In 2010, journalist Jonathan Alter interviewed Bill Gates about education. Alter is a passionate supporter of charter schools and obviously synpathetic to Gates’ dismal view of American education.
Gates had just addressed the Council of Chief State Dchool Officers, telling these mostly veteran educators what was wrong with the schools. The biggest driver of rising costs, he said, was “seniority-based pay and benefits for teachers rising faster than state revenues.” This interview occurred about the same time that Gates began to pump $1 billion or more into teacher evaluation projects that linked teacher effectiveness to student test scores. That ill-fated venture promoted demoralization, teacher resignations, and a national teacher shortage.
Gates explained to Alter:
“Seniority is the two-headed monster of education—it’s expensive and harmful. Like master’s degrees for teachers and smaller class sizes, seniority pay, Gates says, has “little correlation to student achievement.” After exhaustive study, the Gates Foundation and other experts have learned that the only in-school factor that fully correlates is quality teaching, which seniority hardly guarantees. It’s a moral issue. Who can defend a system where top teachers are laid off in a budget crunch for no other reason than that they’re young?
“In most states, pay and promotion of teachers are connected 100 percent to seniority. This is contrary to everything the world’s second-richest man believes about business: “Is there any other part of the economy where someone says, ‘Hey, how long have you been mowing lawns? … I want to pay you more for that reason alone.’ ” Gates favors a system where pay and promotion are determined not just by improvement in student test scores (an idea savaged by teachers’ unions) but by peer surveys, student feedback (surprisingly predictive of success in the classroom), video reviews, and evaluation by superiors. In this approach, seniority could be a factor, but not the only factor.
“President Obama knows that guaranteed tenure and rigid seniority systems are a problem, but he’s not yet willing to speak out against them. Even so, Gates gives Obama an A on education. The Race to the Top program, Gates says, is “more catalytic than anyone expected it to be” in spurring accountability and higher standards.”
Here is my favorite part, where Gates says I am his “biggest adversary” and Alter calls “the Whittaker Chambers of school reform.”
For those who don’t know, Whittaker Chambers was a Communist spy who turned against the Party and named Alger Hiss as a Party member. Maybe I was supposed to be insulted, but I wasn’t. I got a good laugh from this article.
I also wrote a response, in which I answered Gates’ five questions. It was posted by Valerie Strauss in her blog, The Answer Sheet.”
Straus called Alter’s interview “a paean to Gates.”
Here are the answers to the first two questions:
Gates: “Does she like the status quo?”
Ravitch: “No, I certainly don’t like the status quo. I don’t like the attacks on teachers, I don’t like the attacks on the educators who work in our schools day in and day out, I don’t like the phony solutions that are now put forward that won’t improve our schools at all. I am not at all content with the quality of American education in general, and I have expressed my criticisms over many years, long before Bill Gates decided to make education his project. I think American children need not only testing in basic skills, but an education that includes the arts, literature, the sciences, history, geography, civics, foreign languages, economics, and physical education.
“I don’t hear any of the corporate reformers expressing concern about the way standardized testing narrows the curriculum, the way it rewards convergent thinking and punishes divergent thinking, the way it stamps out creativity and originality. I don’t hear any of them worried that a generation will grow up ignorant of history and the workings of government. I don’t hear any of them putting up $100 million to make sure that every child has the chance to learn to play a musical instrument. All I hear from them is a demand for higher test scores and a demand to tie teachers’ evaluations to those test scores. That is not going to improve education.”
Gates: “Is she sticking up for decline?”
Ravitch: “Of course not! If we follow Bill Gates’ demand to judge teachers by test scores, we will see stagnation, and he will blame it on teachers. We will see stagnation because a relentless focus on test scores in reading and math will inevitably narrow the curriculum only to what is tested. This is not good education.
“Last week, he said in a speech that teachers should not be paid more for experience and graduate degrees. I wonder why a man of his vast wealth spends so much time trying to figure out how to cut teachers’ pay. Does he truly believe that our nation’s schools will get better if we have teachers with less education and less experience? Who does he listen to? He needs to get himself a smarter set of advisers.
