When Governor Cuomo got the blowback from parents and educators who were outraged at the idea that he invited Bill Gates (and now Eric Schmidt of Google) to “reinvent” education in the state, he pretended he didn’t say it.
He (or someone on his staff) wrote a message yesterday on his Facebook page:
“Teachers are heroes & nothing could ever replace in-person learning — COVID has reinforced that.
The re-imagine education task force focuses on using technology most effectively while schools are closed & to provide more opportunities to students no matter where they are.
This will be done in full partnership with educators and administrators — that’s the only way it could be successful.”
Bringing in Bill Gates only to re-imagine education during the time that schools are closed?
Wait a minute. Blogger and education activist Peter Goodman (who attends every meeting of the state education board, the Board of Regents) reprinted the original announcement by Cuomo’s office:
Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that New York State is collaborating with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a blueprint to reimagine education in the new normal. As New York begins to develop plans to reopen K-12 schools and colleges, the state and the Gates Foundation will consider what education should look like in the future, including:
How can we use technology to provide more opportunities to students no matter where they are;
How can we provide shared education among schools and colleges using technology;
How can technology reduce educational inequality, including English as a new language students;
How can we use technology to meet educational needs of students with disabilities;
How can we provide educators more tools to use technology;
How can technology break down barriers to K-12 and Colleges and Universities to provide greater access to high quality education no matter where the student lives; and
Given ongoing socially distancing rules, how can we deploy classroom technology, like immersive cloud virtual classrooms learning, to recreate larger class or lecture hall environments in different locations?
The state will bring together a group of leaders to answer these questions in collaboration with the Gates Foundation, who will support New York State by helping bring together national and international experts, as well as provide expert advice as needed.
Does this sound as though the Gates’ reinvention is about “only while schools are closed” or is Cuomo asking Gates and his team of “experts” to devise what the state’s schools “look like in the future”?
Does Cuomo think the public is stupid?
Goodman quite rightly reminds us that Cuomo is not in charge of the schools. The Board of Regents are. That’s what the state constitution says; that’s what state law says.
Cuomo should back off and tell Gates to stay in Seattle with his team of “experts.” They have done enough damage to New York State’s schools with their Common Core standards, testing, teacher evaluations, inBloom, etc.
New York parent leaders are all over this deal. Expect a revival of the Opt Out movement if the Gates’ takeover goes forward.
Amen!
When someone talks about technology being the “new normal,” a paradigm shift in the delivery of education is implied. New York would be wise to be vigilant in any dealings with Bill Gates. Gates and his foundation have been buying access to public schools in order to expand the delivery of online education around the country. Every Gates initiative has been a Trojan Horse with seemingly good intentions, but once in place, further undermines public education delivered by trained professionals. Gates simply cannot be trusted to improve education. His so-called experts are mostly profiteers and opportunists.
Nancy Bailey’s post from 2018 reviews Gates’ multiple educational failures. Since that time the Gates Foundation has been working on schemes to get inside public schools to grow like a cancer from the inside out. Blended and online instruction are their most recent parasitic schemes in order to transfer public money into private pockets. Beware New York! https://nancyebailey.com/2018/07/04/gatess-blunders-destroy-teachers-and-public-schools/
Sounds like Trumpi. I didn’t say that. Fake news. On and on!
“The re-imagine education task force focuses on using technology most effectively while schools are closed & to provide more opportunities to students no matter where they are.
This will be done in full partnership with educators and administrators — that’s the only way it could be successful.”
You wish you could trust them because public schools really do need help- especially if we’re in some kind of open and then close again situation – and I for one would rather have online school than no school at all.
But you can’t trust them. They haven’t ever fulfilled a “collaboration!” promise, all the way back to NCLB. For me it’s pretty simple- I don’t think people who are ideologically opposed to the existence of public schools can or will improve public schools. I don’t think that scenario has worked out well for students in public schools the last 20 years.
If we believe that the Holocaust could not have happened, but for the “full partnership” of the Jews, then we can believe Cuomo. This is a set up for a hostile takeover of public education. This pandemic has been costly in so many ways. It is easier for Cuomo to get the children of the state to pay for it than his wealthy donors.
Love that analogy.
that overwhelmingly saddest line: You wish you could trust them…
It’s time for educators on this blog to tell them what to do, not just what we shouldn’t do. Where are your ideas?
Cuomo is looking for donors.
If one starts with “the public system should be replaced!” is it likely one will invest in or improve the public system?
No. It’s like putting 401k managers in charge of Social Security. The goal is at odds with the work.
And it wouldn’t matter, it would just be an abstract ideological theory, except the vast, vast majority of students are IN the systems they hope to tear down.
