Anthony Cody here reviews the annual report of the CEO of the Gates Foundation, Sue Desmond-Hellman, and finds it wanting, specifically its lack of humility and its absence of reflection.
Of course, Gates will “double down” on Common Core, no matter how many educators call for revisions.
But that’s not all. How about some reflection by Gates on the failure of test-based teacher accountability, whether based on “value added” or “student growth”?
How about explaining the debacle in Hillsborough County, Florida, which gave up on the Gates initiative after wasting more than $100 million?
Why no mention of the foundation’s push for charter schools, which replace public schools and divide communities?
Why no candid reflection on the disappointing results of the marketing of more and more technology for the classroom?
All in all, a report that shows a megafoundation incapable or unwilling to review its programs with honesty and integrity.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Gates is Gates and Humility is Humility and Never the Twain Shall Meet.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gates Foundation is a gated community and Humility is Trayvon Martin.
LikeLike
501(c)(3) = Kel−Tec PF−9
LikeLike
New technology to engage students holds some promise, but Gates says it tends to only benefit those who are motivated.
“And the one thing we have a lot of in the United States is unmotivated students,” Gates said.”
That’s funny, because that’s the approach the lobbyists for ECOT are taking in Ohio- they get the unmotivated students.
You wonder of there’s some central clearinghouse for these ed reform opinions.
LikeLike
Speaking of “motivation”
Esteemed Gritologist Angela Duckworth just got de-gritted in Much Ado about Grit: A Meta-Analytic Synthesis of the Grit Literature
Some of us will never be able to look at the griterature the same again.
LikeLike
Humility?
Americans want them to stop destroying democracy. It’s past time to cut all jobs, in unwanted and unsubstantiated ed rephorm. Microsoft is cutting employees in the other market, why hold on to failure?
LikeLike
‘All in all, a report that shows a megafoundation incapable or unwilling to review its programs with honesty and integrity.’
That’s Gates in a nutshell, he operated Microsoft in the same fashion. The only reason he has been held up as an example is his ill-gotten wealth. This reflects many people’s skewed values in America – it’s another area we need to work on, bigtime.
LikeLike
Cross posted to Cody’s postat http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Humility-Still-in-Short-Su-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Accountability_Anthony-Cody_Bill-Gates_Charter-Schools-160525-583.html#comment598726
With this comment –
Submitted on Wednesday, May 25, 2016 at 9:24:14 AM- from a post at the Ravitch Blog, https://dianeravitch.net/2016/05/13/u-s-department-of-education-claims-it-does-not-keep-records-of-charters-that-close-or-never-open-with-its-funding/
WE never hear about things like this in the media news:
“The anti-privatization website “In the Public Interest” reports on an interesting development:
“The Department of Education issued a press release boasting of its commitment to transparency and noting that the agency had committed $1.5 billion to support new charter schools since 2006. When the CMD requested a list of the schools that had been closed or never opened, the Department claimed it did not have any information. Some transparency.
“National: The Center for Media and Democracy files an appeal against the Department of Education’s claim that it has no records about closed or never-opened charter schools referenced in its “Commitment to Transparency” press release. “It strains credulity and common sense that, despite spending billions in taxpayer dollars on charters and putting out this press release–among several–on the accomplishments of the Charter Schools Program, the Department claims to have no databases, no data analyses, and no internal communications about the program mentioned in its press release,” CMD said in its appeal letter.”
LikeLike
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
LikeLike
Reporter Rebecca Klein, at Huffpo, has an article about a Dept. of Ed. “Data Disaggregation Initiative”. It takes very little deductive reasoning to recognize the data is about creating a profit opportunity for Silicon Valley’s data analytics. The other conclusion is that it provides targeting information for companies.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“The School Data Feast”
Come join us at the data feast
With sharpened knives and forks
We’ll tear apart the data beast
To feed the Techie folks
LikeLike
Never forget that “data collection systems” were a requirement for the Race to the Top contest and Arne Duncan’s illegal NCLB waiver program.
CCSS = Common Core Super Scam!!!!
LikeLike
Gates learned nothing after the failure of the Shared Learning Collaborative that was rebranded as inBloom and purchased by Rupert Murdoch.
LikeLike
SomeDAM Poet
May 25, 2016 at 10:56 am
Speaking of “motivation”
Esteemed Gritologist Angela Duckworth just got de-gritted in Much Ado about Grit: A Meta-Analytic Synthesis of the Grit Literature
Some of us will never be able to look at the griterature the same again.”
Thank God. I was afraid my son wasn’t “gritty” and so therefore unemployable- he’s kind of a goofball although we like him well enough 🙂
LikeLike
“Goofy is good” and “the goofier the better” are how I gauge the “success” of my poems.
Not sure if that will make you feel better or worse.
LikeLike
The link that SomeDam Poet posted is no longer there.
LikeLike
Angela Gritworth prolly had it taken down because it debunked her theory.
Ha ha ha ha!
