I often re-read this amazing article in the New York Times to remind me of the agenda of the Gates Foundation.
It has a double agenda, like all the corporate reform groups it supports. It publicly speaks of support and collaboration with teachers, but it funds organizations that actively campaign against any job protections for teachers.
Gates himself has said that class size is unimportant and that he would rather see larger classes with higher-quality teachers (but not, we can be certain, for his own children). The same sentiment is often echoed by Michael Bloomberg, who said that if he had his way (which he already does), he would fire half the city’s teachers, double class size, and have only high quality teachers. What makes him think that a high quality teacher with a class of 24 would be equally effective with a class of 48?
Gates’ anti-union, pro-testing groups are made up of young teachers–with names like TeachPlus and Educators for Excellence–who are paid handsomely to advocate against due process rights and in favor of tying teacher evaluations to test scores. Since few intend to make a career of teaching, why should they care?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As a public school teacher, this saddens my heart. Clearly those that advocate for larger class sizes have no understanding of what it means to teach. Crowd control is not teaching.
Here’s a small portion of the NY Times article:
“Ms. Weingarten complained to the foundation that the document appeared to be antiunion, and Mr. Golston said the foundation had shifted the group’s mission to support union-management engagement.
“Unlike some foundations that would rather just scapegoat teachers and their unions, Gates understands that teaching is a profession, that you have to invest in and support teachers,” Ms. Weingarten said. “That doesn’t mean we agree with everything they do.”
– – – – – –
Our organization received funds from Gates to work with district educators in St. Paul, Cincinnati and West Clermont, Ohio. We helped create schools within schools in large district high schools. We worked closely with union officials in each district. An Ed Week commentary I wrote praised union officials for their leadership in these projects.
Here’s a link to another column that praises CFT teachers and leadership:
http://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2011/06/what-did-cincinnati-public-schools-do-close-high-school-graduation-gap
We also received funds from Gates to help start several small charter high schools in St. Paul.
Gates also bails on those “schools within schools” when the going gets rough:
I would like to point out that saying teacher quality is more important than class size is not the same thing as saying class size is unimportant.
Then why do the “reformers” want to increase class sizes to ridiculous numbers? Why? NO experienced, knowledgeable, and dedicated educator would EVER recommend large class sizes as an educational improvement strategy! Stop defending the indefensible!
Again, saying that teacher quality is more important than class size is not saying class size is unimportant.
I have students who are very bright, students who are very diligent, students who are both (and alas students who are neither). Would you rather have a diligent student or a bright student? By picking one, you are not saying the other is unimportant, you are saying it is less important.
Bloomberg, CPS’ pr person Becky Carroll, and many others have come out and said they want large class sizes.
Why do you think reformers support large class sizes?
Dr. Ravitch’s statement of Bill Gates position concerns trade offs, so lets think about one that is on point. Is it better to have two classes of 33 each with strong experienced teachers leading both classes or should the school employ an inexperienced TFA teacher in order to create three classes with 22 students each?
TE, my grandson is in a first grade class with 24 students. He has a very fine teacher. I would rather see him in this class than in a class of 48 with the same teacher. She would not be a “good” teacher with so many students. She would spend most of her time keeping the children orderly and assigning busywork.
I have been meaning to ask you: Are you a professional contrarian? Do you haunt other blogs as you haunt mine?
My interpretation of your characterization of Bill Gate’s position is not that he is advocating for larger classes all other things equal. I take it that his answer to my question poised above is that he would rather have two classes with 33 students and strong teachers than three classes with 22 students and a weak teacher.
You and I are in strong agreement about the importance and effectiveness of peer evaluation. We certainly do not always disagree with each other there, though some who post here disagree with us on that point.
I assume what they said is that given a choice between (1) a given class size with an “ineffective” or “mediocre” teacher and (2) a higher class size with an “effective” teacher, they would choose the second option. It’s essentially a cost-benefit analysis, and it’s usually connected with merit pay. We can disagree with that analysis, but we should acknowledge it for what it is. I don’t think these people are saying that, if everything else were equal, it would be better to have higher rather than lower class sizes.
