Bill Gates recently said that he didn’t realize how hard it was to change education. It is really hard work. He has no idea. Sitting in his air-conditioned offices overlooking Seattle, flying in his personal jet, relaxing on his family yacht, surrounded by hordes of assistants and aides, he has no idea of what teachers do and no understanding of why his efforts to “reform” schools keep failing. He thinks it is hard work.
But, in Valerie Strauss’ blog, she quotes Nancy E. Bailey, a special education teacher who left the classroom because of the damage done to her students by high-stakes testing. Bailey explains to Gates what is really hard work. It is harder than “philanthropic work.”
Bailey, who wrote the 2013 book “Misguided Education Reform: Debating the Impact on Students,” challenged Melinda and Bill Gates to spend “some serious time in poor public schools” to learn what is really hard in education for teachers and students — and to “spend time with the many moms of students with disabilities who home-school not because they want to, but because schools have cut special education services.”
Here is a shortened version of her admittedly incomplete list of what’s really hard in education (and you can see the full blog post and list here):
Being an over-tested kindergartner, not getting any recess, and being made to feel you are a failure before you get started in your schooling.
Working as a teacher on a day-to-day basis with students who come from abject poverty and must deal with the many troubling consequences that come with a life lived in hardship.
Being a child with disabilities and being afraid of a high-stakes test (or several) you don’t understand and feeling like a failure!
Being made to read before you are ready,
Failing third grade based on one test.
Being a high school student who has to focus on test-taking and not given ample time to explore real career options.
Being poor and working only in math and reading with little opportunity to participate in music or art classes.
Deciding if you can afford to leave teaching because you hate the changes that negatively impact children, including all the high-stakes Common Core testing.
Knowing you have to teach to pay the bills but understanding why parents dislike you for being forced to implement harsh reforms.
Being told you will have to reapply for the job you need in the career you hold dear because your school has been turned into a charter school.
Working with overcrowded class sizes because some reformer doesn’t know better and thinks class size doesn’t matter.
Not being able to get to all your students because your paraprofessional has been let go.
Not being able to go to the bathroom when you need to because your paraprofessional has been let go.
Not being paid for a master’s degree on which you spent time and money to better yourself professionally.
Working in a crummy school building while a brand new charter school is opened down the street.
Getting judged for your teaching by the test scores of students you don’t have.
Being forced to focus more on data than children, and filling out mounds of time-consuming and often useless paperwork.
Watching your young students fail computer-based tests because they can’t type fast enough.
Knowing how much time you spent learning to be a teacher and watching others with inadequate training get jobs.
Being forced to put away your developmentally appropriate student play kitchens, puppets and costumes in kindergarten.
Seeing your school put money into iPads when there are so many other things needed.
Working in a school with no librarian or media specialist.
Sending your child to a school that has no school nurse.
Not having enough guidance counselors to work with you when your student has mental health issues.
Not having appropriate special education services to offer children who need them.
Being a student in a no-excuse charter school and knowing that you could be punished for the smallest disciplinary infraction.
Having your local school board ignore your pleas to keep your public school open.
I think the only way Gates will listen is to hold a loaded pistol to his head and force him to take notes and pay attention to how hard teaching is and then give him a bubble test to make sure he proves he paid attention. Set the passing rate and 75% or more of the questions must be correct and if he fails, pull the trigger.
Great letter from Nancy Bailey to the hard-working Gates, exhausted by the effort it takes to spend their billions. Nancy Bailey’s letter should have been read aloud at last night’s Dem Forum by Rachel Maddow as the moderator so as to put k-12 wars on the table despite efforts of union leaders and Hillary to sweep education under the rug.
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by union leaders and Hillary trying to sweep education under the rug, Ira, but I have been involved with lobbying efforts to get local and Federal politicians to listen to teachers, and I can tell you from personal experience that when Hillary was NY’s Senator, the education aides in her office were the most informed people (all had taught for substantial time) I was able to meet. In addition, she was strongly behind our efforts to limit testing and the misuse of testing.
