Don’t Forget Marc Tucker

Marc Tucker must be mad.

Seattleducation: Bill Gates gets all the credit for our current transformation of education, when Marc was the mastermind of this “wholly restructured school system”.  Creating national standards for academics and standards for workforce (and national assessments for both), turning schools into workforce apprenticeship training programs,  and combining community college and high school, were all part of Marc’s plan. Gates was just the money man.

It seems Marc gets overlooked often. Take Lumina Foundation’s recent idea to create a National Department of Talent, combining Departments of Education, Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the Department of Labor and the talent recruitment functions of the Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) of the Department of Homeland Security. This idea sure sounds like Marc’s idea from 1992 to create the National Institute for Learning, Work and Service.

People forget that Marc already tried “Outcome Based Education” (OBE), also sometimes called “Standards Based Education”. The high school diploma associated with Marc’s Outcome Based Education was called a “Certificate of Initial Mastery” (CIM). Marc tried this OBE, CIM project in Washington and Massachusetts schools. Sadly for Marc, and all the school children exposed to this experiment, it failed. Some would say that Outcome Based Education sounds a lot like today’s Competency Based Education. They would also say that the Certificate of Initial Mastery, sure sounds like today’s Data Badge Credentials. It’s time we gave Marc some well-deserved attention.

At a recent state board of education meeting, Marc got attention. A newly appointed Commissioner of Education for the state of Colorado touted Marc Tucker’s 2015 paper, 9 Building Blocks for a First Class Education System. This makes many Coloradoans sad.  They want their new Commissioner to listen to the voice of the people and not the corporations and foundations promoting this top-down experimental transformation of education. But let’s not lose our focus, we were talking about Marc the forgotten.
Here we go:

Marc Tucker is president of NCEE, The National Center on Education and the Economy.

Achieve, Inc. was formed by the “Nation’s Governors and corporate leaders” and NCEE (Marc Tucker) at the ‘96 Education Summit.

Here is Marc’s Dear Hillary Letter, that is all about how to *finally* sneak in a nationalized standardized education, and turn it into “a labor market information system”, without having legislators vote on it. You really should read this. I mean look at who was on the board of Marc’s NCEE.

Read here how in 1991, Marc and NCEE formed NEW STANDARDS, a collaborative between 23 states and 3 “National Foundations.” Later in 1999, 1999, NCEE was asked by Carnegie Corporation, joined by the Broad Foundation, the Stupski Foundation and the New Schools Venture Fund, to create a design for a new kind of national organization to train school principals to lead high performing schools. Three years later, NCEE announced the launch of the National Institute for School Leadership.

Read  here how Marc sold America’s Choice in 2010 and in the same year, NCEE arranged for the transfer of the Workforce Development Program’s staff and activities to Jobs For the Future.

Here is Marc’s paper saying he hates local control. Marc says, “local control is the source of many of the nation’s problems related to education.”

Here’s Marc’s paper on how to transform American education into workforce pathways and link data paths.

Marc likes the education data badge system they do in Switzerland.

CCSSO talks about Swiss badging system too. (page 14)

Colorado went to Switzerland to study their badging system and is “exploring the feasibility of replicating the Swiss Apprenticeship Model in Colorado, and a team has traveled to Zurich to learn about the model. The first pilot is being launched in partnership with Denver Public Schools”.

We think every state should pay attention to this Colorado pilot; it will likely be coming to your state soon.

-Cheri Kiesecker