Jinx — what TE said.
I think that Mr Gates and people who similarly advocate have not spent a lot of time in classrooms of 30+ or 40+ kids.
I have: it is in fact how I was educated. As a bright, well-behaved kid who loved to read, who in fact was reading some sort of unassigned novel throughout most of my school experience while listening to the teacher out of the corner of my mind, I did fine.
In high school, my classes were as large as 45 kids each, which was as many desks as they could shove in the room. I was stuck in the back of one of those rooms at one point; I could barely see the front of the room over all the other heads.
However, it is absolutely the case that *only* kids like me did okay in that environment. Kids of color, kids who came into the classroom behind, kids whose parents did not support them… if they graduated from high school at all, it was topping out at Advanced Consumer Math.
I had mostly good teachers. But if you’re teaching writing, and you have 40 kids per class 5 periods a day, and they each write a 3 page paper a week, that’s 600 pages to read and edit and proofread and grade a week… after you get home from your day job, and after you plan the next week’s lessons, and after you grade any other assignments. Can Bill Gates keep up with that? What if a teacher wanted to assign a 10 page research report?
If you’re teaching math and you have 50 minute periods and 40 kids in a class, you get about a minute per student per day to give them help, assuming you don’t give much if any lecture time.
Teaching just doesn’t scale the way that he thinks it might.
Does anyone want to express an opinion on the large class small class question? Is shrinking class size worth putting a TFA teacher in charge of a class?
TE (@12;52)
My opinion on class size stems from 19 years teaching public high school Spanish classes six periods a day. The difference between 15-20 students versus 30-35 students is night and day. Does one want maximum teacher/student interaction and student participation or does one want babysitting as that is what one does with 30-35 students in a foreign language class (and probably any other subject at the high school level)? So yes, class size does matter and anyone who doesn’t believe it, more likely than not, has never taught or never taught below the post secondary level. Why is it that doctoral seminars will usually have only a handful of students? (other than there are usually only a few who make it to that level)
Hypothetical questions such as yours about TFAer as a teacher in a smaller class don’t serve the discussion well. Let’s look at what actually happens in a small class vs a large class. It ain’t pretty.
Duane
Duane,
My question is at the core of the policy debate that is the subject of this post and at the core of policy decisions made in a world like ours with scarce resources.
If you do not want to hire the TFA teacher to cut your class size by 33%, perhaps you could find an highly unemployed teacher and hire that person. You have just increased your costs by 50%, not to mention the number of classrooms you require. What does your district give up in order to pay for this reduction in class size? You make the excellent point that the importance of class size probably depends on the subject taught. Small class size for language acquisition classes is likely to be more important than history classes. Which classes do you want to make small?
Questions like these are the heart of policy making and are the central focus of economics.
Gates and Bloomberg have specifically called for larger class size. That suggests, in my reading, that they believe class size is unimportant. Do you see another interpretation?
And highlights that they know nothing about children. They assume children are robots that can be programmed to thinkspeakact on demand, and give no credence to the developmentally-appropriate needs of children to grow and learn authentically.
A timely post for this article, especially given Randi Weingarten’s entrenchment wit Gates. This man wants what he wants. There is no negotiating.
He maneuvered his mediocre product into a monopoly and now he wants to break another one so he can dominate it and have it run his way. A devious use of intelligence is selfish, egotistical and vile.
Take what you like and leave the rest- the LDC/MDC initiative funded by the Gates Foundation is very very helpful for actual classroom teachers trying to learn how the common core works in classrooms. So, while you choose to focus on negative, I say look for the positive
This presumes that the Common Core will “work” in classrooms. That’s a pretty big assumption.
Thanks for your observations, David. Here’s an example of some outreach by teacher unions that can be very helpful. http://inthesetimes.com/article/14711/building_parent_teacher_unions/
We can blame Bill and Melinda Gates all we want, and we should.