This won’t go well for students in public schools.
Would ed reformers who promote charters and vouchers accept this? Would they allow people who are opposed to charters and vouchers to RUN those schools? No, of course not. So why should public school parents and supporters allow it? Our kids and schools don’t need advocates and supporters? Our schools get only critics?
Until there is a vaccine, remote classroom technology is the only way to absolutely ensure that students do not transmit COVID-19 to teachers. A vaccine is a long way off—sometime in 2021 at the earliest, possibly years later, and possibly never. If we have to rely on remote technology, it needs to work a lot better than it does today, and be easily accessible by all students.
I’m a teacher in NYC. I don’t know who you are, but unless you are a teacher on the front lines you need to step back and let the real experts guide the discussion.
What my students don’t need is another canned product. They are bored out of their minds with the ones we are forced to use. The truth is, you cannot replace much of the magic that happens in a physical classroom.
That being said, I realize we may be doing this remote learning thing for a while. However, I don’t need Gates’ canned curriculum. My students are engaging in project based learning – finally free from the mindless test prep which disguises itself as curriculum.
I am doing remote learning fine. I don’t need anyone’s product.
Thanks but no thanks.
Of course you can’t replace much of the magic that happens in a physical classroom. But what I’m hearing is that teachers will be too afraid to get back into a physical classroom if there’s a chance they can contract COVID-19 from students. I’m also hearing that teachers (including on this site) and students are not doing “fine” with remote learning, even if it’s going well for your classes. If classrooms cannot reopen until there is a vaccine — 2021 at the earliest, maybe years longer, and maybe never — then schools need to be reinvented around technology, and the technology has to be better and more accessible.
I should have noted that I’m not advocating adopting “canned curriculum.” I’m talking about technology.
FLERP!,
I have to admit that I’m shocked that you think Bill Gates and the people on that committee — without any educators — would come up with any ideal way to deliver remote learning. Is that because you are so impressed with their past suggestions? Surely they know better than educators how children whose parents can’t afford private school tuition should be taught (Hint: it’s not the way those billionaires have their own children taught).
The bottom line is that until their “suggestions” are adopted by private schools where those billionaires send their own children, I’m going to guess that the driving motive is how to spend the least amount of money or put the most tax dollars into the pockets of corporations that will enrich them even more.
Now if Cuomo and his billionaire buddies just admitted it — that their goal is not to offer a good education like their own children get, but to offer whatever helps billionaires maximize their own interests and costs the least – at least that would be honest.
Zoom is back, and the de blasio DOE came up with a way to make sure that students’ privacy isn’t violated.
They didn’t need a bunch of billionaires to do it. That’s leadership.
Let’s all repeat — when the private schools where the billionaires send their children adopt these ideas for “remote learning” and when those private schools adopt this Gates-developed curriculum, then come back to us. Those private schools all rejected common core and outright refused to allow their students to take the same common core state tests as public school students. Testing was never about billionaires believing that it was a good way to measure a students’ worth. If private schools had been forced to have their kids take the same state tests with the results made public, the billionaire supporters would have made sure the politicians they owned like Cuomo put an end to state testing.
I realize that there are many haters of public education who embrace the billionaires’ belief that the only children who deserve a $50,000/year education are those whose very rich parents will also subsidize that $50,000 education with private tutors who charge exorbitant hourly rates.
For poverty stricken public schools teaching students with far more needs and disadvantages, those billionaire education experts demand that they should only receive a small fraction of the money that is spent to teach their own private-school educated children. .
So, I’m calling Cuomo’s and Gates’ bluff. Have the private schools that teach the children of billionaire donors use their system and then bring it to public schools.
Of course, that could have happened long ago if those reformers didn’t decide that the “other” kids deserved harsh no-excuses (and cheap) charters while their own children were lavished with small class sizes in private schools who refused to have their students take the same state tests that those billionaires claimed were the only measure of every child’s but their own’s worth.
Call their bluff. The children of privileged billionaires have always been exempt from what these billionaires claim is what children — except for their own – should be grateful to have.
The only reform necessary is to give every student the same education as the children of the billionaires on Cuomo’s committee got. But deep down those billionaires believe that their kids are more deserving and more special and more worthy than kids whose parents are not as rich.
The fact that anyone takes them seriously, and the fact that the co-opted education reporters never even questioned why Bill Gates and Obama’s kids were at private schools that refused — opted out — of taking state tests is very telling.
When the private schools where Bill Gates children attended entirely adopt the curriculum his foundation is pushing, then his ideas might have some credibility. Come back to us when they do.
And reporters, start asking them why they insist that other people’s kids don’t deserve the education that their own kids got.