“Of course, we need to make teaching a profession that attracts and retains wonderful teachers, but the current anti-teacher rhetoric emanating from him and his confreres demonizes and demoralizes even the best teachers. I have gotten letters from many teachers who tell me that they have had it, they have never felt such disrespect; and I have also met young people who tell me that the current poisonous atmosphere has persuaded them not to become teachers. Why doesn’t he make speeches thanking the people who work so hard day after day, educating our nation’s children, often in difficult working conditions, most of whom earn less than he pays his secretaries at Microsoft?”
“Gates had just addressed the Council of Chief State Dchool Officers, telling these mostly veteran educators what was wrong with the schools…”
This is endemic in ed reform. They’re all pushing personalized learning, led by Gates and Zuckerberg. But “personalized learning” isn’t turning out like it was sold- it looks nothing like this miraculous snake oil they’re all selling when you see it in an actual public school, so they decide the problem isn’t their concepts or ideas, the problem is public schools:
“In other words, it’s not the core concept of personalized learning that’s the problem. It’s the fact that we have tried to layer a very ambitious redesign of classroom instruction and schools on a system that was not designed to guide and support innovation. Our current public education system is not intentionally hostile to effective innovation, but the existing structures, policies, and traditions work against it at every turn.”
The problem is always public schools. It’s never ed reformers. All ed reformer recommendations end up as “get rid of public schools”. Everything, everything is second to that goal.
All ed reform studies and editorial pieces end up here – it’s not the core concept of whatever we’re pushing that’s the problem, the problem is the public system that they oppose and hope to eradicate.
Ooh this part makes my blood boil: ““…we have tried to layer a very ambitious redesign of classroom instruction and schools on a system that was not designed to guide and support innovation. Our current public education system is not intentionally hostile to effective innovation, but the existing structures, policies, and traditions work against it at every turn.” [As if they even knew what “effective” innovation was — kinda hard to tell when your measure is strictly “sales booked.”]
You could say exactly the same thing about any other part of democratic govt — and these people do. Function, and rationale for method, and desired results escape them entirely. Open their skulls: a pile of 1’s & 0’s will fall out.
Yes, it is obvious that most of these autocratic billionaires, like Bill Gates, have no patience for the democratic process spelled out in state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution.
They are used to the power of one in their corporate world getting things with a word and all their minions jump on command without protest out of fear, or worship as if someone like Bill Gates was a five-star general commanding an army or a god cast in gold like the golden calf that pissed off Moses when he returned from the Mountain with God’s Ten Commandments in hand.
Gates and Zuckerberg have NO CLUE. Both are rotten and both USE others for personal gain and for profits. They are both sick, white, entitled makes.
DeVos is back from her publicly-funded summer tour of Europe.
What did she learn in Europe? That she was right! Public schools are THE PROBLEM and privatization is the solution.
In other words, she “learned” nothing- she came back spouting the same anti-public school ideological drivel she has been reciting for 40 years.
I have no idea why we pay 2000 federal employees to spend their days scolding public school families, teachers and leaders with these RELENTLESS and wholly ideological political campaigns to eradicate public schools. Why is the public paying for this garbage? Can’t the Waltons pay these people?
DeVos has absolutely nothing of value to offer to any public school in the country. Her suggestion for public schools is they become the private schools she favors.
Why are we paying for this? It’s worthless. It adds NO value.
If Seniority is a problem with teachers being effective; certainly patent protection that has made Bill Gates one of the Richest men in the world arguably at the expense of better software being developed and sooner is too. Gates was not the great scientific mind of the 20th century, he was the recipient of the most anti-market welfare hand out enshrined in our constitution.
Although the constitution does not specify whether that protection should last for six days or sixty years. As usual more nonsense and hypocrisy from the plutocracy. Competition is great except when they are forced to compete in a free market.
