They say that if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
When you have made billions of dollars by selling technology, you start thinking that you hold the answer to all the world’s problems.
Bill Gates thinks he has the answer to education: standardized testing, data, and measurement, with lots of technology.
Does he know that every child is different?
Does he know that standardized tests are subject to random error, human error, measurement error, and other errors?
Do his own children take standardized tests?
Please, Bill, teach in an urban school for one week. Just one week. Let us know how it goes.
Take the standardized tests that you value so much. Not the fourth grade tests, but the twelfth grade tests. Publish your scores. Please.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Please, please, Bill, go teach in any urban school for a week. Although a week truly wouldn’t be enough time, maybe you would begin to understand what is required of teachers and how vastly different the students and their needs are. Maybe then you would think you didn’t have all the answers.
It is just beyond me why anyone listens to this guy when he talks about education. He’s a pampered little rich kid who happens to be tech-savvy. He dropped out of college, and we are worshipping his ideas about how to improve schools? Save us from elitist “geniuses” who are here to help us.
I agree completely! I was at an urban school just yesterday – no one can understand that world unless they spend considerable time there. The teachers were all wonderful and completely dedicated to their jobs and to help and educate the children. But Gates’ evaluation would probably label them failures. Student achievement as it is measured now is one of the worst indicators of success of the student, teacher or school.
I work in an urban school. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Standardized test are a terrible measure of progress. But all those decisions are all being made by people who have never taught. These politicians all seem to have a Little Red Schoolhouse fantasy, an educational ideal that never really existed.
Bill Gates, one of the Best and the Brightest? Big difference, one of the RICHES Men in the WORLD. No degree, no formal knowledge of children and education, just RICH! Rich equals knowledge in EVERYTHING? Apparently so. We can’t even encourage him to work at an urban middle school for 3 months. Oops! No degree! Couldn’t join TFA, either. RICH IS THE NEW PhD? Is he advising doctors, lawyers, engineers, clergy, police, psychologists, chefs, chemists, etc…..? Probably yes.
RICH IS THE NEW PHD.
Bill Gates seems to make a difference in people’s lives in far away places. When asked to help our children in poverty, which significantly impacts success in school. No response. Don’t have to go far, right at our front doors. But, not as exotic or impressive?
Bill Gates, bright drop outs are rather common. Not your teachers’ fault. Bright kids often think they know it all, even in Kindergarten. Most outgrow this and end up learning throughout life, even within established institutions, such as universities and pursuing degrees. Please stop disrespecting our teaching profession, our highly trained and degreed educators. I triple-dare you to perform a teacher’s job for 3 months!!!! Triple-dare! Your disrespect is insulting. Other than your wealth, your arrogance is a dime-a-dozen.
Money and profit drives the system. Nothing new but important if market and dollar collapse. Polly
In Delaware we parents are trying to push our General Assembly Education Committee representatives to take the standardized test being pushed on them by our Governor, the RTTT, and Pearson…. We are hoping this will open eyes… XX (fingers crossed)
It may be a good tactic to insist that all legislators voting on mandated testing to take those high school tests AND POST THEIR TEST RESULTS for all to see. We need to address the never ending insults toward teachers by outing the so-called brilliant legislators. Let’s pass it on! Dare!!!
Bill, come teach here at Gage Park High for 2 weeks before you go teach at North Side College Prep for two weeks.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/427060203997873/permalink/498388256865067/
Yes the know it alls: Gates – college drop out; Zuckerberg- college drop, looking to hookup with women; Milken – criminal; Murdoch – criminal, etc…..even brilliant Steve Jobs – college drop out, LSD user. What inspirations to education.
I wish that Larry Page and Sergey Brin would step up in this debate – I feel that they may have a better perspective than the Gateses and the Murdochs of the world. They both come from families with a high education focus and went to Montessori elementary schools. Page went to a public high school, Brin’s mother-in-law is a longtime public school teacher, they both got their bachelors’ degrees from public universities, and went on to enroll in Ph.D. programs.
I don’t know how much better they’d be. Google contributes a lot to my local district and some of their funding is great, some comes with conditions I am quite wary of…funding expensive new ways of teaching, that benefits, surprise, a private company.
The trend for the teacher certification movement is more accountability, more certification, more teacher bar exams, and more documentation, while our famous college drop-outs and some known criminals speed up the conveyor belt on education. Laughing! Insulting! Demanding! Parading as experts. For Real?
I enjoyed this post.
