Bill Gates gave a major national speech yesterday, announcing that he was very pleased with his efforts to improve teaching in America, even though they had produced no results other than a national teacher shortage. He promised to stay the course.
Peter Greene here presents the gist of Bill’s speech to the nation.
“It’s been fifteen years since we started trying to beat public education into submission with giant stacks of money, and it turns out that it’s a hell of a lot harder than curing major diseases. Turns out teachers are not nearly as compliant as bacteria. Who knew?
“Actually, there’s a whole long list of things that came as a surprise to us. Teachers and politicians and parents all had ideas about what ought or ought not to be happening in schools, and damned if they would just not shut up about it. At first stuff was going great and we were getting everyone to do just what we wanted them to, but then it was like they finally noticed that a bunch of clueless amateurs were trying to run the whole system, and the freaked out.
“I have to tell you. Right now as I’m sitting here, it still doesn’t occur to me that all the pushback might be related to the fact that I have no educational expertise at all, and yet I want to rewrite the whole US school system to my own specs. Why should that be a problem? I still don’t understand why I shouldn’t be able to just redo the whole mess without having to deal with unions or professional employees or elected officials. Of course nobody elected me to do this! I don’t mind, really– happy to take over this entire sector of the government anyway, you’re welcome…..
“Look, I’m a simple man. I had some ideas about how the entire US education system should work, and like any other citizen, I used my giant pile of money to impose my will on everyone else. It’s okay, because I just want to help. We’re not done yet– I’m going to keep trying to fix the entire teaching profession, even if nobody in the country actually asked me to do it. And no, I don’t intend to talk to anybody actually in the profession. What do they know about teaching? Besides, when you know you’re right, you don’t have to listen to anybody else.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Billy Gates” (parody of Casey Jones by The Grateful Dead)
Driving that train, with out a brain,
Billy Gates, you better, watch your greed.
Parents ahead, teachers behind,
And you know that testing just crossed their mind.
This Common Core makes it on time,
Leaves Gates Foundation ’bout a quarter to nine,
Hits White-House Junction at seventeen to,
At a quarter to ten you know it’s travelin’ again.
Driving that train, with out a brain,
Billy Gates, you better, watch your greed.
Parents ahead, teachers behind,
And you know that testing just crossed their mind.
Trouble ahead, states are in red,
Take my advice, fund libraries instead.
Coleman is sleeping, the Common Core’s poo, it’s
Gone off the rails and done-for, that’s true.
Driving that train, with out a brain,
Billy Gates, you better, watch your greed.
Parents ahead, teachers behind,
And you know that testing just crossed their mind.
Trouble with you is the trouble with Rhee,
Got two good eyes but you still don’t see.
Come round the bend, you know it’s the end,
Pearson schemes and manure just steams
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Awesome!
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SomeDAM Poet:
Your deft pen (keyboard?) puts me in mind of Dorothy Parker’s observation:
“There’s a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.”
I applaud your ready wit.
Which reminds me of another observation, this one by Henny Youngman, that describes the way with words of Petulant Bill and so many of the heavyweights and enforcers and enablers of self-styled “education reform”:
“You have a ready wit. Tell me when it’s ready.”
And please don’t rest on your laurels. I look forward to many more installments.
😎
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…”and soon between my collaboration between Kahn Academy, and all the other “redundant web-based tutorials” we will put teachers out of a job. Because, after all, simulated teaching is better than real teaching and real teachers…..because in the simulated world I can become lord-of-all”
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This is a bit off the subject, but I am very curious as to what will happen when the new PSAT is given to all high school juniors next week. That PSAT is the first “common core” version, and I am glad that finally private school kids will get a taste of its pleasures! It will be interesting to see what happens, although most students taking it (including those in public schools) have thankfully been educated post-common core testing takeover, so all students will have the same disadvantages.
The SAT will be changing to the common core version in March – my guess is that most private school kids will go running and screaming to the ACT instead once they get a look at it. And instead of bashing their mediocre private school education, the college board will soon be “adapting” its test to make sure those private school kids don’t get labeled as the failures that public school children do.
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Yes, should be interesting to watch how this plays out.
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I almost forgot; how sweet this will be!
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Many private schools begin the PSAT or like testing Freshmen Year.
Majority of private schools offer College Prep Courses, having no CTE or alternate pathway to graduation. Four years Math, English, Science, & Social/History and some 2-4 years of a Foreign Lang for ALL their students.