A person doesn’t need to read past the second paragraph to see the solution here. Gates describes rising pension costs and declining revenue as a problem, yet splurges $1 billion on junk science evaluations. So the solution is simple – take the money Gates wasted on useless crap to fund the pensions and the problem goes away.
This is the great fallacy of austerity, whether neocons, Republicans, neoliberals or corporate Democrats, they pull the wool over our eyes saying “revenues are down” after years and years of targeted tax cuts for the rich.
And just like the evaluation schemes failed before our eyes, tax cuts for the rich failed before our eyes too. They promised jobs in exchange but the jobs never came. So this is just a matter of 99.9% of us accepting their role as doormat for the rich and being too cowed or lazy to do something about it.
According to the ‘news’ from the WH things have never been better. I often wonder who makes up this stuff. Where are the Americans with more money in their pockets? It’s with the wealthy who profited from our ‘wonderful tax cut for the middle class’. Remember the teacher who got a $1.50 more. Wow. I’m impressed.
…..
REAL NEWS PRESIDENT TRUMP DOESN’T WANT YOU TO MISS
Nurturing a Small Business Boon
– The Washington Times
“As we mark six months since Mr. Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law, we continue to see more Americans working,” Administrator Linda McMahon, head of the Small Business Administration, writes. “With more money in their pockets, Americans are spending again — and that’s good news for small businesses.”
I always want to ask these tech titans who spend their days weakening and attacking public schools how they align their anti-public school ideology with the FACT they are also shilling ed tech product to every public school in the country.
Apparently we’re good enough to buy billions of dollars of their wares but the moment they make the sale they all lobby to gut our funding and close our schools.
Facebook is eagerly marketing to children IN public schools while lobbying to GET RID OF public schools.
They have absolute contempt for the same schools and people they sell to. The cynicism is just amazing. All this touchy-feely nonsense about “personalized learning” hides a multi-billion dollar industry that both sells TO public schools and lobbies AGAINST public schools.
What Gates and his ilk do not understand is that industry embraced seniority because it was a substitute for flawed evaluation plans. Seniority plans do not exist unless there is a lack of trust between labor and management. They simplify management and make it less costly.
Seniority systems are also a boon to management. It eliminates expensive and divisive promotion schemes (if you think seniority is unfair … consider “merit-based” systems) and it has the “benefit” of delaying top salary. I worked in and knew of any number of school districts in which you had to work there for 20 years or more to get top pay. I noticed at the time that California Highway Patrolmen got to top pay in four steps, usually taking just four years. By making teachers wait for top pay, they save money year after year. And when “additional steps” are placed on such schemes, it seems like a raise, but you do not get that raise until you have worked 20+ years.
“Is there any other part of the economy where someone says, ‘Hey, how long have you been mowing lawns? … I want to pay you more for that reason alone.’
Gates continues to confuse an investment in the common good with business principles. Teachers, police officers and fire fighters are community services for the common good. They are not and should not be considered businesses. Considering the difficulty of the job, many teachers are underpaid for their level of education compared to similar employees in the private sector. The system of tenure is mutually beneficial providing some level of security to employees and districts that can safely project numbers for future staffing and students. It is designed to help retain quality employees. Gates has no need for the common good so he sees no value in it.
Teaching is related to the economy, but not in the way Gates believes. Middle class teachers paid a decent wage contribute to the economy by being consumers. Many middle class teachers buying homes, cars and appliances help drive the economy. Privatization is an attack on the middle class that seeks to move middle class workers, mostly women, into the working poor class. Along with so much about education, Gates seems not to understand the actual “value add” of teachers in this nation.
Adding to the insult is the fact that Gates denigrates teaching and the myriad of knowledge requiste in a day’s work to mowing a lawn.
Last year, addressing a group of RV manufacturers, Ryan Zinke opined that our National Park Service Rangers were only good for cleaning the toilets. Great minds think alike!
By the time Trump and his cronies sell off the mineral rights to our national parks, there will be a paucity of tourists that will want to see the ecological disaster. Teddy Roosevelt is rolling over in his grave.