There is such a dearth of reformers willing to subject themselves to their own reforms.
What a high-ratings reality show that would make, Oprah.
Mr. Gates stay with what you know! Education is not your field and standerized tests have never worked. Use your money to help others who know the school system, like teachers, not big business!!
“I’m an optimist,” declared Microsoft and Gates Foundation founder Bill Gates.
No Bill…you’re not. You’re a self absorbed, opportunistic egoist motivated by greed, power and money.
Get away from our children and teachers….leave us alone. You are clueless.
What she said! No one here wants your ill-gotten gains or your ill- conceived advice, Bill. Go away!
Let him come teach my 8th graders for ONE DAY.
Yeah, right.
He visits one school a year in a safe place where they do exactly what he says.
He gets a standing ovation everyday, even when he sits on the toilet.
Hail Bill, the great bloviating billionaire.
“What’s really changed in the classroom isn’t much at all,” Gates argued. “We’ve gone from a blackboard to a whiteboard.”
What a load of….
When was the last time you spent any real time in a classroom, Bill? How do you have any idea what has changed, what has not and why?
You know, medicine hasn’t changed much at all, either. They still use stethoscopes just like in the 1940’s! And I went to an auto mechanic the other day and (gasp) he was still using a wrench! How retro.
Bill, go reform them for a while, please!
😉
To Ang….oh look where the defender of Bill…his link takes you here…Zimmerman, that is…click around. Funding from Gates, do you think? Pretty soon the edupreneurs are going to be tripping over each other looks for Bill’s approval.
For transitioning from teacher-led instruction to self-directed learning
Isn’t one of the main goals of every teacher to inspire students to be lifelong learners? Our unique two-sided approach encourages students to take the lessons of the classroom out into the world. Students can click from the academic side of OpenSchool to the personal side where they can maintain their blogs, work on personal projects and start to exercise control of their own education. OpenSchool ePortfolio helps unleash the tremendous motivational power of technology applied directly to student interest.
http://openschooleportfolio.com/
Typo…couldn’t see the entire dialogue box….should read looking for Bill’s approval.
I have been asking this question for awhile. I often wonder if any of these so called reformers have ever met a child, a teenager, have they ever spent any time with them? Those of use who teach, guide, care for and about young people scratch our heads with a puzzled look, when we read their ideas.
Let’s also not forge that Gates’ true genius is not as a technologist – no one would ever claim that his technology is superior – but as a monopolist, where “infinite greed” is the norm
We are inundated with initiatives to teach values, compassion, care for your fellow student to reduce bullying and then the three stooges (Bill, Rupert and Joel) propose sticking our kids in front of devices all day where emoticons will communicate rather than hearing and seeing a real teacher.
See this graphic and Einstein quote:
http://imgace.com/pic/2012/11/einstein-quote-on-fear-of-generation-of-idiots/
Thanks for that quote!
Wow, from some of these comments you’d think that Gates is a know-nothing dolt who dropped out of college to become a ski bum…it’s a teensy bit ingenuousness. He dropped out because he knew he had a lottery ticket with his work in BASIC (which shows how much he values formal education, not that he’s dumb). I grant he knows little to nothing about education, but he’s not stupid. In all likelihood, Gates would excel at any standardized test you gave him (he got a 1590 on the SAT), He’s also a brilliant computer scientist, Microsoft has been around for 30 years so we kind of forget that the underlying premises behind Windows and DOS was truly revolutionary. All that said, yeah I disagree strongly with his views on education, but I’m of the opinion I can disagree strongly with some one without that person being dumb, ignorant, evil, or a pampered rich brat. I feel that the current discourse about education is one of the most important in our country, let’s approach it with respect and dignity.
Get back to us when he respects teachers and their work. Get back to us when he sends his kids go to a public school where class size is 28 and up with no music, art and staffed by TFA interns. Get back to us when he visits a public school in Detroit, Chicago, or NOLA. Get back to us when he teaches for a year and he is responsible for the growth in test scores for 100-150 kids. Get back to us when Bill admits he has no idea what he is talking about. I will give you permission to defend him then, so get back to us.