Any student at ANY school taking a strict college prep course load and succeeding WELL should in fact be ready to score well on the redesigned tests – assuming all pertinent material covered.
Test Prep Companies have said to wait for the bugs to be worked out or take the ACT. More have said to test before March 2016. Others suggest you to take ACT instead. No confidence in College Board it would seem.
We have heard a large number of well prepared students from the Class of 2017 have already taken the SAT ahead of the redesign and even before taking the PSAT that counts toward National Merit. Some urged to do so likely as a result of the June 2 SAT Testing Fiasco,
BTW historically College Board has said that on average, students who have identified themselves as “B Students” have not tested or barely tested at a College and Career Ready Level -Combined SAT score of at least 1550.
Considering how few students have tested CCR under Common Core Consortia tests, It would appear nothing has changed.
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Also interesting and something no one seems to be talking about: How is it the College Board is able to go into public schools and use them to administer their PSAT test? The test is being administered during the school day and teachers are serving as proctors (the alternative is to hire proctors, which schools have to pay for). I find this outrageous…
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Bill Gates is so arrogant. His arrogance is overwhelming to think that he,thought he throw his,weight around with his money, he didn’t need educators or the public just money. I’ve been critical of him for a long time. People were very critical of me for thinking he was after something in addition to more money, power. He is power hungry and will probably continue in this way. Not a really decent person, just a power hungry very rich man.
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I cross posted to Peter’s site , here
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/CURMUDGUCATION-Gates-Says-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Bill-Gates_Education_Money_Parents-151008-359.html#comment566327
with this comment, which has embedded links to THIS site, which do not appear here.
.
Bill Gates , the expert on education, does not even know how his ‘reforms’ failed. Anthony Cody reproduces an interview in which Gates shows zero knowledge of how his pet reforms have failed. He shows no recognition of charter scandals or the effect of charters on the public schools who lose their top students and funding. He seems unaware that VAM has failed everywhere. For more about Bill Gates and education go to the Diane Ravitch search field and put in bill gates as I did HERE.
https://dianeravitch.net/?s=bill+gates
Make no mistake about it, the corporations are taking over our institution of public education. An ignorant public can be easily bamboozled.
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Like in the myth of Sisyphus, the tragedy of Bill Gates will only reveal itself (to him) when he finally takes a good look in the mirror and realizes what a fool he is…….excuse me, rich fool. I would laugh at his ignorance and arrogance if not for the fact that he is doing harm to so many people. I hope he gets bored soon and takes his money to go play with the world somewhere else. Maybe when Trump gets tired of playing around in politics, the two of them can go buy an island and take turns playing supreme ruler.
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Gates is a classic example of the Peter Principle’s idea of how when someone rises to the top of a category of being a professional (rising in the ranks until they reach a level where they are incompetent) – that people who do get to the highest end tend to expand into a different category and rise to their level of incompetence there.
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Gates is VERY PLEASED that he’s helped create a national teacher shortage and debased institutions across the public school spectrum.
Take him at his word.
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PERFECTION. I love how Kane and MET failed to include the fact that teachers under study in MET were not being held accountable for student test scores at the time of study.
That’s a little variable to a bunch of little people that has a very big meaning.
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Speaking of Kane…I wonder how much buster made from Gates to run this study?
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In my opinion, Bill Gates has caused much of the havoc now dictating our school policy. Being rich doesn’t mean he knows what is best for student’s achievement!
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Please forgive this very long addition to the thread but a healthy dose of reality is needed to begin to dissipate the Rheeality Distortion Fields generated by Bill Gates.
From the Lyndsey Layton piece in the WASHINGTONPOST, accessed via a link in the Peter Greene posting:
[start excerpt]
Gates defended the use of student test scores to measure teacher performance, saying it is one indicator among several — such as classroom observations and student surveys — that schools should use to help teachers improve.
“Test scores, of all the evaluation elements, is perhaps the most controversial,” Gates said. “I personally believe they are a critical element of these systems. But they are not what tells you what skills you need to improve. They are simply numbers. “
Too many school systems are using teacher evaluations as merely a tool for personnel decisions, not helping teachers get better, Gates said. “Many systems today are about hiring and firing, not a tool for learning.”
[end excerpt]
[typos in original]
The disconnection from what is happening on the ground is stark and disturbing. For example, Anthony Cody (THE EDUCATOR AND THE OLIGARCH, 2014) has aptly described how the “multiple measures explanation/approach” is merely a way of circling back to standardized test scores (especially of the high-stakes variety) as the be-all and end-all of education, i.e., finding whatever else correlates to an increase in those all-important numbers & stats.