Thank you, Diane. You have a beautiful way with words that tell the truth. You are a voice for all of us teachers who are tired of the degradation of our profession.
The “reform” movement: any time some rich person talks about “reform,” watch out and hold on to your seatbelts. Billionaire “reform,” whether it’s education reform, Social Security “reform” or tax structure “reform” means destruction and the elimination of public goods and the commons. Bill Gates’s comments demonstrate a patronizing, condescending and utter disregard for public school teachers. Ergo, the public school teachers must be punished and liquidated, especially the older veteran teachers who are always portrayed as dead wood or lazy union thugs by these pro privatization vampires.
His bias becomes clearer when we consider that his “big vision” includes blended and “personalized learning.” Both of these unsubstantiated “visions” make lots of money for computer companies while the tech giants send their own children to private schools that emphasize human interaction, not robotic testing. Parents need to realized that Gates has a vested interest in so called “reform,” and they should campaign against allowing their children to be sucked into the technological void that benefits Silicon Valley.
carefully killing off old-days’ institutional memory of actual in-classroom experience being valued in the process
“Journalist” should always be in quotations when used in connection with Jonathan Alter. Stenographer is a more accurate term.
Jon alter is mad for KIPP
I think he is on the board of a KIPP
Thank-you so much for your research and sharing. You are one of few lights in public education today. Happy birthday to one super lady!
The only threat to public education in this country is Bill Gates and other fools that think like him. Get rid of Bill Gates and those greedy fools that think like him and turn over running the public schools to highly trained professional unionized public school teachers, and the problems Bill Gates created will go away.
“I wonder why a man of his vast wealth spends so much time trying to figure out how to cut teachers’ pay. Does he truly believe that our nation’s schools will get better if we have teachers with less education and less experience?”
Don’t forget that Bill Gates dropped out of college to chase money. The world would have been better off if he had stayed in college. Then maybe we’d have better, safer programs than the crap that Microsoft churns out.
I think Bill Gates hates teachers because they didn’t get down on their knees to worship his (flawed and twisted) genius when he was their student.
I think the reason Bill Gates dropped out of his university to chase money and wealth was that he has nothing but disdain for teachers.
Bill Gates is an arrogant fool just like Donald Trump is. Gates made a lot of money. That does not make him an expert in anything by greed.
Good points, Diane. I would just add that Gates should take himself to Finland and see what some of the best schools on earth look like.
I woke up this morning, as I often do, wondering why (as I often do) some of the tech euphoric people with whom I work said the things they said during the last school year. They haunt my dreams. It led me to search for edutech news. I found a recent article in Wired, by a tech reporter/middle school parent, about the failures of a San Francisco tech conversion school that had required teachers to reapply for their jobs to stay, and used an online curriculum. He called the school a “startup”. The school had large classes, students leaving in droves, high teacher and principal turnover, and students constantly fighting and throwing things at teachers in class. The author (who relied on Hanushek for guidance) claimed among other misunderstandings that experiments with small schools and — small class sizes — had failed. He believed the school was a diamond in the rough, but needed some fine tuning. It was a recent article. Silicon Valley still doesn’t understand.
Technology experts are not education history experts. Diane knows when and how class size reductions, for example, worked. They did. Bill Gates does not know. Edu-expert versus edu-tourist.
Technology enthusiasts never give up hope that every application of tech will improve life on Earth. No failure is catastrophic enough. Bill Gates will never understand. Edu-pragmatism versus edu-fantasy.
Technology companies exist to make big money for a small number of people. They are inherently opposed to egalitarianism. They all seek to “disrupt” and destroy small businesses, unions, pensions, families, and privacy. Diane cares about families. Bill Gates does not. Edu-good versus edu-bad, and with all his ill gotten gains, Gates makes education edu-ugly.
