Archives for category: Bill Gates

LA Times: Bill Gates Hath Spoken

By dianerav
April 12, 2013 //
39

The Los Angeles Times became notorious in 2010 when it commissioned its own ratings of thousands of teachers in the LAUSD and published them. The newspaper was condemned widely by educators and researchers. Even some who supported such ratings said it was wrong to publish them. The LA Times strongly defended its decision to create the ratings and to make them public.

Now the LA Times is expressing doubts about the overuse of test scores to evaluate teachers. It even scoffs at some of the more absurd practices now flourishing in some states.

Why the turnaround? Bill Gates says that test scores matter too much. He has changed his mind. Many states, following his earlier views about testing, are emphasizing test scores too much.

I guess we have to wait for his next op-ed to find out what the nation should do next.

Categories Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Melissa Harris-Perry Rips Mayor Bloomberg

By dianerav
March 10, 2013 //
14

MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry tore into New York City Mayor Bloomberg for his latest tactic: blaming teen pregnancy for causing poverty.

Harris-Perry knows that poverty is caused by the economic structure of society, by a society that allows one man–like Michael Bloomberg or Bill Gates or Eli Broad–to accumulate many billions of dollars while millions are trapped in miserable living conditions with low wages or no jobs.

Harris-Perry knows that the 1% blame the poor for their poverty.

They also blame teachers and public schools for causing poverty.

Thanks, Melissa, for nailing it.

Categories Bill Gates, Broad Foundation, Economy, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Poverty

Reader Asks: Is This the True Goal of “Reform”?

By dianerav
February 17, 2013 //
46

A reader posts the following comment.

Thought you might be interested in Gates latest “Request for Proposal: Literacy Courseware Challenge.” More teacher-less, computerized learning to support his Common Core [National] Standards. “Adaptive digital learning tools” are his robo-teachers, because apparently the standards [read: curriculum, no matter how many people say that the CC are not a curriculum] are teacher-proof. Just create a huge quonset hut, or even better, a stadium, full of computer cubicles, sit the kids down, and, voila! A perfect Gates-ian school. Disgusting.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/learning/Pages/rfp-literacy-courseware-challenge.aspx

Categories Bill Gates, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Online learning, Privatization

$50 Million. 3 Years. No Clue.

By dianerav
January 16, 2013 //
41

Gary Rubinstein, the brilliant math teacher at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, has done it again.

He has dissected the Gates MET study–the one that says test scores are better at determining teacher quality than observations–and he says that the data in the study don’t make the point that has been widely reported.

Gene Glass, Research Professor at the University of Colorado, takes apart the MET study, and like Gary, says that the $50 million was a waste.

I wonder when Gates will abandon his mission to find the perfect metric to measure teacher quality. It isn’t working anywhere; it has perverse incentives; it is inaccurate and unreliable.  How long will he stick with this failed idea?

Just think how many musical instruments that $50 million would have bought, how many librarians could have been rehired, how many after-school programs might have been funded.

 

 

Categories Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing
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