This will be my last comment, as the entrenched enmity against Cuomo, Gates and the education Departments of the state and New York City are making it very difficult for us to focus on the immediate crisis in front of us. And I’m not talking about coronavirus. It’s the economic disaster that is coming at us with absolutely no chance there won’t be significant cutbacks in state and local educational budgets. I have shared all of the views that you all are putting forth, and they are all in my opinion correct about the past. And yes the past can be prologue, so we need to be as involved in shaping the outcomes as possible. But to just reject out of hand the proposals of the governor, if you look at the specific points he’s recommending, which it doesn’t sound like many have, then this is an opportunity to try to offset the oncoming financial disaster facing our system and students. It is our responsibility to open our minds to any source of funds to assist in this effort. Mark my words, a month or two from now that’s going to be the reality and the crisis. We need to let go of the Common Core, Private schools vs. Charter schools (which I have stood completely on your side with forever,) and every other extraneous issue other than finding as many resources as possible. I’m sorry, but until you have another source of funds to maintain program and possibly adjust to the demands of the current situation, then you’re just howling into the wind. Again, I have always shared the same beliefs as you all do, and will continue to do so. But this is rubber meets the road time, and we have to put aside the other arguments and do the very best we can to shape the policy outcomes for the children.
May all of you be safe and healthy and continue the battle on behalf of the children.
Steven M., you don’t really believe that Gates is doing this out of the goodness of his heart and expects no ROI? So far his experiments have ended up costing the lab rats far more than he put into the efforts. I’m not against the Gates foundation giving money toward the development of plans to reimagine schools in light of the pandemic. I am against his providing the experts and/or making the decisions. Real, boots on the ground educators have been absent from the decision making process for decades, which strikes me as extremely odd. As Chiara said, let him try all his experiments on the private schools his own children have attended. The people who have worked in public education can decide if those ideas that show promise can be applied to public schools and how.
It’s funny, I’m not usually in the position of Defending Bill Gates. However you need to acknowledge that he and his wife and provided substantial funds to various charitable organizations and efforts. And it’s just not true in New York state that Educators aren’t involved in any decisions regarding these funds. There are stakeholder groups and open regions meetings to gain input.
Which stakeholders agreed to implement Bill Gates’ Common score standards? Which stakeholders thought that reevaluating teachers by student scores was a good idea? Which stakeholders were invited to approve inBloom? Gates is famous for making decisions and listening only to his staff, not teachers or parents. He buys consent.
As I clearly stated, there is nothing to be gained about looking back at the errors of the Common Core and teacher evaluation. Look forward the future is ahead and it’s daunting.
Why should New York invite a man whose history is one of repeated education failure to reimagine its education system?
Why ignore his track record of bad ideas and repeated failure?
First of all, let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past. That requires being aware of past mistakes, CCSS and high stakes testing, and who played a major role in their denoument–Bill Gates. Why would you want the opinion of a man who has been so destructive to public education? His money and advice never come free.
I vaguely remember the days before he gave anything to anyone. He said something to the effect that he wasn’t into charitable giving yet. If he just gave money to worthy causes that would be one thing. He doesn’t. He wants to control the narrative. Moreover, He and his fellow billionaires spend far too much time figuring out how not to pay taxes. No doubt his actions are perfectly legal. Let’s talk about ethical. Too much wealth concentrated in the hands of too few people.
I see no reason to pile on Flerp. I hear him asking real teachers, like those on this blog, how can we best use the tech tools on hand to deliver remote ed that is better than the predictable canned curriculum (or other knowledge= testable data-bites) dreamt of by the likes of Gates? Not for later, when/ if schools return to normal– For now. And perhaps in summer, most likely in Fall, & as supplement to the probable part-time/ staggered IRL classtime we can anticipate during slow ramp-up to fulltime.
Hoping some enterprising souls have thought of collecting/ indexing feedback, ideas, & concrete examples from teachers. We are the ones best positioned to create something that works for us and our students and share it with others, because we’re doing it now. And most of us no doubt assessing/ revising as we go to make it better, just like in the classroom. It’s what we do.
Moreover, where is the organization that gives a damn about what teachers think that has the power to make sure teachers voices are heard? I think most teachers are probably use to having their voices be heard no further than their own team and if they are lucky their principal and if they are even luckier their district. Teachers are at the bottom of the power structure. Beyond their own classrooms, their voices are synthesized by whoever is above them in the hierarchy.
Exactly.