The modern schooling is intrinsically linked to industrialization: http://hackeducation.com/2015/04/25/factory-model In modern gig economy, you don’t need to know calculus to deliver pizza or drive Uber. The question is: whether we as a society accept the gig economy as the new normal? The system is ripe for a split into “basic education” and “full secondary education”. Hmm, this is similar to what they had in many countries a hundred years ago. Spending thirteen years in school, when more than 20% of HS graduates cannot read (by “can read” I mean anything above “unsatisfactory” by NWEA standards) is not worth it anyway.
There is nothing wrong in personalized learning done right. A century ago it was called self-education using a simple tool called a book.
If anything, the importance of tests like SAT and ACT over school GPA will increase not decrease, because if you are a home-schooler you don’t get grades.
The above does not mean I agree with Bill Gates’ methods of reforming education, but I think that public education as it exists in the U.S. provides too little considering the time students spend at school.
Meant NAEP, not NWEA.
Universal, public education is much more than job training. It is a pillar of democracy, and opposition to mob rule.
Exactly!
The tech moguls don’t care about democracy. They feel it gets in their way of total domination sort of like Diane Ravitch.
If by pillar of democracy you mean that everyone is indoctrinated with the same “truths” in industrialized fashion, and when time comes to voting or rallying or just a kitchen talk, they uniformly express the same opinion, thereby keeping the system stable, then I agree.
Since invention of printing press books have been the primary vehicle of distributing thought. Soviet Union did have universal public education, and a pretty good one at that, but it prohibited certain books. Before the system collapsed and people turned into consumers, they used to smuggle books instead of jeans or chewing gum. Books were the weapon that greatly contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union.
Mass education == thought control.
I’m not sure I get it, Backagain. Are you suggesting that all we need is a good supply of books, no formal education necessary? And just when did that do a good job of educating a population? Are we supposed to believe that the U.S. could have achieved the same level of success as a society without attempting to educate the entire population beyond access to books? Just when in the past have so many had a taste of a standard of living that allowed the majority to be able to plan for a future rather than surviving day by day? Your suggestions seem designed to break the bonds of society and dismiss the idea of a common good. Just how is it we learn to consider the needs of others in this country if we reduce all interactions to commercial? I know I am going rather far afield, but I find it hard to imagine a healthy society built on the fracturing of public institutions that have been designed in part to instill a sense of commonality.
BackAgain devoutly believes in laissez faire. Since there are no jobs for children, I’m not sure what he or she expects to do with the millions left to their own devices. Maybe a plan to keep women home.
@speduktr: “Are you suggesting that all we need is a good supply of books, no formal education necessary?” – kinda-sorta. Kids get too little out of spending thirteen years of their life in the confines of a school. They don’t get good enough knowledge, they don’t create life-long relations because they are always being re-shuffled, and the whole mentioning of a school as a beacon of democracy makes me laugh. There are things where you need a lab, if you need to dissect a frog or drop alcali metal into acid. But for most of the stuff taught and learned in school a book will do just fine. To test your knowledge you would use – you guessed it – tests. This is no different than existing situation in schools where they administer the same tests.
“Your suggestions seem designed to break the bonds of society and dismiss the idea of a common good.” – there are no bonds created in modern public schools, kids are always reshuffled, even in elementary school. Why? I don’t know. I guess precisely for them not to create bonds, because bonds mean groups mean societies mean parties mean uprising or something of such sort. Similarly, common good is nothing more than common indoctrination. If mandatory schooling was envisioned as a positive thing two centuries ago, it morphed into something different.
I would be more agreeable with the institution of mandatory public school if besides indoctrination it provided half-decent education. To me, it does little besides corralling the youth for thirteen years. So frustrating.
BackAgain: Boy, you must have really received a foul education. Most of us on this blog are teacher, parents of public school children or retired teachers. We believe in the public schools and know that things can always improve but that schools are doing a vital job of instilling needed knowledge in kids.
“But for most of the stuff taught and learned in school a book will do just fine.” If children don’t learn how to read in school, just what are they going to do with a book? Hit someone over the head is the first thing that comes to mind. Perhaps a feeding frenzy in the fireplace would come next. Trump has said that he loves the uneducated. The more uneducated this society becomes, the more likely unfit people like him will be elected. Some people are not a bit motivated to read.[Ignorant Trump is an example.] It is essential that these people get a well-grounded education or our future for democracy is over.