Think it doesn’t happen in real life? From Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, RETHINKING VALUE-ADDED MODELS IN EDUCATION: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TESTS AND ASSESSMENT-BASED ACCOUNTABILITY (2014, p. 45). I am excerpting comments by teachers in the HISD [Houston Independent School District]:
[start]
One teacher stated: Here’s the problem. No principal wants to be called in by the superintendent or another superior and [asked], “How come your teachers show negative growth but you have high evaluations on them? Are you doing your job I don’t understand. Your teacher shows no growth but you have [marked them] as exceeding expectations all up and down the chart?” Now it’s not just this [sic] data over here that’s gonna harm us, it’s the principals [who are] adjusting our data over there to match the EVAAS®. So it looks like they’re being consistent.
Another teacher agreed: “Well my evaluations were fine, but of course now they have to make the evaluation match the EVAAS®. We now have to go through that.”
Another teacher wrote: They’re not about to go to bat [for us, although] a few of them will. But most of them are gong to go in there, and they’re going to create a teacher evaluation that reflects the [EVAAS®] data because they don’t want to have to explain, again and again, why they’re giving high classroom observation assessments when the data shows [sic] that the teacher is low performing.
Another noted: Our principal pressures us. You bet she pressures us. If you don’t [make EVAAS®], then it goes against you in your PDAS. In a roundabout way she finds a way to put that against you.
Another note: My boss had to go to the district superintendent and explain why we needed to be kept, when ultimately the data showed that we weren’t good teachers. … [However] you’ve got other good teachers who are being thrown under the bus because of this system.
[end]
*EVAAS® = Education Value-Added Assessment System. PDAS = Professional Development and Appraisal System.*
And the last bit from Bill Gates is especially disturbing because he is refusing to take responsibility for what he has, above almost anyone else, wrought: the misuses and abuses of standardized test scores when it comes to hiring & firing & learning & teaching are a FEATURE, not a BUG, of his measure-to-punish regimen.
He is both morally and intellectually a coward.
That’s how I see it…
😎
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And speaking of reality checks, here is my absolute fave quote from the Bill/ Melinda Gates speech (as reported in Seattle Times article referenced in Curmudgication):
“Kentucky — the first state to implement Common Core — is starting to see significant improvement in student achievement, she said. Before the standards were adopted, about 34 percent of Kentucky high-school graduates were academically prepared for college; today, 62 percent are ready.”
Bwahahaha! first belly-laugh of the day. KY implemented CCSS 2010. In just 5 yrs they’ve doubled the number of hs grads academically prepared for college!! Some seriously spicy book-cooking going on in KY I guess..
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A fool and his money are soon parted.
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Greene’s summary is right on point…all I can say about Gates is HUBRIS reigns (not brains).
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I skimmed the streaming from the Gates conference from time to time yesterday. It was painful to listen to the self-appointed pundits preening with pomposity and self-righteousness. Now Harvard is starting its teaching project as well. If teachers were given time to teach, massive growth would occur for all.
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One person did ask Bill Gates to change the entire democratic, public school system and destroy teaching as a profession in the U.S., and that person was David Coleman, who, along with Gates and his cabal of billionaires, should lose their citizenship and be kicked out of the United States and its territories for life—after confiscating all of their wealth and property.
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Oh I don’t know maybe we could exile them to a far-off little Florida Key where they can order in and bore each other to death. ‘Survivor’ for billionaires.
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And not a one of them would “be there to make friends.”
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Good idea but I want to add more: an island in the Florida Keys that will soon be under water and they are not allowed to leave under any circumstances.
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Gates seems to be using his “intervention design thinking” which is a euphemism for doubling down on his bad ideas to forge ahead as though his market based approach has not gone down in flames. He is so full of himself, he does not notice that the “emperor is not wearing clothes.” This link from Alternet describes the corporate war strategy on public education. It’s worth reading.http://thecrucialvoice.com/2015/10/07/the-education-reform-oligarchy-how-they-used-us/
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Asked about those who chose to opt-out, Melinda Gates suggested that we consider the case of
Indiana – where about 1,000 students, not many when we consider the entire state, opted out.