Steve McNally, I read Cuomo’s points thoroughly & suspect so did everyone else discussing this. Ed tech has been around for decades, & the goals enumerated here are almost without exception* unattainable without govtl– and taxpayer– buy-in, support, and funding, tech or no tech. These are ideals which are given only lip service in our national, state, & local approach to funding education. We have become a nation which underfunds, and barely recognizes the concept of public goods in general. Once-fringe libertarian ideology has pushed the Republican near-majority so far right that education itself is questioned as a public good, as evidenced by 20 yrs of legislation undermining it.
*attainable – been done plenty, & of negligible value: sage-on-a-stage giant lectures reproduced on video [“how can we deploy classroom technology, like immersive cloud virtual classrooms learning, to recreate larger class or lecture hall environments in different locations?”]
I don’t know where you get the idea that funds will be forthcoming from Gates or Schmidt for NYS or any other state’s publicedsys. That’s not how they work, per Gates when recently asked about his Foundation’s providing funds for something or other covid-related. He made it very clear, they’re not in the business of funding public entities, they put people together, facilitate, enable deals to be made. Which is reiterated in Cuomo’s message: “…Gates Foundation, who will support New York State by helping bring together national and international experts, as well as provide expert advice as needed.” Gates is a salesman, pushing policies, framing projects w/an eye to enhancing the biz he’s involved in.
The disaster you anticipate is coming, & billionaire industrialists won’t be handing out lifeboats. If they can hang onto assets through the coming storm, the only way to get our hands on them is to tax them.
Diane, I have been following you for as long as you have been online and before. I have agreed with virtually every position you have espoused, as radical as they sounded to the established orthodoxy.
However, on this issue I believe you are grievously wrong on the possibilities for reimagining the next classrooms of the future that integrate technology deeply and and innovatively to expand learning opportunities, particularly for the perpetually underserved students of lower-income groups.
Technology and distance learning are the only realistic means to turn around the paradigm of geographic location determining educational opportunity and economic success in our extremely inequitable system.
Certainly we all support additional teachers, resources, and higher pay. However, it would be unrealistic for us to expect that to happen anytime soon. Clearly, the economic hit from this pandemic is going to inevitably result in much fewer resources being available for these purposes. In fact, it is almost certain that educational resources are going to be radically reduced over the near term.
I believe much of the push back on the Governor’s proposal is rooted in the approach of bringing in billionaires to provide input on how to make the technological changes necessary for the modern classroom under these resource constraints.
As a thought experiment, I would suggest we look at the concrete steps laid out in this proposal and remove the billionaires from the discussion. Are there any of those steps that you would oppose to develop the next generation educational settings? I would say no.
Therefore, unlike the billionaires’ involvement in the Common Core and Charter movements, technology improvements and implementation would seem to be directly in Bill Gates wheelhouse. Let’s use their resources and research capabilities, led by the Regents and educators in the field, to take advantage of this opportunity to provide modern educational tools and innovative uses of them.
We do not need to cede control of the process to leverage these resources to the benefit of our students.
Thank you for the outstanding contributions you have made to the field over the years. You have taught us much.
Most schools in New York already have access to computers as computers are useful tools. The best use of computers is when trained teachers decide how and when they are needed, not people representing computer companies.
The use of technology that supplants human instruction has already failed. Cyber charters are the lowest performing schools of all including public and private schools. https://credo.stanford.edu/publications/online-charter-school-study
We have yet to see any computer applications that improve inequity. Poor students generally do not have access to computers at home. Computer and instruction by trained professional teachers are not equivalent. Most computers are electronic worksheets that collect data and bore students to tears. Cyber instruction that supplants real teachers does not work well in all disciplines and all students.
You say: We do not need to cede control of the process to leverage these resources to the benefit of our students.
I think you have no understanding that Gates will insist on framing and controlling anything he funds and will pay for steam-roller promotions of anything he supports.
He has no respect for research that is not from his grantees and he is known for mistaking the point of the research he does read (as in the failed “small school project”).
Gates sent over $64 million to Harvard economists in the hope of identifying “measures of effective teachers.” The MET project was a flop. The economists who were clueless about their access to schools, classrooms, teachers, and information about students.
The wheelhouse metaphor implies that you think Gates should steer the New York education ship. Gates is unfit for that job. He also retains a financial interest in Microsoft and its products for schools. Public education is no longer public when it is entrusted to billionaires.
In Gates’ world collaboration=domination.
Thanks Laura for reminding people of the history involved with Gates and education.
I have noticed some new people on this blog recently who quite obviously have no clue about what that history entails.
There is nothing wrong with being ignorant IF one makes an attempt to remedy that ignorance.
Just to be clear, I retired from the New York State education department this year. I spent 22 years in education finance and policy. It’s not appropriate to label people ignorant just because you disagree with their opinion.
The upshot: be should not offer teachers advice until one has done the due diligence to educate myself about that history.