In no way am I defending his policy (nor would I be seeking permission if I was). I’m saying that the ad hominem attacks gross me out (he’s stupid, he’s evil). And guess what? Saying “he does it to us” isn’t a good defense (there’s an old adage about two wrongs and a right). Look, I live and work in a “reformy” city (Newark) and so I end up running into a lot of ed reform type people. And it might shock you but even though I disagree VEHEMENTLY with their positions, I think a lot of them genuinely want what’s best for kids. I try hard not to be bitter (which is easy when you work with kids everyday),
I like to believe that even people I think are dead-to-rights wrong don’t wake up every morning thinking “how can I be evil today?”. Everyone looks out their own window, they construct meaning and truth based on their own experiences, and they do so in their own way. This diversity of understanding and the debate that it entails is something to be celebrated, as long as we keep the discussions about ideas, and stay away from personal attacks. That classic liberal arts way of thinking is something I try hard to instill in students.
I care deeply about the dignity and nature of the public education debate because I care deeply about public education. I grew up the youngest of 7 kids, sharing a single house with 11 people of differing viewpoints and personalities, but we all valued education. We didn’t always have heat or hot water and my bedroom window was a sheet of plastic… everything I am today is because of public education. I really bums me out to see the discourse taken down to the level of mudslinging.
You lost me here:
I think a lot of them genuinely want what’s best for kids.
No, they don’t. What’s best for other people’s children is what’s best for their kids. And that is not what Bill, Joel, Rupert, Michelle, Arne, insert reformy eduvulture name here are proposing.
Fool me never!
So you think that all those people really seek to intentionally destroy the lives of children? Wow, that’s dark. You might be right, I’m probably just a naive optimist. But I tell you what, I’ll take my naive, policy-driven optimism over hardened, ad hominem cynicism everyday.
I know some charter principals and TFA members (he’s associating with the enemy!), I’ve had beers with them and talked about teaching kids. They know I disagree with the nature of the systems in which they operate, and we talk about it seriously, without name-calling. They’re not all bad people using kids to get to Goldman Sachs, they care, they’re human beings. I certainly see ugly teacher-bashing from the other side, and I’m quick to take it to task when I see it. That said, I also feel compelled to say something when I see mudslinging on our own side.
They care for awhile…a year or two or three and then they move on. The temporary intern is the savior. They can say they once worked with the poor kids stuck in public schools…how noble.
The unionized lifelong educator is a greedy thug who cares only about herself and her salary. Intentionally keeping other people’s children in their place, yup, that’s what I think. But you and I will keep teaching, learning, caring and advocating for our kids for the rest of our professional lives while they dabble. Eventually they will move on when they are no longer adored, profiting or both.
AGREE WITH LINDA!!
Not that this has anything to do with the point of the above article, but Bill Gates is not a “brilliant computer scientist.” Donald Knuth is a brilliant computer scientist, as is Gordon Bell, Vinton Cerf, Edsger Dijkstra, C.A.R. Hoare, Grace Hopper, Leonard Kelinrock, and a host of others. Bill Gates is a businessman that ran a very successful software company.
And no, the ideas behind MS-DOS were not revolutionary at all. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS for more information about where it came from.
The guy oversaw every line of code that went out Microsoft’s door for the first five years. He was writing code for Microsoft products as late as ’89 (amazing for an executive). His pancake sorting algorithm was the fastest ever created for over 30 years. As tough as the PARCC is going to be, I think he could eek it out (doesn’t make it right though).
Jeez… you guys won’t give this guy anything will you? His views on education means he’s not competent at anything except villainy and greed. See my points above about the need to elevate the dialogue.
And here I was thinking that we value competence and experience being respected. We get mad at people who undermine us don’t we? Who diminish our accomplishments? Who aren’t in our line of work but say we’re bad at it? I believe teachers know how to teach… but I will concede Gate knows a thing or two about computers.
Okay…then we won’t make this about Gates and his business/technology competence.
We can go back to his teaching and learning incompetence, which is where he is failing.
He shouldn’t be pontificating about a professional he has never attempted and where I suspect he would not excel at given his ego.
Maybe someone somewhere can request a meeting and tell him for all of us?
Whatever happened to, here’s a billion dollars for the kids, just don’t let them buy beer and cigarettes with it?
That would be when you weren’t interested in creating a crisis so you and fellow edupreneurs could smash, grab and profit off the minds of children and the backs of teachers.
I agree with Sheila..RTT is kiddie data for sale and race to the trough is actually a stimulus plan masquerading as school “reform”.
Kids are props…teachers are robots….and testing is teaching. The Gates USDOE slogan.
Michael,
First off, you’ve created a straw man by saying that people are calling him stupid. They’re not, they’re calling him clueless and self-interested, a very different thing. I think the man is a genius, but as I said in my comment, a genius of a monopolist, which I think his career amply demonstrates.
