This is an astonishingly moving and candid website where teachers write a personal letter to Bill Gates, explaining how his ideas and policies have influenced their lives and classrooms.
Add your own experience if Bill Gates has changed your life too.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here is page one: http://teachersletterstobillgates.com/
Dear Bill,
You are ruining our schools, demoralizing our teachers and abusing our children. Please stop before I call DCF and report you.
This is a great website. At the same time, I so resent the fact that teachers need to write a letter to Bill and Melinda Gates who have no teaching credentials or classroom teaching experience. I know they have money and lots of it but it should be illegal to impose their ideas and policies on our children.
This is a wonderful site! It is the exact opposite of the Gates Foundation site, the Broad Foundation site, and the Walton sites. Those sites are filled with data, unproven solutions, wild educational claims, propaganda, and lies.
This site meets reality eye-to-eye. Children. Teachers. School conditions. Human needs. All of the letters are similar, and all of the letters are different – like human snowflakes.
Diane, need to discuss an idea that our movement for public education could use. Your site has my email. Could you contact me? Not for discussion on you blog yet.
Go to dianeravitch.com and hit the contact button.
While I understand the need to share letters to Bill Gates somewhere, I wonder if he is aware of the website or even interested in answering any these important questions.
NO, he’s not!
Just like Obama & Duncan, Duane. Could.care.less.
I don’t know if he is responsible for the current ongoing NYC Regents grading fiasco. Although he did make computers widely available, and contributed to the idea that teachers can’t be trusted to grade their own students.
But seriously, why haven’t I seen any posts about the NYC Regents Grading problems yet?!
It’s a real doozy!
http://gothamschools.org/2013/06/19/regents-scoring-issues-continue-to-pile-up-as-graduations-near/
http://nycdoenuts.blogspot.com/2013/06/all-documents-have-been-graded-for-this.html
http://iceuftblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/social-studies-regents-marking-day-four.html
Dear Bill and Melinda,
I truly believe you started with good intentions. As mature adults who make mistakes, it is time to recant your initial perspective.
I’ve taught 4th and 5th graders in an inner city school for the past 17 years. What fun we used to have. Back then…. before the NCLB and RTT…. my students flourished in literature groups reading on grade level classics such as Hatchet, Tuck Everlasting, Call it Courage, The Cay, Caddie Woodlawn, The Little Princess, and My Side of the Mountain. We read Jerry Spinelli, Karen Hesse, C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkien. Not anymore. Why? The testing. Since the high stakes tests began in 2001 I have noticed a decline in my student’s thinking skills. Each year they come to me with fewer skills than the group before me. The teachers are the same as before, but something is different. Students were being over tested. They no longer get the pleasure of reading in the “zone” and spending time languishing in the text for the sheer joy of reading. They have to pass these tests. If they don’t the school is punished.
This year, our school is being punished, because we are a “focused” school. As a result, time and time again, I have had to postpone my well planned lessons. These lessons, which are designed to engage students in analyzing and thinking about character motive, theme, setting etc. depend on momentum, continuity and consistency. These lessons are designed to give students time to reflect on their learning. Not this year, sadly. As a focused school, the state is more concerned with DATA. So, I have had to put aside my lessons, midstream, to initiate one edict after another given by the district, which was precipitated by the state mandates of a focused school. (I might add here that the majority of focused schools are located in impoverished districts. It’s not because of bad teaching. It’s because of poverty!) These edicts range from “administering the district exam on material not yet covered in order to input the data, to implementing another NEW strategy, which we were never trained in to use.” Consequently, my well thought out lessons went down the drain, and I collected and input data instead. Those great books we were reading sat on the shelf. The math games and manipulatives, which help my students grasp the concrete before they explore the abstract, sat on the shelf. Instead, I administered exams and in between did my best to cover the material so that the students would hopefully succeed on these exams. If I didn’t do it, I would get a bad evaluation and my job would be on the line. I felt l was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Against every bone in my body, I had eliminate the reflective time of learning to move quickly to the next “state” agenda.
The sad part is this. I was miserable and my students were miserable. “Ms. P can’t we get in our reading groups today?” Yes. My students begged to read. They begged to read because when I am allowed to teach the way I KNOW is best, they read and love it. And that simple act of reading and loving it is the aspect of learning that will move the students forward.