See my previous response. I do know what I’m talking about, I just have I’m more open mind to the needs and possibility of expanding all options to deal with the new realities of technology and distributed education. I must say oh, that I find it ironic that all of the folks commenting so far appear to be coming from the new Orthodoxy that only teachers need to be consulted how to advance technology in the classroom. We need to work together to both expand our knowledge bases, while ensuring we do not lose control over the outcomes. In the next few months when school budgets are cut by drastic amounts, where do you all think we’ll get the resources to expand educational technology for the benefit of our students?
Most people really have not begun to fathom the gravity of the financial crisis that is going to hit state and local budgets. It is Armageddon. NYC is planning to cut garbage collection. The subway has become a hellscape with 90% ridership and pandemic-related service cuts will become with us for years if not permanently. Despite all this, the stock market has managed to tread water, giving public pension funds a semblance of normalcy. If the stock market goes, those pensions immediately go deep into “underfunded” territory, adding new billions to the already yawning budget shortfalls, meaning even more service cuts. It is so bad that it is difficult to even conceptualize, which may be why most people who haven’t personally experienced financial ruin yet aren’t talking about it.
I meant technology in general is in Gates’s wheelhouse. I agree that school reform, i e Common Core, Etc. are not in his wheelhouse.
I said you were ignorant about the Gates history of what can only be characterized as failed policies.
Then again, Mary Ellen Elia was a Gates acolyte.
The policies of the NY State Education department under Elia did great damage to education in NY State and are nothing short of shameful.
Stephen McNally,
College and Universities are ALSO wrestling with teaching students remotely. The group of most selective colleges are NOT having Bill Gates and bunch of billionaires come up with a solution for them.
FLERP!,
I don’t know what the fact that there is a financial crisis has to do with how to deliver education. Are you suggesting that the Cuomo and Gates goal is to deliver the cheapest education?
To both of you:
Many private universities are realizing that their finances are dire. And yet they have not been asking Bill Gates and other billionaires to tell them what to do – leaving out all university administrators and faculty because Harvard, Yale, MIT, Williams, Pomona, et al know that Bill Gates and other billionaires can lead them to the solution.
I’m trying to imagine the outrage if the Ivy League universities announced that a committee of billionaires led by Bill Gates – with no educators – would be re-imagining how Ivy League colleges delivered education.
Everyone would agree it was ridiculous.
Of course, that’s because privilege matters. And Cuomo and the billionaires – like all bullies — always know that their victims should be the ones with the least power and resources.
Not all billionaires are bullies but the ones who are not are not active in the education reform movement and in fact, a few have recently been critical of it.
Education reform focuses on targeting public schools- the place where billionaire bullies can find the weakest victims to harm. They know they could not do this to private schools or ivy league colleges because the “victims” have the power to fight back.
Although it will not surprise me if public colleges and universities — especially the ones that aren’t state flagships which have more affluent students — aren’t faced with similar kinds of “we refuse to give you unworthy low-income students what our own much more deserving children must have” fake reforms led by panels of “expert billionaires”.
I don’t know why you brought up a red herring to this discussion about K through 12 education, talking about post secondary issues. I don’t see the relevance. The only thing I would say is you made a false assumption that there would not be educator involvement in the Gates effort, when the governor clearly stated it would be collaboration with educators
We are used to false promises about “collaboration.”
Stephen McNally,
You completely ignored it when I brought up the issue of why the K-12 private schools the billionaire education “experts” kids’ attend never use any of their cockamamie ideas, and the schools they send their children to outright refuse to participate in the state testing when they are perfectly free to do so.
(As you probably know, there are a handful of private schools and parochial schools who do have their students take the NY State tests — and their students don’t do particularly well. But those aren’t the private schools that educate the children of the billionaires types who Cuomo believes should be telling the schools that other people’s children go to how to teach.)
And since colleges are ALSO wrestling with distance learning, there is no reason that they wouldn’t welcome what you seem to believe is the superior knowledge of the billionaire experts in education on the Cuomo panel.
You seem to be in the finance area and not someone who has ever taught in a public school. How many years of classroom teaching did you do in a public school?
Like I say, you always know how seriously the billionaires believe in what they force on other people’s children by whether they expose their own children to it.
Their children get a vision of education that is very different than the reforms they want other people’s children to experience. That speaks a lot louder than anything else. They care only about keeping their own taxes low and figuring out a way to cut budgets while professing that other people’s children are getting the superior educate that their own privileged offspring are much too important to have to experience.
I’m calling their bluff and you are oddly obsessed with changing the subject. Why? Call their bluff along with us. if this panel of billionaires and Cuomo come up with a great idea to teach kids, then it should be first embraced by the private schools where their own children attend.