So far as I can see, the problem is that currently there is little or no difference between the policies espoused by the left and the policies espoused by the right. Neither involves listening to teachers or their unions. Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo are clones when it comes to education.
“…the education aides in her office were the most informed people (all had taught for substantial time) I was able to meet.”
That is a really important piece of information to know. Thanks.
And it’s even harder changing it for the better than changing it for the badder.
Seeing your brand-new out of college librarian come in and get rid of 2/3 of the physical books in the library while 1/2 of the computers in the library are out of order.
Looking out of a window pane that has been broken since April and this is November while a multi-million dollar project replaces the windows visible to the public.
Dodging the chunks of ceiling around the puddle in the hall that is dark because the students have pulled the wires to the light out of the wall so that it shocks passers-by.
Being unable to remove disruptive students due to lawsuits about equity, thereby subjecting college-prep students to criminals out on bond and BD students roaming the halls without effective consequences.
I could go on, but I need to take a breath.
I wish some of the big “reformer” types could walk a mile in your shoes. They live in the billionaire bubble and have no concept of what “reform” has meant to so many public schools and teachers.
Bill Gates’ comment about “hard work” is reminiscent of another silver-spoon boy,Hard Working George
Diane, thanks for showcasing Nancy’s work again. Her intractable common sense can see through all the gobbledygook to what is happening to children with special needs. I appreciate how she always is fighting for our most vulnerable youth. Thanks Nancy! I just wish Mr. Gates would read this …
“Why won”t those pesky peons do what I have mandated in my munificent benevolence?” said an exasperated King Billy. “I work so hard to show them how they should do it!”
It’s not Bill Gates we have to worry about who isn’t listening. It’s the politicians who ARE listening to him that is the actual problem. Turns out we have mechanisms (rusty, corroded, and perhaps incapable of functioning anymore) to force politicians to listen to a louder noise than Bill Gates.
Bill Gates doesn’t listen to teachers, parents, or anyone he doesn’t choose to listen to. Why? He doesn’t have to. Bill Gates is an old and not particularly unique species of American….an extraordinarily successful capitalist. If anyone reads their American history, such types, after hoarding an ethically problematic amount of money -usually via the plundering of resources of one type or another, outright thieving, or deeply monopolistic behavior- tend to envision themselves as shapers of society and even civilization itself. The psychological machinations here are, I am sure, deep, but Mr. Bruce Springsteen summed it up best I think in his song “badlands”: “…poor man want to be rich, rich man want to be king, and a king ain’t satisfied ’till he rules everything.” So, clearly, this is not new terrain here. Bill Gates sees himself as a shaper/orchestrator of society….and he can carry this out via his wealth. Not new.
What is new is that we think that his is the mind to change and that his ear needs to awaken to our collective voice. This is absurd and an insane waste of time or energy. Our focus should be on the politicians who take his money, ideas, bought and paid for “research” and any other thought that comes out of his….I don’t mean to offend here…STEM-addled mind.
Trying to get Gates to hear us is just about as likely as getting Vanderbilt or Carnegie to hear us from the grave. Gates is a historical phenomenon that is repeating itself. One cannot change the historical and psychological pattern that is Gates. However, the one thing we can do is work on those who still, on paper at least, have to respond to us….politicians who have the real power and ability to mute the deep society-crafting identity plays of an obscenely rich capitalist, and limit his impulses and influence to things that can actually do good for the rest of us….funding museums and stuff.
No more letters to Gates. Lets just understand him in historical context and then work on those that really can bend to us if we get loud enough.
NYSTEACH,
Yes and no. Very rich and powerful people have a very high sense of self. They think that the world should recognize their greatness. They can’t stand criticism. They can’t stand to be picketed. They can’t tolerate being laughed at. When they realize that the world sees them not as icons but as Robber Barons and dictators, they slink back to their mansions. He may never agree with his critics, but he fears them. Making him aware of his failures may be less challenging than getting politicians not to be swayed by money. That behavior is even older and more entrenched than rich men presenting themselves as objects of veneration.
