Peter Greene read TIME’s story about the alleged impossibility of firing bad teachers. He wrote it before he saw the cover about “Rotten Apples.” Here is his take on the story. It is not as inflammatory as the cover, yet it quotes none of the scholars who would challenge its take, only two guys from the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
Greene’s major objection to the article is that it does not see any problem about letting some very rich guys take control of a basic democratic institution, because they want to.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s what I wrote to TIME: I used to subscribe to Time Magazine, but stopped when it seemed that the need to sell magazines had overcome honest reporting. That was several years ago. I agree with Peter Greene’s blog post indicating that TIME ignored the far, far more significant issue, which is whether a small cadre of rich amateurs should be allowed to hijack a public institution for their own monetary gain. Even if they are doing it out of philanthropic motivation, the fact remains that they are not educators. Look what happened when Bill Gates dabbled in reforming high schools. Big flop. That’s because there is a knowledge base behind offering superior education. Until the powers-that-be acknowledge that poverty and social change are behind the failure of students to do well on tests, we will continue down this blind alley of privatization and the attendant destruction of public education. I live in an upper middle class district in Ohio, and already the privatization movement has significantly impacted our public schools for the negative to the point that only one family in my entire development continues to enroll their children in our public schools, which used to be highly rated. These privatizers are not educating our children any better than the public schools according to many years of testing. Wake up before it’s too late!
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People like Bill Gates suffer from Dunning-Kruger disease characterized by arrogantly thinking they know more than anyone else on a subject that they actually know little to nothing about.
These people are so convinced that they know it all about virtually any subject they select to weigh in on that they are simply incapable of recognizing their own ignorance.
Recently, in a blog post, Gates, who also now apparently believes he is an expert on inequality (because he is a billionaire?) “challenged” Thomas Picketty who has done voluminous research and documentation on the subject.
There seems to be no end to Gates’ hubris (and ignorance)
As Mark Twain allegedly said “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
It’s actually rather sad to watch people like Gates make fools of themselves in such a highly visible way.
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Crossposted the Curmuducation site to Oped
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CURMUDGUCATION-Time-s-Ten-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Control_Money_Peter-Greene_Power-141024-418.html”
with this comment:
“Please use this link to an AFT action to let Time know how unimpressed you are or email feedback@time.com
Teachers are the professionals who know what learning looks like, and yet, their voices have been silenced as the media spreads lies about what is wrong with the schools.
The invent failure … inventing failure as Krugman says, and then ‘reforming’ the schools into something else. The billionaires claim that they can fix the schools with their magic elixirs… charter schools and lots of tests.
IMAGINE how hard it is to see the plan in operation in 15,880 in 50 states; it is impossible to know what is happening in the schools next door, let alone in NYC (the largest district in the nation) where they decimated the public schools, and in LA, (the second largest district) where corruption was blatant and rampant in order to monetarize education by Bamboozling the people and selling as “choice’ magic elixirs such as charter schools, “
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I don’t care if these guys have PhDs in education and have taught for thirty years. As Peter Greene says, rich guys should not be able to buy what is supposed to be a democratically governed institution.
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Here is the email I sent TIME- I am appalled at your misguided article blaming teachers for the problem of education in America. Had you done your research, you would find that the problem with education in America are the billionaires who have funded programs like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top and supported a media campaign to blame teachers for the past 20 years. This has actually damaged education, not teachers. Since NCLB was implemented, PISA scores have gone down in America, not up! Do your homework TIME! It is TIME I stop using your magazines in my school library! I am a teacher librarian who teaches students to find credible, reliable, accurate resources. I will have to let them know that TIME is not one of them!
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