Don’t you agree?
You oddly seem on the side of the rich bully that only beats up the most vulnerable poor kids and let’s the other rich kids alone.
If the rich bully is actually “helping” the vulnerable poor kids with his actions, then certainly the rich kids would be clamoring for that bully to direct his “help” at them as well.
I’m afraid you are the one that ignored my whole point that the economic disaster coming at us like a freight train needs to be focused on exclusively at this point. We can go on and on about billionaires, private schools charter schools and everything else. And as I said clearly oh, I’m on everybody’s side on those issues. Expanding our energies on those instead of the immediate needs of the children is self-centered. Please Focus. My question to you all remains, where are we going to get the resources we need to fill a 20 to 30% cut in educational resources in the next several months?
If we had the political will, we could get the resources to fund our schools by taxing the richest members of our society: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, the Waltons, the Koch family, and hundreds of other billionaires.
But, that is just not going to happen in the near future, regardless of its merit, which I strongly support
Distance learning is the worst of all the alternatives.
It just happens to be the only one we have right now.
I thought that clear from what I said. But, it NOT a bad thing, it is the tool of the future and you all need to embrace it and leverage its possibilities.
When you sound like a marketing claim, you lose credibility. We all know the usefulness of computers, but I ain’t never gonna embrace no computer!
Hey, Bill Gates is free to give charitable gifts just like the rest of us. Ask me if I get to tell the American Cancer Society how to spend it.
Stephen McNally says “My question to you all remains, where are we going to get the resources we need to fill a 20 to 30% cut in educational resources in the next several months?”
Cutting the subsidies given to oil companies.
Cutting the subsidies given to charter schools.
Cutting the subsidies given to corporations.
Cutting the subsidies given to polluting industries.
Cutting the money given to defense industry.
Establish Medicare for All and use the vast savings in not having to pay health insurance costs for school employees.
Raising taxes on the rich so that they are much closer to the level of taxes paid under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower who was not a socialist but believed that what made this country great was the rich paying their fair share of taxes to support the very things that made their vast accumulation of wealth possible — the programs that previous generations of Americans paid for with their taxes.
Dwight D. Eisenhower – an American hero – did not believe that the greedy rich needed to pay the lowest tax rate in history so that they had more money with which to buy politicians so they could direct those politicians into how to spend the taxes paid by middle class Americans. Dwight D.
Any other questions, Mr. McNally?
Nycpsp, “Of course, that’s because privilege matters. And Cuomo and the billionaires – like all bullies — always know that their victims should be the ones with the least power and resources.”
I don’t think that’s exactly it. Yes, in general we have a paradigm, created by decades of trickle-up deregulation, that gives big-money special interests overweening power to define policy – and push to have it implemented top-down, without the annoyances of public debate. Our biggest problem as a society.
However, Gates and his ilk are attracted to public education [et al] not because they’re bullies looking to push around the weakest members of society. The public sphere for them is simply the source of vast pots of tax money to be manipulated into their coffers. The current crisis represents another turning point where the pie shrinks & the $cloutiest circle to grab the biggest hunks. Given the nature of national disaster, the biggest (if not all the) hunks are held by the govt. We will see them lining up at organized points of distribution.
Mr McNally, you’re saying that online class is the great equalizer, insinuating that students’ financial futures are determined by which teachers they have or what schools they attend. That’s where your argument begins and fails. It’s the classic Rheeform blurred reasoning accomplished by ignoring facts. You’ve been reading this blog for eight years and Diane’s books for longer than that, and you don’t know what factors most contribute to students’ futures? Unlikely.
Here’s a real solution, one that actually works: Mario Cuomo, Bill Gates, Eric Schmitt, and Michael Bloomberg pay much higher taxes to fund unemployment insurance, schools, and medical insurance. The companies the billionaires ran, heavily invest in, and influence pay higher wages instead of higher dividends and executive salaries. That way, students’ parents can afford better food, shelter, and other necessities and resources for their children. And that way, better jobs await the students when they are out of school. That’s how you brighten the future for the many young people, in the richest country of all time, who need and deserve better. A brighter future will not be accomplished for anyone by giving them another app.
Excellent reply. Thank you very much.
You evidently are not at all familiar with all of the research that shows geographic location defines education opportunities and therefore economic success in New York state. Your premise is completely flawed
Affluence and poverty are the most important predictors of school “success” or “failure.”
If you want to make assertions, cite research, not your opinion.
It’s not my job to do your research for you. Not to be harsh but, if you think that’s not a truism proven by years of research, you go find out the research that proves otherwise. I’ll stand by my statement as it is a well-documented truth
Where you get your “truth” is extremely important to analyzing the veracity of your assertions. This archives of this blog is full of references to the claims we make.