That he was still writing code as an executive is irrelevant: he was the company’s dominance has always been based on it’s licensing muscle, not it’s technology.
As for his and other so-called reformers sincerely wanting what’s best for kids, it’s not a cartoonish view of them to question their motives when their self-professed concern overlaps so perfectly with their and their funder’s financial and political interests.
Then there is the straight out aggression (but almost always with that perky corporate/motivational persona!) and destructiveness with which their agenda is being implemented.
Sorry, but their declarations of altruism transact at an extremeely high discount.
Michael Fiorillo: Agreed. You state the obvious but some things can never be stated enough. Thank you. I would add that the leading charterites/privatizers provide for their own children something very different from what they promote, fund and mandate for OPC [other people’s children].
And who can forget that Bill Gates will be forever associated with that most brilliant of management strategies, known variously as stacked ranking/forced ranking/rank and yank/burn and churn? Worked really well for Microsoft. Helped them crush that teensy weensy company named after a fruit [Orange or Grape or something like that]. And that inspired [insipid?] bit of top-down nonsense continues to inspire the leading charterites/privatizers.
I still remember when Microsofties used to argue with me that the saving grace of Gates-inspired Micro$oft Excellence was that Window$ was difficult, error-prone and virus-ridden. [No, I am not making this up.] Macs? Pfffff… The twenty first century future undoubtedly belonged to Microsoft and its visionary leader, Bill the G. After all, how functional or productive [or even profitable] could ease of use, efficiency and virus-resistance be?
It is the same mindset that is genuinely puzzled and offended by any challenge to the notion that charters and vouchers and privatization of education are indubitably superior, in every respect and aspect, to anything public schools have to—or will—offer.
Which is why this blog, and the newly created Network for Public Education, is making itself felt—as evidenced by the sadly pathetic kerfuffles they attempt to create around the owner of this blog. Kerfuffles, I might add, that are just as effective in shutting down the discussion on—and the influence of—this blog as Bill the G and Window$ were in shutting down that insignificant little company named after a fruit that no one remembers anymore.
🙂
POINT..HE IS A GENIUS…EINSTEIN WAS A GENIUS…..
and the other 99.9% of the world..makes it work..
One of the best improvements for public education would be the adoption of free software: http://www.fsf.org and http://www.seconnecticut.com/free_software.htm
Before advocating a technological cure for a phony educational crisis, Mr. Gates might do well to spend some time in a preschool as well as an urban school. There are some things that are better learned without a screen. Visit a preschool and see children scooping sand, playing with water, buttoning on a fireman’s coat, building Lego towers, touching the skin of a visiting snake or the fur on a rabbit, climbing the ladder on a slide, swinging, banging a drum, molding clay into shapes, mixing paint colors, singing and dancing. A computer is also not needed to figure out how to share with friends and see them smile, hug your teacher, learn that hitting hurts and screaming to get your way is not a good option. For our youngest learners, screens are not a good substitute for real experiences and human contact; they do not teach kindness or empathy.
Waldorf schools, even for older students, do not use technology in the classroom. Human contact is needed even in adolescence.
You are so right.
Busy snow day…please watch if you have time:
Stand up. The day the teachers said no.
DO IT BILL..I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU!
I love this: “He closed with a plea for great educators and great technologists to work more closely together….”
At what point has HE ever included honest-to-goodness classroom teachers in the top-down ideologies like the stuff he’s spewing in this speech? If anything, classroom teachers working with real live kids have been pointedly excluded, and experienced educators have been rebuffed at every turn; Anthony Cody’s series that went simultaneously on Living in Dialogue and the Gates’ Foundation’s Impatient Optimists blogs should be evidence enough of that.
I am revolted by the impatient optimists moniker….how about greedy opportunist?
It is great to come up with fancy titles for yourself when you have nothing better to do.
Pissed off, exhausted, experienced unionized teacher here has been patient and optimistic with children for many, many years.
I have no patience or optimism for philanthropimps trying to destroy our profession and our schools.
I understand your impatience, but road rage and name-calling will not move the needle, Linda. Bill Gates is terribly misguided about education, but there are few people who have touched (and saved) as many lives as he has.
Define “touched”? How do you measure his impact vs. others in our country’s history?
Saved? Prove that.
You defend him. I do not. He is misguided and he doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know. And I don’t think he would even listen to someone who disagreed with him.
Some have tried…nothing has changed.
You can worship. I choose not to.
