On another post Anonymous wrote:
New post:
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/09/27/bill-gates-it-would-be-great-if-our-education-stuff-worked-but/
But teachers are losing their jobs now over his reforms!
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5 comments:
So when did the 10 years start running in Pittsburgh? Was it 2005 when MR arrived?
It is hard to criticize extreme generosity, yet, here I go. I can't help but wonder what the average class size was at the prep school Bill attended. If he lived the small class size life wouldn't you think he would advocate for the benefits of it? He can't possibly think that he is successful despite that advantage. A dozen years ago some of the smartest pps parents looked and sounded like they would never give up the campaign for small class sizes and in some corners they still carry on.
Even Bill's small schools idea might have had better results but the execution may have been flawed.
If we knew that a few key members of his staff devoting their time to K-12 education issues came from a small urban school that had never meet expectations but produced someone who gained the qualifications to judge reform, maybe we'd have more faith.
It's okay to criticize "extreme generosity" when it comes at the expense of detrimental, social shifting policy.
I imagine Gates would say that his organization invested in small schools and small classes and the research showed no improvement in test scores. As a teacher I find smaller classes way easier to manage. Perhaps my students' test scores wouldn't go up (according to Gates' research) but I'm confident that students would have a much more positive experience. More individualized attention and instruction. More detailed feedback on their papers. More time for me to think about what their needs are.
Sadly our society only values standardized test scores as a way to evaluate the educational experience of our children. Until we move away from this testing-philia, I can't see an end to the status quo.
I don't call the Gates money generosity. He figures he is is a smart guy so he should be able to fix something simple like education. Never mind that he has no experience in this field. He wants to run things so he pays to play.
All of this would be a bit more palatable if he were willing to subject his own children to the same classrooms that our children now have. Do we really believe that his children attend a school in which there can be 35 students in a class? So it's fine to experiment on other people's children, but keep his own out of it. This is conjecture on my part. Maybe his children really do attend a large urban school with large classes, overworked teachers.
As for him being generous, generosity would be if he found a plan that somebody ELSE came up with, backed up by research, and simply funded it. But coming from the position of self-importance he prefers to pay for his own ideas.
It's comical to me that Diane Ravitch comes to town and assails the Gateses of the world along with their personal-philosophy-turned-philanthropy. Lane attends, nods her head a few times, comments to a few others that Ravitch makes a great deal of sense and then goes back to her office and gets right back down to destroying education as we know it.
It's clear that like Roosevelt before her, Lane as sold her should for a huge cash payout and the bright lights and headlines associated with all things Gates.
Money has corrupted everything in this district. It has established a subgroup of individuals so devoid of knowledge of inner city education that it is truly amazing that they are allowed to set policy for the district. It's like a group of shoes salesmen sitting in offices making policy for General Motors. Dear God, please tell me this is some type of bad dream.
That good, caring and devoted teachers are being dumped thanks to the beliefs of a billionaire is disturbing.
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