LikeLike
I can’t find the paper anywhere else. It’s probably a copyright issue because the paper apparently has not yet come out in a journal (is due to be published)
But I did find this synopsis
Duckworth basically renamed something that has been known about for 50 years: conscientiousness.
What is much worse, Duckworth grossly exaggerated the impact of the latter.
From the linked article:
“Gross error in results
The most well-known data source on grit is based on West Point cadets who complete basic training at the United States Military Academy. According to one paper describing these cadets, those with above-average levels of grit are 99 percent more likely to finish the training than cadets with average levels of grit. However, Credé says the original data were misinterpreted. His analysis shows the
increase in likelihood is really closer to 3 percent, rather than 99 percent. “It’s a really basic error and the weird thing is that
no one else has ever picked it up. People just read the work and said, ‘It’s this massive increase in people’s performance and how likely they are to succeed.’ But no one had ever looked at the
numbers before,” Credé said.
“Don’t invest in grit interventions
Credé wants to make others aware of this error because many educators have bought into the concept of grit and are exploring ways to improve this trait. In the paper, Credé cited examples of schools that are training teachers to foster grit in students as well as school districts considering adding grit to the curriculum. A 2013 U.S. Department of Education report also recommended incorporating grit in school interventions.”
“Nobody wants to hear that success in life is made
up of many small factors that all add up. It’s your
education, it’s how hard you work, it’s your
conscientious and creativity – all these little pieces
that add up,” Credé said. “We want to be told here’s
one big thing that explains everything.”
But if educators want to improve student academic
performance, Credé says there are other more
effective ways to accomplish that goal.”
LikeLike
The focus on grit is just the latest (and grittest?) manifestation a repeating theme: the idea that there is a “silver bullet” that is going to kill the wearwolf and ‘fix” education once and for all. Common Core and VAM are other manifestations of the same theme.
Teachers understand how goofy the idea of a silver bullet is but of course, no one ever listens to them when the policies are made.
I feel sorry for Duckworth. Her claim to fame seems to have evaporated — poooff! I wonder if MacArthur Foundation will ask for the genius prize back. I hope she hasn’t already spent the money.
LikeLike
“Humility at the Gates”
Humility was left
Outside the compound Gates
To halt the certain theft
Of ego-grooming traits
LikeLike
I saw through this a long time ago. My contention is unless these foundations spend at least a month in a classroom of 30 students, many ELL, many living in poverty, schools without adequate libraries, school nurse, counselor and many with no health care insurance, they are not qualified to make major decisions regarding education policy.
LikeLike
The problem is Gates and company understand nothing, but are certain they know it all. Their policies represent bias against public education and teachers, and our schools have been used and abused by Gates’ false assumptions that get accepted as “fact” by our irresponsible policymakers.
LikeLike
A month is nothing. Let’s talk minimum ten years (which unfortunately many public school adminimals lack). Since none could handle it even for the time frame you suggest then maybe they ought to close their pie holes and get the hell away from public education and the teaching and learning process.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think forcing them to subject their own kids to their own policies would actually work quite nicely.
If Gates kids had to put up with Common Core, high stakes tests and all the rest, I suspect he would change his tune in a nano-second.
It’s one thing to have other people’s kids grow up to hate you, but it is something else entirely to have your own kids hate you.
LikeLike
SomeDAM Poet: in the spirit of cage busting achievement gap crushing 21st century disruptive innovators aka Rheephormers, might we call this suggestion by you “A Modest Proposal” in the spirit of Jonathan Swift?
😎
P.S. For those deeply engrossed in their close reading of Kommon Kore State Standards informational texts and the even more absorbing high-stakes standardized tests aligned with them, perhaps we need to give them a little morsel of contextual knowledge found outside the teensy weensy little box they think in:
[start]
A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal, is a Juvenilian satirical essay written and published anonymously by Jonathan Swift in 1729. Swift suggests that the impoverished Irish might ease their economic troubles by selling their children as food for rich gentlemen and ladies. This satirical hyperbole mocks heartless attitudes towards the poor, as well as British policy toward Ireland in general.
[end]
😱
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal
Of course, given the propensity of Non Sequitur and Non Sequitur Jr. and those few other sane people that visit this blog, they are bound to interpret the above as a literal call to…
Oh my. So that’s why my moniker of KrazyTA is so appropriate.
😏
LikeLike
KrazyTA
Let’s call it a “Gatest Proposal”
LikeLike
“A Gatest Proposal”
I’d like to make a “Gatest Proposal”
For testing and for VAM
For education garbage disposal
For teachers in the can
For cut scores that will touch the sky
For testing till they wretch
For closing schools and my oh my
For saving just The Best
But Gatest Proposal doesn’t apply
To kids of those like me
It’s “just because”, so don’t ask why
I’m rich, as you can see
LikeLike
Is Duckworth going to follow Raj Chetty and Joshua Rauh, to Stanford? Or, is she like Roland Fryer, nested with ideological kin? The University of Pennsylvania is a member of the Gates, Pearson, Goldman Sachs-funded CPRE.
LikeLike