Btw, the needle isn’t going to move no matter what we say. He doesn’t care; it doesn’t support his “research”. The needle needs to be snapped off.
Wow, Steve, please fill us in on how many lives Bill has saved!
I had no idea!
There are few who have saved as many? Really?
Many, say, compared to a career policeman or a firefighter?
How abut the school teacher who works with kids in serious poverty for 30 plus years, does she save lives?
Is Bill Jonas Salk level?
Maybe Mother Teresa?
Bill is very good at business.
He knows nothing about education.
He does not send his children to schools that do the things he advocates other people’s children suffer through.
Many very knowledgeable educators have reached out to him and his organization to attempt dialogue… they were dismissed.
So , your use of “road rage” implies irrational anger.
Linda’s anger seems very rational to me.
He is ruining our schools.
Maybe somebody at the Gates Foundation is paid to read blogs and post saintly things about Bill. I know….touched and saved. I almost spit out my morning coffee.
Take a teacher (touch), hold her head under water until she is about to die, pull her out at the last second and you SAVED her.
Touch and save…..an impatient optimist…..we are in worse shape thanks to Bill’s “good work”.
I put a ticket in 4 months ago and have seen hide nor hair of the tech specialists……
The so-called great technology consists of an old computer that takes 5 minutes to log into…..a big tv screen..and that is it…
Of course the kids get the throw-away laptops from the big corporations but you have to out your name on the list in August to use those in your plans…half do not work..
30 laps for 2,000 kids..hmmmmm ….
Middle sch tchr
Wonderful description of pre-k and K the way it used to be…should be now!
I hope it will be the future as well.
🙂
Thank you. My daughter is an early childhood educator, and I love to hear her enchanting descriptions of preschool. Sadly, there is pressure to change from Common Core enthusiasts who want less “play”.
Bill Gates = Louis Winthorpe. I watched Trading Places last night. It had been a while since I had seen it. It reminded me so much of what’s going on today. The pampered rich riding around in their Rolls Royces playing games with the 99%.
Gates could do a lot of good, if he wants more technology in the classroom, by standing up and urging that we get a broadband connection to every public school in America.
It’s a simple thing, something we know how to do, that takes only time and money. And I think there’s no question that this simple thing would be useful to schools, a boon to the communities around them, and incidentally, probably good for Microsoft’s bottom line as well.
If he’s ever said a single word about this, I missed it.
It’s all about turning public schools into online virtual academies with offshored “teachers” making pennies a day, using MS products to further the goal.
Gates doesn’t know squat about anything, but his ideas are truly evil.
Teachers? There won’t be a need for any teachers. Device monitors? Test preparers? Guards? Attendance takers? Virtual watchers?
If you haven’t, please read “The Fun They Had” by Isaac Asimov. It is no longer science fiction:
Margie even wrote about it that night in her diary. On the page headed May 17, 2155, she wrote, “Today Tommy found a real book!”
It was a very old book. Margie’s grandfather once said that when he was a little boy Us grandfather told him that there was a time when all stories were printed on paper.
They turned the pages, which were yellow and crinkly, and It was awfully funny to read words that stood still instead of moving the way they were supposed to – on a screen, you know. And then, when they turned back to the page before, it had the same words on it that it had had when they read it the first time.
“Gee,” said Tommy, “what a waste. When you’re through with the book, you just throw it away, I guess. Our television screen must have had a million books on it and it’s good for plenty more. I wouldn’t throw it away.”
Full PDF here: http://www.gphillymath.org/resourcedisks/thefuntheyhad.pdf
Great story. I read it with my students a few years ago. I also recommend Fahrenheit 451 by the brilliant Ray Bradbury:
“There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”
” I cannot live without books”..
Thomas Jefferson
Our children will have brain tumors..bad eye sight…..but they will know how to think…think about how much they hate taking tests to the point of refusing!!
It will take this generation of Testeeeees….to right the wrong….of the testers!!
You “hit the nail right on the head”, Diane. If it weren’t so absurd, it would be hilarious. Nothing about the deforming of our public schools is very funny, though. Really terrific analogy AND bold invitations to Gates. If only he would accept. The tide is turning because truth always wins in the end. Will our schools become better through all this debate? I hope so. We can always improve. But, until we aim our goals on omitting poverty, supporting families, dismissing the corporate pundits with little knowledge of human development & educational skills & unleashing our best teachers to be their professionally best, nothing will change. I hve hope, but little patience left. Have you all heard the latest reading levels in NYC? The numbers are staggering. Can’t believe it’s only the teachers’ faults! But, that will be the byline, wait and see.