I am a retired music teacher and I know that books will do nothing to improve knowledge in the arts. Just try to pick up an instruction book and learn to play an instrument by yourself. It doesn’t work. The kids get the experience of playing in a group and that is a wonderful thing that can’t be duplicated. Each part is equally important and all goes together to create beauty. Kids learn to perform together in programs that let each kid shine. This cannot be done with books.
Sorry your educational experience was so rotten. I notice that you can write in complete sentences. Someone taught you how to do that. I’m sure it was a teacher who knew how to teach writing and reading.
You may be retired, but you haven’t stopped teaching!
Thanks for the defense of all we hold dear and true.
Carol, this is my classroom. Distance learning!
😉☺️
Diane, I agree. We are all learning from you and from those who make comments. It is you who set this wonderful blog up. Hoo-rah!!
BackAgain, before you pontificate on the uselessness of schooling, please identify your occupation and e pertinent.
“BackAgain devoutly believes in laissez faire.” – I am simply pointing out that mandatory public education became diluted and wasteful: the school does not provide enough knowledge and skills worth of losing of 13 years of one’s life, while the students stop caring in middle school if not earlier. It is free, moreover it is mandatory, hence not considered valuable or important. Compare to some African kids who walk 12 miles each way every day to school and are grateful simply for being accepted and being able to learn.
I said multiple times that I do not suggest making school commercial, quite the contrary, it should remain free, and the colleges should be free as well. But only for those who actually want to learn. High school should be optional. Heck, maybe even middle school. Just teach basic reading, writing and arithmetic in elementary school and then offer either to continue or to bail out. For those, who reconsider in their 20s or 30s or 40s ensure that adult schools exist to pick up where they left at 14. Make constant lifelong learning an easy option.
“Since there are no jobs for children, I’m not sure what he or she expects to do with the millions left to their own devices. Maybe a plan to keep women home.” – You said it yourself: school is little more than a glorified childcare, made for keeping kids off the streets and for allowing both parents to work.
“If children don’t learn how to read in school, just what are they going to do with a book?” – It takes just a couple of weeks to learn how to read if done right. For almost a century public schools have been using the idiotic whole language system, finally it gave way to phonics, the system that was used in 19th century and earlier. You can see that one cannot always trust the system, which keeps churning out illiterate graduates, yet keeps insisting on the faulty method. Now they do the same with math. History books are full of religious propaganda.
Arts? I agree that it is better when there is a knowledgeable teacher. Again, I am not for abolishing public schools, just for having the very minimum mandatory set ot subjects, everything else should be elective. Do you want to paint? Sign up to a class, free. Otherwise, here is your diploma of completing the elementary school. My local middle school does not have music classes besides marching band.
“Some people are not a bit motivated to read.” – Why should we push them? They won’t be reading Tender is the Night anyway, they will be reading tabloids and making wrong judgments along the way. In any case, isn’t forcing people to do something is totalitarianism? How forcing them to accept democratic ideals is better from forcing them to accept Communist ideals?
Why don’t you read history?
You want to take us back to the early 19th century, when poor street urchins begged for their supper and remained illiterate.
You are truly reactionary.
No, I do not want to get back to 19th century. I want people to treasure what they have. Free education with free busing is not valued, but if you had to walk five miles to school rain and shine, it is a different matter. Tap water is not valued, but if you had to get it from a well you would not use that much. Cheap electricity is not valued, but if you had to chop wood yourself for heating and lightning, you would not use that much. cheap gasoline is not valued, but if you had to walk or bike, you would not travel 20 miles to work one way, this is madness. Every time I look at the five-lane traffic I am curling into a knot inside, seeing how we are killing the planet daily without much thinking about it.
The niceties that you and Carol and others talk about, the progress, the benefits of the technological era that this country reached in the middle of the 20th century, are a product of excessive consumerism. The consumerism is destroying the planet now.