But we also need to acknowledge that our elected officials, who are supposedly there to represent the majority of us through a democratic process not dominated by minority monied forces, cooperate with Mr. Gates and partner with him.
This includes our own luminous and dishonorable Randi Weingarten.
How can we of the AFT call ourselves a union and her a union leader of teachers after her political matrimony to Mr. Gates?
Ms. Weingarten’s partnership with Mr. Gates is practically a civil union between David and Goliath.
I wonder what other teachers reading this blog REALLY think about Ms. Weingarten’s moves, decisions, and policies, and how they all compare to her rhetoric in the last 17 years?
A cake is a cake.
One either decides to bake it or leave it as batter. Ms. Weingarten should put on her chef’s hat and make a decision. If not, she should step out of the kitchen and let someone else do the cooking.
Our public education system has produced the most innovative and productive work force in the world, many entrepreneurs, and many noble prize winners; and yet some want to trash this system for profit-driven one where only a few shareholders will win. Sounds like greed is winning and at the expense of our children and this nation’s future.
The U.S. has never scored well on the international tests…we’ve never cared. One reason is we offer choices for students via electives and students are forced into trade programs after 8th grade – eliminating them from taking the international tests.
This whole issue of the abandonment of teachers and students by our own union leaders and elected officials saddens me. Time and time again, the big money special interests prove that everyone has a price.
I used to believe that America can only be great when Americans are great. Now I am beginning to see that maybe America can only be great if we have ethical leaders. I guess money really is the root of all evil. I didn’t believe that in my younger days, but I certainly see it in our corporations, politics and “philanthropy” and unions.
NYE ATR,
“I guess money really is the root of all evil.” Tis not money that is the root of all evil but “the love of money is the root of all evil.” (From the book of Timothy in the bible).
My suggestion is to hit these corporate bullies in THEIR pocketbooks. Boycott any company that is anti-union or anti-public education. Microsoft, Walmart, Netflex….If every American did this we could shut them down.
Bloomberg’s idea to fire half of NYC’s teachers, weeding out the least effective, and doubling class size is ridiculous and shows how little he understands about the craft of teaching. And by the way, Mr. Mayor, upon what criteria would you evaluate teacher effectiveness? Test scores? Who would get to decide which teachers are dismissed? Your chief of staff?
The “educational reform” movement is an effort to privatize schools under the guise of improving them. Think about the push to place computers in the hands of every student or the expansion of online education. LA School Supt. John Deasy and several of his lickspittle board members have stated they want to put a tablet in the hands of every one of the District’s 660,000 students at a cost of some $500 million. This while they moan about the District’s budget crisis and some 3,000 teachers – myself included – are still out of work due to layoffs. Who stands to profit by the inundation of computer technology in public schools and the growth of online education? Gates maybe? And how about Sam Walton? Wouldn’t it be easier for Wal-Mart to establish a direct pipeline of supplies to schools if he’s built a financial support relationship with them?
This situation has been created by the systematic demonization of teachers and their unions. Corporations would love to see unions go away. Whenever I read comments on the LA Times website regarding an article on education or our schools, it always strikes me how many people believe teachers are lazy, greedy, overpaid and in the way of their children getting a good education. The swell of disrespect for their unions has not come because the public has been watching the decline of our schools with vigilance. It is the result of millions of dollars spent on a disinformation campaign, conducted in the same way that tobacco companies fought the facts about secondhand smoke, that creationists fought against the theory of evolution, and that oil and coal companies are fighting climate change.
If you think I’m overstating the case here, then let Gates, Murdoch, Broad, Walton continue to influence educational policy. But don’t complain when your child can’t read anything more complex than the operating guide for a toaster.