And as a follow-up, you are completely wrong about teachers not determining outcomes. Look up research at Syracuse University where it was deeply study and proven the teacher quality is one of the most important factors in Student Success
Decades of social science have demonstrated that home life determines school success or failure more than individual teachers.
Gates wasted nearly a billion proving that your claim is wrong.
Wasn’t it one of the national educational statistics associations that found only teachers were responsible for about 14% of the in-school factors that led to student success? As you said out of school factors were far more influential.
Yes
The American Statistical Association released a short report in 2014 cautioning about the misuse of student scores to evaluate teachers. It estimated that individual teachers account for about 14% of the variation in student scores.
Thank you, Diane. My computer files are so disorganized that locating specific info is close to a lost cause. Snipets of info stick in my mind, thank goodness. And thank goodness for you and the other research savvy people on this blog.
Of course that’s true. The two are not mutually exclusive. I find it ironic on this site where everyone is attacking me as if I don’t believe in the important or pregnancy of classroom teachers and one-on-one instruction, that you would be arguing against the further fact that the better the teachers the better the outcomes. That’s why we support as much teacher preparation equality as we do. Jeez, people I’m on your side. My only point is that everything we all want to do in a perfect world is not going to be done with an oncoming recession. Point out one time we have ever seen cutbacks that resulted in more teachers more curriculum more tools.
Are you going to cite the bunk and debunked Raj Chetty “study” too? That’s enough fake research. Poverty is concentrated geographically in this country, and the causes of poverty are not generated in schools. Teachers do not cause poverty. It’s pretty insulting when you say we do. You should stop now. Simmer down and vote to pay higher taxes.
You are setting up Straw Dogs by putting words in my mouth that I never said. I did not say technology is the great equalizer, I said that it is the only tool we are going to have in the near term given the resource constraints to try and address unacceptable educational inequity caused by geography, income, in Parental educational levels. And it is a fact that the Lesser quality teachers are concentrated in the most inequitable Geographic areas by teachers Soul selection and other factors including higher salaries. These are facts. And you can knock off the ad hominem suggestions that I simmer down. I don’t need your condescension.
You are correct, Mister McNally, that you are making me upset. You are attacking my profession. You are causing me pain by reviving traumatic memories of Arne Duncan, so I am losing patience with you. I’ll make you a deal. As an English teacher, I will refrain from cutting up your many errors in capitalization and punctuation if you cease and desist arguing that students need to use the web to flee from their teachers. Test scores are not low in some geographic areas because those areas are where the boogeyman teachers are concentrated. Only economic level is reflected in test scores, not teacher quality. Now, that’s enough. I have a virtual stack of essays and short answers to grade, and people can only stare at screens for so long before their eyes jump out their heads and try to run away, so have a nice day.
McNally is an ignorant provocateur
Wow, Ravitch, that is a nasty personal comment that should be way below you. You make me sad with that. Thought you had an open mind, but I was wrong.
Well, I’m glad you are going to go work on tests, as all you have done is make completely inaccurate statements about what I have said. Whether it is deliberate or an issue with reading comprehension (see, I can make nasty statements, too,) or you are just blinded by your assumptions, it upsets me that you likely have the same tendencies in your classroom with students that question your beliefs.
I have never once “attacked your profession.” Show me the quote where I said that. I never once said “students need to use the web to flee their teachers.” Show me the quote where I said that. I never once said “Test scores are low in some geographic areas because those areas are where the boogeyman teachers are concentrated.” Show me the quote where I said that.
I did say that student performance (test scores for short, despite the massive errors in that statement) is directly affected by teacher quality. That is an indisputable fact. If you say, as you do, that they are not impacted by a better prepared or more highly educated or experienced teacher, then you are literally saying that your and other teachers’ effectiveness is not affected by the measures of teacher quality. That would be disturbing, if it was not the actual opposite of reality. I’m pretty sure you have seen in your own school the results of a poorly performing teacher. Or, do you think they are all above average or perfect just because they are teachers?
And, it’s a petty attack to condescendingly complain about spelling and capitalization when a person is obviously replying to many attack emails with voice recognition software on a mobile phone. So, I took the time to boot up my computer to be sure you wouldn’t be offended by such major issues as we address likely resource cuts within the next month of 25-30%. I had hoped that people would get off their high horses of dudgeon and just address that factor and the need to replace it with other resources, especially remote technology.