So sick of Bill Gates! I was thinking today that I will never buy another Microsoft product again, if I can help it, but sadly I don’t think we could ever make a dent in the fortune he has amassed. Thank you for continuing to challenge him.
BILL GATES = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ TALKS
GREED DICTATES…Bill offered his help..LITTLE DID HE KNOW THAT THE TESTING HIERARCHY CREATED THE BIGGEST SCAM IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION..
THEY HAVE BEACH HOUSES…THEY HAVE POLITICAL POWER…THEY HAVE NOT SET FOOT IN A CLASSROOM…THEY CALL “TRICKY”-“DEEP THINKING”…THEY THREW THE TEACHERS UNDER THE BUS…THEY USE STUDENTS FOR GUINEA PIGS..
I have just one question:
Does he expect his own children to endure this form of “education”?
No. Bill went to Lakeside Academy, probably Seattle’s most prestigious ivy league prep school. I would be stunned to learn his children have ever seen the inside of a public school, let alone attended one.
I’m beginning to believe that Gates has gone around the bend. I saw him being interviewed on Charlie Rose about all of his charities, etc. He was talking about battling poliio and etc. and why he uses data for that. I applaud his efforts to reduce disease in the world but, when he went on to talk about looking at the data it mirrored his ideas about education. I found it very odd and figured he must look at tons of spreadsheets all day. The whole thing just struck me as odd. I turned the channel quickly though. I can’t stand seeing he and Bloomberg constantly giving their opinions on everything. Gates just seems to want to quantify everything to justify its existence. He needs to butt out of education.
Rose did a weak job with the questions.
I met with another techie once when I was the chief instructional officer for a big urban district. He was practically orgasmic in telling me that with his technology we could look at every kid’s keystrokes on a test and know why he was failing. I gasped at such a blanket diagnosis.
Usually I didn’t feel obligated to educate vendors, but I couldnt restrain myself that day. I told him real stories about the little girl getting raped every night by her stepfather; the small boy who had seen his older brother murdered in the parking lot of his apartment house two days earlier; the teenager who had faked his ability to read with lots of help from parents who read to him, but he never passed a test, although he knew a lot; the young woman who took drugs every night; the immigrant child who had entered high school without a single day of prior schooling and no knowledge of English; the ADHD child who struggled with attention; the boy with traunmatic brain injury and problems with memory; the boy who cleaned apartment buildings almost all night every night to help his family; the children in a high poverty school who moved art least once a month; the child who had had three different math teachers that year, only one fully certified; and on and on.
I explained that the data could tell me the questions a student missed, but it gave me not a clue, especially in multiple choice assessments, WHY the student missed the questions. That is why quality teachers, who both are great at understanding teaching and learning AND who establish warm and personal relationships with their students can never be replaced by technology!
It is stunning that Bill Gates has never had that conversation, and he would have it if he took up your challenge to teach for a week, or merely talked with real teachers for a week.
It is also stunning that a really wealthy man can, with no credentials whatsoever, name himself the national school superintendent! And get by with it! And have all the power he wants to affect education policy at local, state, and federal levels. Shame on all those who have sold their souls in exchange for his grants. He and other privatizers seem to own the US Department of Education, the CCSSO, NGA, and even Education Week.
We HAVE to take back the leadership of OUR profession!
And they have ‘partnerships’ with the AFT.
Ever since Randi Winegarten was willing to back both mayoral control of the NY schools and George Pataki over Carl McCall in 2002, I have had my doubts.
But with here dialogues with Bill Gates — including an invitation to the AFT convention — and her ‘facilitation’ of pay-for-performance contracts in Newark, Baltimore and Wahington DC you have to wonder if she has (a) lost her mind, (b) been bought out or slowly corrupted or (c) is being blackmailed.
Maybe it is that she was always a lawyer at heart who thinks she knows best for all those poor slob teachers. But it certainly seems she’s been a disaster.
For some reason Bill Gates is not in this blog post, but it may be the funniest thing on the pseudo-reform movement I have ever read:
How Many Reformers Does it Take to Really Fix a School?
A Teacher on Teaching blog
http://ateacheronteaching.blogspot.in/2013/03/how-many-reformers-does-it-take-to.html?showComment=1363058886667
I am tired of hearing about data. We teach CHILDREN, every time I hear about the data, I feel like they think we are training lab mice,