However, thanks to your well-intentioned push to improve our schools, my students have less time to enjoy learning and more time to create data so that I can prove that I am teaching.
A side note here: Why are we a focused school? Our students with disabilities did not make AYP (Annual Yearly Progress). You got it. Students with special needs did not “meet state standards.” Now, Bill and Melinda, please read the many posts from parents and teachers of students with disabilities to understand the absurdity of this.
…..and reconsider your alignment with Michelle Rhee and the likes.
Please, recant.
And there’s this from the Daily News – http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/education-company-botches-grading-regents-exams-article-1.1377538?print
We got an email from network leaders at 6:30 pm telling us not to report to scoring site tomorrow but instead on Friday – which happens to be graduation day for many schools. So now teachers are expected to miss graduation and spend all day in a computer lab scoring exams because the corporation the DOE hired has so mismanaged the process? And students won’t know if they are getting a diploma until next week. Outrageous. Why is our accountability mayor silent on the issue?
My principal sent out an email which said we should inform him if we wanted to go to graduation this Friday, and he would get us excused from grading assignments. As bad as the system is, it’s nice to work in a school where the administration is still decent.
If I thought for a moment that Bill wouldn’t just have his minions throw away all our letters unread, I would be more likely to write one myself. Who knows, I may still, but my head hurts from continually banging it on the same walls and desks. 😦
Dear Billy,
How many times have I told you to play nice. You are not the center of the world. It bothers me that you are so full of yourself. I did not raise you that way. If you were still at home I would send you to bed without any dinner.
Love,
Mom
: )
Diane,
Thank you kindly for supporting our new blog.
We love your readers’ comments and would like to post some of their letters on our blog! Teachers, please write to tell Bill and Melinda how their corporate reforms are impacting your students, you personally/professionally, your schools, and your communities. You can send your letters to us at http://teachersletterstobillgates.com/ .
Even if Bill and Melinda are not reading your stories, the public has a right to know what these reforms are doing to our children. We have been silent too long. We must speak out and tell our stories.
Bill and Melinda still have not answered us despite the fact that they said in the Seattle Times [http://seattletimes.com/html/education/2021149398_gatesfoundationteachersxml.html ] that they wanted to “make nice” with teachers.
Maybe they only want to make nice with teachers that support their ideas. What do you think, Diane? Teachers?
Teachers’ Letters to Bill Gates
Mr. Gates,
I have been working on this letter for days now. I just can’t seem to get my thoughts down before my anger gets the best of me. Then it turns into a letter of rant which helps no one, least of all my students.
I am a 10 year veteran teacher. I have earned my BA and my MAT. I also have received National Board Certification. I am sick over this testing and evaluation mess that you sir created. It’s time that you clarify and clean up what you have caused.
You and your buddies The Walton’s and Broady’s need to finally understand that you have accomplished nothing to further education. You have caused a chasm, a divide. You have made matters worse. Because it suits your agenda you have fueled the ‘everything is the teachers fault’ fire. We know it and you know it. If you truly care about students and their success and not about dollars and data points, then you will put your resources behind proven policies.
Here are some ideas that you can research, study and then support. These are changes that have actually been proven to be successful.
1. No for-profit schools. No one should make a dime off of students.
2. No standardized tests until high school. PreK-8th grade should be the time to instill curiosity, a drive to learn and to find what excites them.
3. Schools of Education should be extremely selective. Only the best and brightest should be accepted.
4. Educators should be held in high esteem as the professionals they are and paid accordingly.
5. End the competition between public schools. Support collaboration and cooperation.
6. Teachers should be expected to teach 4 classes (approximately 4 hours) per day.
7. Teachers should be expected to collaborate during the school day.
8. School meals should be free.
9. Health care should be accessible. Nurses at all prek-8th grade schools.
10. Individualized guidance for all students.
You finally agree that teachers should be at the table for policy discussions. Here I am. Hear me now: We are mad and we are NOT going to take it anymore. STOP this testing craze. STOP the school to prison pipeline. STOP closing schools. STOP making money off our children!
We won’t back down,
One of many BATs
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Gates
The constitution of the United States says that States are supposed to run education, not the Federal Government.
Read the Federalist Papers by Glen Beck.
Glen Beck is a Bozo.