Our friend and regular commenter Laura Chapman, retired educator, reflects on Bill Gayes’ failure in Hillsborough. Accepting his pledge of $100 million drew the district onto a teacher evaluation plan that nearly exhausted the district’s reserve fund, led to the firing of the district superintendent MaryEllen Elia, and was ultimately canceled by Gates and the district after no results.
She wrote a comment about the serial failures of the Gates Foundation:
“This discussion has taken me down memory lane to the public schools I attended. One of these, Hillsborough High School in Tampa Florida, has been rehabbed several times, but it remains a landmark in school architecture from an era when attending and completing “high” school was a major achievement. The website has a curated collection of documents showing the history of the school’s founding and various locations before the current building was built, with magnificent Gothic architecture, refelecting some high aspirations for the experience of going to school. The school has been rehabbed several times, with “moderate”but important attention to preservation. The International Baccalaureate program is thriving, but that seems to have created a school within a school and conflicts among the students and the faculty.
http://www.tampapix.com/HHS.htm
“Then there is the story of what Bill Gates did to the Hillsborough County Schools and the demoralization that his money has created–his demand for pay-for-performance, worship of metrics especially test scores, the wholesale destruction of morale, and now a budget that is busted. Bill Gates did serous damage to a decent school system. For him, there was not an ounce of value to this particular high school. It could have been a big box store.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Stacked ranking Fail
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“The Charge of the Gates Brigade” (based on “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
Half a bill, half a bill
Half a bill, onward!
All in the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered
“Forward, the Gates Brigade!
Charge for the schools!” he said.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered
II
“Forward, the Gates Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the Coleman knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and lie.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered
III
Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
Boldly they tuned out that,
Into the Ravitch jaws,
Into the mouth of cat
Bill and Mel foundered
IV
Flashed all their BS bare,
Dashed was their savoir faire
VAMming the teachers there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in with mir’s-n-smoke
Valiantly went for broke;
Cluelessly rushin’
Reeled from reality’s stroke
Shattered and sundered.
VAMming attack, for naught,
Bill and Mel foundered
V
Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
While Bill and Mel chewed fat
They that had fought the BAT
Came through the Ravitch jaws,
Back from the mouth of cat,
All that was left in end:
Bill and Mel foundered
VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Gates Brigade,
Bill and Mel foundered
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Gates has been nothing less than a cancer on this country.
His wealth has made him destructive and unteachable.
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And Elia, who bought it all, is now busily messing with education here in NY State, echoing King and pushing the “rigorous standards/assessment/ data driven” nonsense the reformsters so love. Fortunately, she was not prepared for the strength of the opt-out movement.
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A person with a particular skill set and interests who found himself in a perfect intersection with technological development and believes that his success is due to genius (which he condescendingly shares with us) rather than a narrow and limited focus which served him well only because of the time and place in which he was born. At least Andrew Carnegie gave us libraries without abusing librarians!!!
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The echo chamber are rushing to Gates’ defense:
http://educationpost.org/our-schools-need-edu-philanthropys-dollars-and-its-policy-priorities/
God forbid we should have a real debate on how wealthy people have WAY too much influence over lawmakers and how they get special access. Can’t have that! Threatens a lot of careers!
Can ed reformers really be blind to the idea of “special access”? These are supposedly educated people who attended The Top Universities. They are unaware that there’s a debate in the US over who gets special access and clout and who doesn’t?
I’ll be happy to help them out. The WHOLE DEBATE is about “priorities”. The public didn’t consent to Bill Gates’ priorities. In fact, we we thought we hired independent lawmakers with agency and free will and the ability to resist wealthy people and their bribes.
If we wanted Bill Gates to run public schools and push HIS priorities we would have elected him. This is a fairly bed rock idea in democratic governance. Do they really not teach it at Harvard? What is their theory? That’s it’s perfectly fine for the US Department of Education to be a satellite office of the Gates Foundation? It’s not okay. That’s what “capture” is. It doesn’t matter if Gates is “good” and Koch is “bad”. The capture is the problem.
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Maybe Ed Post could stage a debate with the Los Angeles Times editorial board about whether billionaires should set the policy agenda for the public’s schools.
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I like your satellite image.
“Gatesliocentrism”
Gatesliocentric
Very eccentric
Gates at the center
Zero dissent there
DOE satellites
Billyan acolytes
Held by the will
Of the powerful Bill
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With all his billions, Gates could build new high schools in places like Detroit. And he could encourage other billionaires to match his funds which would multiply the effect.
If it cost $20 million for each new high school, each billion could fund 50 new schools. The $80 billion dollars Gates has would build 4000 new high schools. There are about 26,000 total high schools in the US, but many of them are already in good shape, so 4000 new ones in the poorest areas would make a significant difference. And that’s just with Gates’ money.
These high schools, which would last at least half a century before having to be renovated or replaced, would function not only as high schools but also as community centers for the low income communities where they were located.
But, as is clear from his crappy software, Gates is not interested in providing something of real, lasting value. He does not even know what the word “value” means.
He’s a peddler of trash.
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I read the Gates site to see what new ideas “my lawmakers” will be promoting in my public schools. It’s remarkable how closely it tracks. Well, it’s “remarkable” only if one doesn’t know that it’s the same freaking people.
I think all public school parents should do it. They should know who is running the show. I consider it “defense”- a head’s up on whatever fad or “innovation” they’re “scaling up”.
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Chiara,
You might be better informed by reading “ALEC Exposed” to see what your lawmakers are thinking about.
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Gates is staying true to character. In his Microsoft days he was well known for swallowing up smarter, smaller, successful independent companies with innovative ideas that posed a competitive threat to Microsoft.
Most of these innovations never saw the light of day again or they were ruined by the poor business culture at Microsoft and their innovations were lost to the tech world.
He was smacked down here in the US and across the globe for predatory business practices, dishonesty, and monopolizing. Nine years ago Microsoft had paid out over $9 billion in fines to settle litigation. I’m sure it is a much higher amount now.
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1048246/microsoft-lawsuit-payouts-usd9-billion
No one should be surprised that he still follows those less than altruistic practices in his private “philanthropic” life. A tiger never loses its stripes.
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Gates and Microsoft never paid properly for what were unequivocally monopolistic practices that broke numerous laws.
Microsoft should have been broken up, just as AT&T/Bell was broken up.
And Gates and others at MS who made the decisions should have themselves paid billion dollar fines for their illegal practices.
Paying a $10 billion is just the cost of doing business for a company like Microsoft, just as it is with big banks like JP Morgan.
It’s figured in.
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