Zorro I wish I could ‘like’ your comments. I have always noticed that people love to rant about how awful American schools are, yet if you ask them about the school their child attends, they usually say that it is wonderful. I attribute this to the mis-information campaign against our schools and teachers. I know that when people know a lot about a school, they usually see many good things going on there. But the mis-information makes them condemn all schools everywhere. The corporations that are pushing charter schools on the public have a financial ax to grind, and I hope that the American public puts a stop to it before they gut public education. I am afraid that when their experiment goes sour, they will flee, leaving charters unfunded, and the students will be dumped back on an underfunded public system. Then there will be a new round of criticism againt public school teachers.
I think it is pretty clear to most people all over the country that Bloomberg is clueless and has abused his power as mayor. The drinks, the cigs, schools, etc.
I wish they had the cajones to go into classrooms for a few weeks as substitute teachers. They’d get a great
Yes with a camera recording them and a mic so all can hear.
…lesson in what it’s like to be outnumbered.
I suggest a classroom of 30 kindergarteners armed with glue, paint, and scissors. 🙂
No! 40 or 50!!!
I wrote a blog post on this topic:
How sad. Obama put billions into saving jobs – for example, giving enormous sums to help school districts employ educators. But hey, let’s ignore that because we’re following the lockstep “oppose Obama” faction.
Obama pulled off the first major expansion of health care in generations. He was bitterly opposed by right wing billionaires. But we’ll ignore that too.
Obama has pushed hard (and somewhat successfully) to raise taxes on the wealthiest (again, opposed by right wing billionaires). But the quasi left Oppose Obama faction does not want to talk about that.
Obama also has opposed vouchers, which Romney and right wing billionares have fought for. Again, we’ll ignore that.
There are huge differences between Obama and the right wing billionaires… but we’ll ignore that cause we’re part of the oppose Obama faction.
He is a member of the pack hell bent on destroying our public schools. He could make changes…he isn’t.
Where were his comfortable walking shoes for the Wisconsin and Chicago students, parents and teachers, Joe? All talk…no action.
Will he be releasing his girls’ “data” for the government to sell to Murdoch, Gates and Klein?
That pail must be getting pretty heavy. Looks like Arne should send in some reinforcements.
How can this discussion continue when so many posts debate the simplistic and unreal question – which teachers should we allow to have which class size ? Or how about 2 larger classes with a “highly effective” teacher ? How about a bite of reality – wherever we teach there’s a system that exists – and it’s not not a gee golly wiz, what if system. In my school (NYC public) enrollment is open to all, class sizes are set by contract, principals hire and fire (oops excess) teachers and “high quality teachers” are extremely hard to define and near impossible to aggregate into a single school so we don’t waste time debating the creation of a 40+ class for highly effective teacher X !
We can all fantasize about such esoteric or existential questions or we can try to address the reality of our schools. Ms. Ravitch’s opening post speaks of the 2 faced or double sided agenda that many educational reformers speak from, (I’m for collaboration with teachers but against any job protections for them). It is this insidious rhetoric that we must watch for. It’s simple and easy to say or write the right thing but then we all must put our money where our mouth is. And we’ve seen where and how the BIG bucks are being spent.
As for me, I want to improve my teaching practice, and sure, I want my kids to improve their test scores, but in a middle school, I want even more for them to grow as young adults, to gain confidence in their abilities (academic & social), to become active learners, i.e. to be able to learn on their own and not rely on multiple choice tests as the measure of their success. So I work within the restraints that are given, teach classes of 20-25 and try to add what I can to reach and encourage my kids.
But I also worry that this new evaluation system, variously reported as fair, unfair, and a messy compromise will just be used as a tool to remove/excess/force out more and more teachers as fewer and fewer have the protection of tenure and then, the DOE bureaucracy rules the day. They say they want what’s best for our kids but then they implement onerous excessing policies, evaluation systems based largely on those test scores and stall on negotiating a contract with their teachers for over 6 years ?
So let’s be very careful of their rhetoric, closely examine the details and implementation in these new “reforms”and continue to teach like crazy, (in a good way 🙂