According to Rick Cohen of the Nonprofit Quarterly, the Gates Foundation is threatening to take away $40 million from the Pittsburgh public schools if the district and union don’t agree on a plan to evaluate teachers by test scores, to reward the “best,” and retrain the rest.
Does the Gates Foundation know that eminent researchers warn that VAM is inaccurate? Does it care that VAM has not worked anywhere?
The group in Pittsburgh that is most critical of the union is A+ Schools. Cohen points out that Gates is one of its major funders.
Cohen writes:
“This is probably an extreme example of “high-stakes testing” of teachers. With a significant reliance on student test scores for determining teacher performance, teachers are duly wary of standardized tests, which diminish the socioeconomic factors of student performance, even when the consequences could be teacher dismissals and even school closings. In this case, the high stake facing the teachers’ union is the school district’s loss of a free $40 million.”
(The word “diminish” in the previous paragraph is wrong. It should say “reflect to a large degree.”)
What is so distressing is that the Gates Foundation acts as if it bought public education in Pittsburgh and has the right to call the shots. Guess they never heard of the concept of democratic control of the schools. They are familiar only with plutocratic control.
Who will hold the Gates Foundation accountable for the damage it is wreaking on education?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In following this story, important to keep in mind that A-Plus Schools, which is decrying teachers’ objections to the evaluation, is funded by Gates, too. Local news reports were quoting dir. Carey Harris saying AFT should stay out of a “local” issue, while no one asked about A-Plus’ national funding and change of agenda when Gates’ hundreds of thousands showed up. Here’s a brief report from The Education Town Hall (based in DC). http://wp.me/p2YFYH-p0
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Beware Greeks bearing gifts.
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Beware of Geeks bearing GIFs
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LOL
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Whether VAM works is it relevant to Gates. It’s in the Microsoft DNA.
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Check out what’s happening in Buffalo. The Oshei Foundation tried to buy out the Superintendent for $500,000. The move was characterized by the Buffalo News as being coordinated by “community leaders.” Big Philanthropy is a Trojan Horse for union-busting, standardized testing/ publishing conglomeration, and most of all fascist data-mining. Billy Boy is not the Teddy Bear stuffed with no strings attached cash people like to think he is. He’s the lovable megalomaniac who wants to export his failed stack ranking into teaching. Hang in there, Pittsburgh!
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Take your $$$$$$ and Go..
“Got along without you…..
Before we met you….
Gonna get along without you now!”
*Spin off of Milton Kellem’s song..
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So even though Microsoft has abandoned the practice of “stacked-ranking” the Gates Foundation continues to force it down the throat of educators nationwide. If educators are supposed to perform better under the corporate model, shouldn’t we then switch back to how educators were evaluated for years?
How ironic (ok it is rather disturbing) that employees and management were complaining that it created a sense of competition instead of collaboration (same as the millions of educators). Take a breath and everyone together yell “DUH!” Yet, the Obama administration used tax payer dollars to encourage the creation of educators evaluations that create competition.
In Rhode Island, our commissioner even wrote her doctoral paper on how the system was created “with” educators. She received her doctorate yet the paper is embargoed for two years. Coincidentally, that is when her current contract with RI expires.
Let me do my job as a teacher. Keep politics out of my profession, please!
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I know it’s much easier said than done, especially given the financial situation if many schools, but in the long run, they might do well to free themselves of that money.
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Spot On mcvicker2…SPOT ON…One more Time…….YOU ARE SPOT ON!!!!!
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You really have to wonder about the adults in the reform movement. How did they get all the way to adulthood without realizing nothing is “free”?
Would they accept Bill Gates paying their mortgage in return for him posting a job chart on the fridge for their kids? Of course not. So why are they foisting these contractual agreements they make on the people of Pittsburgh?
You know what would be “brave”? If an ed reformer in government told the enormously wealthy and powerful and politically-connected Gates to go pound sand. Publicly berating teachers is easy. Questioning Bill Gates is hard. It’s pure political cowardice.
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Well, they might very well accept Gates paying their mortgage on those terms if they were desperate because their other income sources were drying up. I’m not happy about Gates funding anything and I sure wish schools, etc. would turn down the money. But with federal, state and local property tax money drying up and/or being slashed, schools are in pretty desperate straits and probably feel like they have to take anything they can get wherever they can get it.
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Dumping the involvement of the Gates Foundation all together is the right thing for ALL facets of education. Will it hurt? Absolutely. Teachers will be lost, kids will have less. But, education will have been reclaimed by the rightful owners and that, my friends, is the necessary component of all this. The tax payers and public need to reclaim what was once a given. . . public education. The very fact that the district is considering the $40 mil. just goes to demonstrate how far from “public” the public education schools of America have come. It has been bought, paid for and managed by corporate American and agenda driven “not-for-profits”. Stand up, dump the money and lets get our schools back into the hands of those who care.
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Do you think this might also have something to do with Pittsburgh canceling TFA?
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Gates clearly is obsessed with believing he knows what’s best for everyone: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/bill-gates-project-tycho-and-vaccine-voodoo
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Instead of looking at VAM scores, Gates should be paying attention to Micro-soft shares, which are not faring so well these days—maybe Micro-soft should fire their CEO, hire M. Rhee, and be reconstituted. I know, some would say, what does Michelle Rhee know about a tech company, but then again, what does Gates know about education.