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Thank you for your excellent summary of Bill’s speech. Here is another analysis… showing 7 of the lies told in his speech. We aren’t fooled Bill. We aren’t dumb. http://coalitiontoprotectourpublicschools.org/bill-gates-education-speech-detached-from-reality
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One of my personal heros, Teacher Tom, on Bill Gates’ speech
http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2015/10/untethered-from-reality.html
Two days ago, Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, richest man in the world, and education dilettante (in the worst sense of that word) gave a speech on education across Lake Washington from Seattle in his hometown of Bellevue, in which he made so many factual errors one has to wonder if there is something wrong with him. I mean, it’s dangerous for everyone on the planet when powerful people become untethered from reality.
For starters, Gates asserted that “Today, 42 states and the District of Columbia are using the Common Core State Standards,” the federal public school curriculum that was largely paid for by him. He is flat out wrong:
States were blackmailed to adopt the Common Core standards before they were even finalized by (Education Secretary) Arne Duncan. Almost half of these states abandoned the Common Core standards as quickly as they could. Currently only about 20 states still use the Common Core standards.
Given his investment and leadership in the movement to corporatize our schools, it’s frankly incredible that he could be so wrong on such a fundamental fact. And that’s just the beginning. Click on through for the Coalition to Protect Our Public Education’s full breakdown of the speech and the clear evidence that facts are meaningless to him.
The truth is that it’s been quite clear for some time that the corporate education reformers are simply “full of it,” and the data proves it.
(D)espite the fact that many “reformers” policies have spectacularly failed, prompted massive scandals and/or offered no actual proof of success, an elite media that typically amplifies — rather than challenges — power and money loyally casts “reformers” systemic pillaging of public education as laudable courage . . . In other words, elite media organizations (which, in many cases, have their own vested financial interest in education “reform”) go out of their way to portray the anti-public-education movement as heroic rather than what it really is: just another get-rich-quick scheme shrouded in the veneer of altruism.
Microsoft stands to make billions off of Common Core . . . Or at least did until students, parents, and teachers got wise and began pressuring their states to pull out. Gates famously bristled at the suggestion that he was in it for the money in a Washington Post interview with Lindsey Layton, but come on, with a guy as untethered from reality as he appears to be, at least when it comes to education, it may not be him whose chasing after a greasy buck, but rather the “yes men” and sycophants with whom he’s surrounded himself, and to whom he listens. It all amounts to the same thing.
Microsoft’s profits, however, may only be small potatoes compared to what appears to be the real goal of corporate education reform. The big money play with Common Core is the comprehensive data collection as suggested by Peter Greene of Curmudgucation fame, writing over on Huffington Post. He convincingly argues that the high stakes testing is actually the core of Common Core:
The test does not exist to prove that we’re following the standards. The standards exist to let us tag the results from the test. And ultimately, not just the test, but everything that’s done in a classroom. Standards-ready material is material that has already been bagged and tagged for data overlord use.
And, believe me, you don’t have to be a Wall Street insider to know that “big data” is what it’s all about these days. That’s where the smart money is going.
Gates (or at least his toadies) and the rest of them are pigs at the trough just waiting to start gorging themselves on the test score coal mine labor of our children. Education has nothing to do with this, which is why facts don’t matter to them.
If facts did matter and they did care about children and education, instead of attacking schools and teachers, they would tackle the real problem: poverty. But that’s not what their doing. The only conclusion is that Gates and his legions have become untethered from reality.
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As a high school teacher of science and math, I love technology but not to the delusional extremes of Bill G and all who believe the “4th Wave” is somehow going to miraculously make life better for all. Bill believes every kid should become a programmer, an engineer, a doctor, and while have aspirations for careers that require more education is nice, it is definitely not necessary. We need a system that promotes trades and manual labor too, like we once had in our Vo-Tech programs, which have been so decimated. We need people to farm and grow food, not just work for Microsoft and write more software. Bill believes all people should become the math-coding geek he is, but that is just not realistic, required or real. This obsession with STEM and higher-level math and science competencies is nice, if 100% of our students need this knowledge and training, but they all don’t; and to make them feel like “incompetent losers” because of inappropriate common-core exams (that even some math majors may fail) is wrong and wicked. We need to nurture the potentials of each kid and show them the diverse careers out there. Bill G believes they should all become MS programmers one day, or that computers should rule the world one day. To get to that goal he wants to make public schools look like failures, so that privatization forces can move in. Then, once they arrive and “conquer” they will need to buy the software from Bill to encode and track all the little “sheeple” that he wants to make a profit from.
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