One last note for all of you: With all of the physical schools closed down for these past months, did we stop teaching our students? No, we busted our butts to bring distance (at-home) learning up to speed for both students and their parents. A huge undertaking and a huge success. Do any of you think that was a bad thing? Of course, it can’t replace classroom teaching fully. And with the massive resource cuts and the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic is not going to be completely solved by September, I think it is critical that more of that effort is going to be required between now and then. As we always say, it’s about the children, not the adults or the politicians.
We probably parted ways back when Gates was being touted as the answer to our prayers. That man has a very checkered past as far as teachers are concerned. Will we need to ramp up access to remote learning tools? Of course we will. Is Bill Gates the one we want leading that effort? No! “The children” sometimes appear to be an abstract concept to him, like chess pieces you move around to see what happens. If Bill Gates wants to donate money to an effort to make computer technology accessible to everyone, great. If he wants to control the project, forget it. When did he get crowned king?
Doing a little reviewing just now. I meant Andrew Cuomo, not Mario, of course. Oops! All these wealth and power dynasties are difficult to keep straight.
This is not rocket science.
WHETHER… “Technology and distance learning are the only realistic means to turn around the paradigm of geographic location determining educational opportunity and economic success in our extremely inequitable system” is highly questionable. There is nothing to suggest that ed delivered online is anything but seriously subpar by comparison to IRL teacher-student interaction in the classroom. One might argue quite successfully, based on plenty of studies, that a one-room schoolhouse rural kids have to travel miles to attend beats remote learning hands down. However a case could certainly be made for supplementing that with online resources. Remote learning could arguably be an assist, or even better than an overcrowded, decrepit, dangerous inner city school… Although in that case you have to seriously ask whether you are just copping out & providing another lousy ed option to the poor, because it’s politically too hard a reach to tax industry/ the rich.
IF… you’re just looking to cover a year or two of pandemic, & positioning yourself for the next one, so you have to settle for subpar online ed, the first step is NOT “reimagining education.” It’s creating the infrastructure: funding bandwidth & wifi & connecting devices to everyone in the nation, along w/the regular updates & upgrades required, & making it cheap/ affordable for all. Like we do with electrical power.
If I told Eva Moskowitz that I insisted that she allow a group of people who oppose the existence of charter schools to “reinvent” her schools, she would reject that, understandably.
So why do public school parents and supporters have to accept it? The entire ed reform echo chamber are cheerleaders for charters and vouchers. I want actual committed advocates for public schools too. I don’t want people who grudgingly allow that public schools probably have to continue to exist to act as a backup while these folks privatize. That’s not fair to public school students. They can do better than that. They could have people working in and on their schools who actually support them.
Brilliant comment!!
One of the not-so-profound conclusions I’ve come to about life during Pandemic 2020 is that having TRUST going into this epic disaster was absolutely essential.
You can have all the software and hardware and blah, blah, blah you want…
But TRUST MATTERS, especially if you want to do something at a distance (like school) during what for so many people is a life or death situation.
The intensity of anger at Governor Cuomo, President Trump, really, you fill in the blank with the name of a leader: __________, it’s like the screen of this computer might erupt in flames, the vitriol is that explosive.
Society just can’t work this way. (Yeah, I’m stating the obvious once again.)
If I organized my classroom this way, we’d hardly get anywhere.
So, I’ll know Gov Cuomo is for real when he calls Diane Ravitch, and asks her, hey, professor, what can we do to help our students?
All his talk about “life is change” and “re-imagining New York” won’t mean anything to me until he shows HE can change.
My guess is that he is tapping people with deep pockets because they can maybe bring a bag load ‘o cash with ’em.
Well, Michael Bloomberg’s presidential campaign, which crashed and burned despite mountains of his own money, proves that while money matters, it sure ain’t everything.
Crying in Bed
As saying said
“They’ve made their bed”
And though they cry
“They now must lie”
very good observation. Trust is at the base of a lot we do in society.
Resources matter. Read up on Foundation Aid.
Along those lines, it no longer amazes me that politicians turn to non-educators to “reinvent” education. It’s now standard thinking after decades of belittling teachers’ intellectual abilities and motives. But it seemed that the education community was finally pushing back. It cannot stop doing so now, particularly when public appreciation of teachers is at an all-time high.
Do not delude yourselves into thinking that this pandemic will go to waste for the reformers. Respected education organizations and scholars need to get their plans and their visions for the future out there before they do. We’ve had enough of being on the defense.
Kudos to the education groups who were on top of this issue immediately. Like Katz mentioned in his article, following the Governor’s announcement of the Gates Foundation involvement, I did experience a “reflexive panic”. Within hours though I received messages in my email from advocacy groups against the Gates Foundation involvement in our schools. We need to be vigilant during these challenging times to prevent further oligarchical encroachment!
He can let himself out at the back gate(!)