT CARE.

   Why does this escape you? Why does this NOT figure into your calculations regarding the reliability and consistency of these tests? Why?

   Why do normal , sharp people, far from the fray, get it, and the army of edu-reformers fail to comprehend it?

   And then why do the edu-reformers make this argument: “It is one high stakes test.”

   Why?

5. Smart, capable people do not respond to empty promises about rewards and incentives, and unpredictable punishment. They run away.

   The only people who respond are those with nothing to lose.

   Why does this escape R and the rest of his posse. Perhaps a bit of physics envy and flat out insecurity?

6. Words of wisdom from noted educator, David Coleman:

   ” that teachers should decrease student time spent on the writing of personal narrative because “as you grow up in this world people don’t really give a shit about what you feel or what you think.”

7. David Coleman is an ivy-league blowhard who has never taught public school for a day in his life. The English standards are a joke, and his examples of how to meet them are even more absurd. He imagines spending 6 to 8 days dragging his students through King’s letter from a Birmingham jail, and his lame attempt at explaining King’s letter falters from the first. This guy is a fraud.

8. OK, so I looked up Coleman. Eric and Phillip are spot-on. However, to give Coleman the benefit of the doubt, I dug into his Grow Network, recently acquired by McGraw-Hill. It touts a customized and individualized technology to address specific student needs. Cool, I’m thinking. What does it look like? No idea. The software seems adaptive and then groups kids into ability teams and delivers the content practice appropriate to their skill level. But what does it look like? All I can get are abstractions, allusions, screen shots that even if I blow them up, I can’t read them, nothing concrete…unless…I sign up.

   Or rather, my building or my district signs up for a trial. But hey, it qualifies for Stimulus Funding. Wow. If all this is so wonderful David Coleman, then why not give it out free to all? Why make us pay for it? Why play coy games with your awesome technology? And no, I don’t give a wet slap about our competitive society or our corporate models–don’t we all want our kids to succeed and be happy, fulfilled adults? Then give me the darned SECRET for school success. Don’t make me bargain and deal and convince bureaucrats and voters and school boards that a “technology” I can’t even see holds the answers.

9. Coleman was involved with GROW Network?
   Prince George’s County Public Schools bought that program when Dr Andre Hornsby, who egangaged in criminal doings, was superintendent.
   All schools had to inservice staff on the last day for teachers in 2004 about GROW.
   It was never used after that.

10. You mean this DOCTOR Hornsby? “Hired in 2003 to turn around Prince George’s troubled public school system, Hornsby was indicted in 2006. His first trial ended in a hung jury. At a retrial, Hornsby’s girlfriend, Sienna Owens, testified that she gave Hornsby half of her $20,000 commission as a present for helping her with the contract with the educational technology firm LeapFrog, where she worked” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/crime-scene/post/new-sentencing-for-ex-prince-georges-schools-chief-andre-hornsby/2012/03/22/gIQA4LXcTS_blog.html I am so shocked.

    Grow and Coleman http://investor.mcgraw-hill.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=96562&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=592486&highlight

11. Yes, that Doctor. Atleast his was real, unlike John Deasy’s.