We must use only as much as we really need. This starts from school. Thirteen years of mandatory confinement is a waste whichever side you want to look at it. Why providing free or reduced-price lunches, if half of the food is thrown away? Moreover, those kids that throw away their food don’t want – even when explicitly asked – to share with others, even if they have an un-eaten apple or a unopened pack of milk. They intentionally throw it away because they DO NOT want to share. Is this community-building? Not at all. Instead, this instills a feeling of entitlement. I would bar those kids who throw away their food from receiving free food for a week, but I would be sued as a child abuser.
No, free education for 13 years is not a waste.
It is an investment in our future.
BackAgain, I used to share some of your views before I became a teacher. When I was a kid I was often bored in class and as a curious, pro-active reader and researcher, I often learned more on my own than in school, particularly on topics I was most interested in.
The days of teachers mailing it in are long gone. There is much more scrutiny and accountability today and if teachers are good and if they have some experience, they can differentiate learning so every kid has something that engages them and challenges them, regardless where they are in relation to others.
Not every teacher is adept at this right off the bat, but parents can go a long way towards finding their kids the right school, the right setting and interface with teachers all along the way.
If your idea is letting the kid learn from home or in a cubicle farm, that is when they are most susceptible to indoctrination. They also miss out on the very important socialization skills, sports and clubs, etc.
So it’s fine to ponder about alternatives, but as an experienced teacher I would warn against anything automated, impersonal or corporate. Better yet, get a degree in education and become a classroom teacher yourself so you can see how to meet the needs of today’s kids.
–Compulsory public education = mass indoctrination, factory-style
–You learn more reading books on your own than in teacher-led group discussion of books
–Going to school = constant re-shuffling, discouraging the formation of social bonds
–Mandatory education = losing 13 years of your life
–Compulsory education = indoctrination in democratic ideals
–Done right [by whom?], it just takes [most? half? some?] a couple of weeks to learn how to read
BackAgain, I can honestly say that none of this remotely resembles the public school experience I had, nor that of any of my friends, relatives, or children or children’s friends.
Your exploration of who truly values school is important. How to make it of more value to more students is a vital discussion. I do not believe that alienation is caused by the fact that it’s “free” and you probably don’t either.
I have concluded that BackAgain is a troll. He is not welcome to be part of our classroom. I sent him to detention, where he will have plenty of time to read his libertarian rags.
He can sit in detention and read his books.
Back Again is probably reading the same book the Koch brothers worship and I think BA is reading that book again and again and again to make sure it is inscribed deep into his fat brain. To be clear, calling his brain fat is not intended as an insult because it is scientifically accurate since our brains are the fattest organ in our bodies and may consist of at least 60 percent fat.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/11/charles-koch-favorite-book-libertarian-stagnating-wages-213385
But, the fat in our brains depends on the fat we eat and if we eat the wrong diet, that wrong fat will go into our brains and turn rancid.
“The omega -3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) keep the dopamine levels in your brain high, increase neuronal growth in the frontal cortex of your brain, and increase cerebral circulation. Krill oil is an excellent source of omega-3, and may even be superior to fish oil.”
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/01/22/fascinating-facts-you-never-knew-about-the-human-brain.aspx
Something for BA to learn if he/she is capable of learning. What to avoid to protect our brains from becoming rancid — I think BA is consuming the wrong fats. This is scary stuff.
https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/your-brain-is-rancid
Lloyd: I am a Dr. Mercola fan. Welcome to the club!!! I believe in his products and the information that he gives is excellent.
🤓
It is definitely a double headed monster looking at seniority and tenure. However, we cannot focus on test scores as an evaluation system for teachers. There are far too many drawbacks and outside forces that affect test scores. One must consider a list of things Diane Ravitch shares in did a child have a wreck on the way to school before the test, was there a domestic dispute, when was the last time they had a hot meal, were they defending themselves on the school bus. We must also see that great teachers can have students that simply do not connect to them If you take test score data for one veteran teacher and graph it over years it is rare to see consistent gains in data. Some students can also have an amazing teacher this year that is battling testing anxiety that was put into place by last years terrible teacher. On the other side of the monster, we get teachers into schools who are not willing to see anything other than the way that has worked in the past. They are not willing to think critically and adjust their educational views even an inch. What we must do is take into account that we are creating our future society each and every single day we are in the classroom with our students. I hope to create citizens coming out of my classroom beyond what their test scores were.