It’s not Bill Gates we have to worry about who isn’t listening. It’s the politicians who ARE listening to him that is the actual problem. Turns out we have mechanisms (rusty, corroded, and perhaps incapable of functioning anymore) to force politicians to listen to a louder noise than Bill Gates.
Bill Gates doesn’t listen to teachers, parents, or anyone he doesn’t choose to listen to. Why? He doesn’t have to. Bill Gates is an old and not particularly unique species of American….an extraordinarily successful capitalist. If anyone reads their American history, such types, after hoarding an ethically problematic amount of money -usually via the plundering of resources of one type or another, outright thieving, or deeply monopolistic behavior- tend to envision themselves as shapers of society and even civilization itself. The psychological machinations here are, I am sure, deep, but Mr. Bruce Springsteen summed it up best I think in his song “badlands”: “…poor man want to be rich, rich man want to be king, and a king ain’t satisfied ’till he rules everything.” So, clearly, this is not new terrain here. Bill Gates sees himself as a shaper/orchestrator of society….and he can carry this out via his wealth. Not new.
What is new is that we think that his is the mind to change and that his ear needs to awaken to our collective voice. This is absurd and an insane waste of time or energy. Our focus should be on the politicians who take his money, ideas, bought and paid for “research” and any other thought that comes out of his….I don’t mean to offend here…STEM-addled mind.
Trying to get Gates to hear us is just about as likely as getting Vanderbilt or Carnegie to hear is from the grave. Gates is a historical phenomenon that is repeating itself. One cannot change the historical and psychological pattern that is Gates. However, the one thing we can do is work on those who still, on paper at least, have to respond to us….politicians who have the real power and ability to mute the deep society-crafting identity plays of an obscenely rich capitalist, and limit his impulses and influence to things that can actually do good for the rest of us….funding museums and stuff.
No more letters to Gates. Lets just understand him in historical context and then work on those that really can bend to us if we get loud enough.
As a teacher, no one, including Bill Gates, can understand the day-to-day expectations of teachers. It’s not the teachers; neither is it the students. As a society, families are failing. Kids are facing situations outside of school that affects their performance in school.
Ms. Bailey’s list is, as you say, quite incomplete. Still, it points to one of the key differences between teachers and policy makers; teachers think about real students, politicians and policy influencers like Gates can only consider hypothetical ones. A hypothetical student only needs what you think he needs, always acts the way you think she should act, and never fails to benefit from what you think benefits him/her. Education reform for hypothetical students is fool-proof.
But there was a time when education reformers WERE teachers. They looked at the things Ms. Bailey lists and asked for changes that would address these real problems. Nobody heard them, because the money was in the hands of Boards of Education, so the power was there, too. Politicians above a very local level did not have to worry their well-coiffed heads about education. As bad as things might have been, education was a political backwater.
But then the “Accountability” movement came around, and Boards of Ed. became Departments of Ed. and politicians took control of the money. This turned education reform into a blame game, which is where we are now. Since then, it is politically important to establish that our schools stink and then to pile up accusations against whoever or whatever we are politically against. We no longer look at real problems and decide to reallocate money to address them. We now pour billions into creating massive structures that exacerbate school problems and line the pockets of publishing companies, charter school corporations, test-making conglomerates (spun off from their publishing house progenitors) teacher and school evaluation industries that never before existed. All the while we point at personal bete noirs as the cause of all problems–Common Core, Unions, publishing houses, teachers, PARCC, Smarter-Balance, Gates, Zuckerman, Rhee, Bloomberg, teachers-again, parents, The Federal Government, the Texas Board of Education, Democrats, Republicans and reformers.
Shhhh!
Time to stop shouting and start listening to those most directly involved in the great, and most difficult endeavor of preparing our children for a future — students, teachers, parents, administrators. They should be the ones saying what schools need, and all of the others — rich folk, politicians, business, voters, tax-payers should be deciding how to pay for those needs and how to prioritize them. Let’s get the right jobs to the right people.