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Gates will not do anything he’s not forced to do. There is no “goodness” of his heart. Only the dollar..only. We need to remember that when dealing with this “deform.” We argue what’s right for kids and education. It’s the farthest thing from the money baron’s mind. We speak a different language; we speak educationalize and they only speak $. We need to learn this language of profit and fight them with new weapons.
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For years I’ve seen teachers argue to no end. We’ve gotten nowhere with the powers that be. Literally. We need to gather our power and FIGHT! We’ll never get through to their knuckle heads, and that’s a given. We need make a BIG STINK all over the country and include the mainstream media if at all possible. ..
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How does Gates $40 million compare to the taxpayer’s investment in the Pittsburgh schools? Why does Gates get to call the shots over all the others who have invested in the same schools? I find this whole scenario extremely disturbing. If this is how it is, there is no place for private grants in public schools. The public schools have no business accepting “charitable” money with conditions attached.
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How many carrots have to dangle out there before we switch to cabbage?
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lol…lol
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Great wealth is the arrogance of being above accountability; great wealth is disease and the disease of arrogance is much more difficult to cure than cancer. Gates and his ‘smiley face’ are rotting from this disease of arrogance from the inside out. Inevitably, such excessively wealthy meddling ‘masters of disaster’ suddenly develop a conscience as they near the reality of death which they cannot buy their way out of. Unfortunately their epiphany of remorse comes after the damage is done.
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Does he really know about education? Does he care about children? Most citizens see thepower in his money Ugly…
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Can’t change Gates. He’s a w—–.
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Aw c’mon people, you aren’t taking this new form of “employee motivation” to its logical conclusion. If the idea is to motivate “bad” teachers to work harder, why stop there. If one were to prevent students and teachers from learning their “pre-test” scores, then all teachers would be motivated by the fear of failure and work that much harder. Then at the end of the year, all of the scores can be sprung to see the suprised looks upon the faces of all involved, and of course, achievement will be elivated indeed!
Since when has “fear of failure” been a spur to quality work or innovation, Mr. Gates? Fear of failure is what motivates slaves to do as little as they can get away with. There is no value in doing better than that.
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Microsoft recently figured out that “forced ranking” was not just counter-productive but toxic.
Gloryosky! Turns out someone else had figured it out decades and decades ago.
From a collection of writings and speeches, THE ESSENTIAL DEMING (2013, Joyce Orsini, ed.):
1), “Abolish merit ratings for teachers. Who knows what a great teacher is? Not till years have gone by. Abolish comparison of schools on the basis of scores. The aim is to get a high score, not to learn, but to cram your head full of information.” [p. 199]
2), “What is the effect of grading and ranking? Humiliation of those that do not receive top grades or top rank. Demoralization.” [p. 201]
3), “The merit rating nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, [and] nourishes rivalry and politics. It leaves people bitter, crushed, bruised, battered, desolate, despondent, dejected, felling inferior, some even depressed, unfit for work for weeks after receipt of rating, unable to comprehend why they are inferior. It is unfair, as it ascribes to the people in a group differences that may be caused totally by the system that they work in.
The idea of a merit rating is alluring. The sound of the words captivates the imagination: pay for what you get; get what you pay for; motivate people to do their best, for their own good.
The effect is exactly the opposite of what the words promise. Everyone propels himself forward or tries to, for his own good, on his own life preserver. The organization is the loser.
The merit rating rewards people that conform to the system. It does not reward attempts to improve the system. Don’t rock the boat.” [p. 27-28]
Please go to original for full context. Note: W. Edward Deming aka “the father of quality” was a very accomplished statistician and hard-nosed realist. For those interested in the person and his work, please google his name and “Japan” for some fascinating background.
😎
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Too many people do not realize this is WONDERFUL news. This money was never intended for the classroom. The grant was to institute Gates’ punitive teacher evaluation system – EET – Eviscerating Effective Teachers. Gates withdrawing his support will be the best thing that could possibly happen to Pittsburgh teachers. I can only hope for the same in Hillsborough County Florida where we operate under the same oppresive system.
The union in Pittsburgh was foolish enough to sign on to this project at its inception. Luckily for the teachers of Pittsburgh, they are having second thoughts.
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AGREED! A large school system in CO has been swimming in Gates $$ for 4 years (like 100 mil at least) and not a drop has gone to the classroom. BUT many good teachers have opted to leave their classrooms for the new VAM “peer observer” jobs and are running around with a 20 page framework of “good teaching” practices evaluating (VAMing?) their former peers.
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See dan Pink’s TED talk on motivation, rewards, etc.
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I say let him take the money and good riddance. Since when does a private very rich citizen have the right to tell public education what to do or not to do. Good bye Gates, get out..
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Awww…the little boy isn’t getting his way, so he is going to take is toys and go home…
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Remember the first Gilded Age, when the top .1% (the robber barons) left universities, museums, libraries & concert halls to remember them by? In my perfect world, Gates would be wiring up every public school in the country & providing it with free computers and software… Walton would be commissioning beautiful, sturdy schools downtown to compensate for the tickytack shoeboxes he leaves on the outskirts… Bezos would be free-shipping free-textbooks to all American children…
Too bad Fred Koch didn’t have a guru like J D Rockefeller’s Gates, who advised him his heirs would “dissipate their inheritances or become intoxicated with power”, unless he set up “permanent corporate philanthropies for the good of Mankind”
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