“Is there any other part of the economy where someone says, ‘Hey, how long have you been mowing lawns? … I want to pay you more for that reason alone.’”
What better profession to equate with teaching than that of the professional lawn mower.
Brilliant.
Give the Supreme Court of Trump more time and I’m sure this conservative court will find a way to ban the practice of bolstering diversity in colleges. After all, they are all ‘murderers’, “rapists’ and ‘drug dealers’. Anything Obama did has to be reversed.
This country is going to the dogs. Many people of color have contributed to our society after having overcome extreme obstacles. Life should not be that difficult.
……………….
Breaking News Alert
July 03, 2018
NYTimes.com »
BREAKING NEWS
The Trump administration will urge schools and colleges to ignore race in admissions, reversing an Obama-era guideline meant to bolster diversity
Tuesday, July 3, 2018 11:12 AM EST
The Supreme Court has steadily narrowed the ways that schools can consider race when trying to diversify their student bodies. But it has not banned the practice.
Even though Gates has no respect for teachers, teachers are the most respected by Americana, after nurses. (On a trip, I read 4 newspapers today, so I’m not sure of which one, but have a notion that the survey was administered by USA Today (will look, later, & find out.) The public has seen & respected what teachers are doing in the streets, & their response has been to support teachers.
ALEC’s & Betsy’s & evil’s malodorous plan has backfired.
Arne Duncan flew under the radar, to a degree. He said a few things that were pretty outrageous, but the media gave him a pass for the most part. They were pushing Gates’ CCSS initiative and Arne was front and center on that one. Sometimes praising him and rarely critical except when parents started seeing their schools cut the arts, phys ed, science, social studies, and recess in order to “meet the standards” (CCSS = Test Test Test). That’s when things went on slow boil.
Then Arne left, soon to be followed by Obama.
Betsy DeVos, on the other hand, cannot be ignored. She’s way too in your face and has added the aspect of advancing “God’s Kingdom” through education reform (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/opinion/betsy-devos-and-gods-plan-for-schools.html). Add to that fact that she was appointed by Mr Trump, who’s not very popular at all in most major media outlets, and suddenly the area of education is getting a LOT more objective exposure.
People are finally beginning to see what the end goal of almost 2 decades of education “reform” is really about. And they don’t like it.
My hope is that this new public awareness is going to translate to a better appreciation of the teaching profession.
Yes, the media treated Arne as a great thinker. Tom Friedman, who writes a column about foreign policy for The NY Times, wrote one suggesting that Arne should be Secretary of State! That, I suppose, would introduce an era of hoops diplomacy, and Arne is very tall and would dominate. Friedman knows zip about education. At Davos in 2006, he interviewed Gates and treated him as a Demi-god. Gates boasted about his small high schools initiative, which he already knew was collapsing.
“That, I suppose, would introduce an era of hoops diplomacy, and Arne is very tall and would dominate. Friedman knows zip about education.”
That is so ON it. The sports/competition oriented fan base in the USA and on the world stage would eat it up. The spin machine starts with the image and Arne would slam dunk his way on to the world stage.
I wish I was joking. I’ve always been an athlete, but the media has blown the importance of sports way out of proportion, imo. To the point where the likes of Agassi and Sanders (he was a bum against the run, btw…nobody talks about that) can open a charter school to great fanfare and run it with impunity for years, regardless of merit.
And the likes of Friedman (who, as you said, knows zip/zero/nada about education) would be leading the cheer leading squad.
Ugh. I was about to say, “Don’t get me started”. Then I realized I was already “on my way”, lol.
Can’t make this stuff up.