Peter Goodman, former teacher and frequent blogger about education in New York City and New York State, reviews Bill Gates’ next big idea to reform education: Redesign Algebra 1.
He begins:
From Small High Schools to Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) to Value-Added Measurements (VAM) to the Common Core State Standards, the Gates Foundation has been searching for the magic bullet, a vaccine for curing education, and the “cures” have proven fruitless (See links above)
The next magic bullet is a cure for Algebra 1, the course viewed as standing in the way of graduation and success in the post graduate world.
The Gates Foundation released an application for a new initiative: “Balance the Equation.”
Goodman warns that Gates is wandering into another mess:
Why is the Gates funding another algebra initiative? Why not expand the Moses Algebra Project?
Bill is tip-toeing into another education morass.
If so, at least his record is consistent.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Why is the Gates funding another algebra initiative? Why not expand the Moses Algebra Project?”
That is the real question here.
People need to IGNORE Bill Gates.
With regards to Gates and education, the “cure” is consistently worse than the disease.
“….and the “cures” have proven fruitless..” AND destructive!
“Bill and the Beanstalk”
Deep within the garden Gates
He planted seeds, for common fates
For beanstalks that would reach the
cloud
A Common Core for teaching crowd
The beanstalks grew with public money
Grew in the Land of Milken honey
Put down roots in public schools
Teaching standards, teaching rules
Beanstalks to which teachers bowed
Channels to the data cloud
Techies harvest student fruit
The more they eat, the more we toot
“The House that Gates Built”
Billyan errs and Common Cores
Rickety stairs and creaky floors
Leaky roofs and shaky stoops
That’s the house that Gates built
Flooded basements, cracked
Foundations
Broken casements, termite nations
Sagging beams and cracking seams
That’s the house that Gates built
Failing kids and firing teachers
Software bids and testing leechers
Standardizing and capitalizing
That’s the house that Gates built
Please no!!! Gates is having ideas about education again?!?!?!?!
Just how big will the catastrophe be this time?
Light Bulbs
Light is on
But no one’s home
Gates is wrong
So hold the phone!
I’m sure there are more effective ways to teach algebra than the traditional follow the rules method. I’m sure that believing that kids are capable and acting on it would have significant impact. However, the fact that higher algebra I pass rates are associated with later academic success and graduation implies correlation not causation. If policymakers continue to ignore poverty, continue to underfund and undermine public education, and fail to provide teacher with time and resources for professional growth we will continue to get the same inequitable results we have today.
Gates is likely looking for a magic bullet that is cheap, scalable and uses lots of technology. Like so much of what Gates does, his largesse is often seed money to promote more computer assisted instruction.
The effective Moses Algebra Project uses peer tutoring with which I have had some experience. When older or more competent students are trained and teamed to help weaker students, there is an academic and social-emotional gain for both students.
“From a dark damp place”
The magic silver bullet
Will kill the werewolf dead
And Billy Gates will pull it
From place that others dread
key phrasing: “uses lots of technology…”
The Moses Project
Gates came down from the mountain
With Common Core in tow
Drunk from the magic fountain
Which made the fiction flow
“The Tin Commandments”
Gates came down from the mountaintop
With tablets in his arms
Commandments: “Buy the Microslop
And patronize my harms”
Worst ideas all the way down
Billy’s worst idea
Is resting on another
And what is very clear
Is that one had a mother
I could do this all day and not run out of material, but have many more important things to do (like twiddle my thumbs)
The only “magic bullet” is the Teacher who are in the classroom with the students day in and day out. Every wild dream/nightmare from the likes of Bill Gates is meaningless and only gets in the way of educating of our children. Teachers who are well educated, supported by the school administration, Boards of Education, parents and the community are the central key to education in our public schools. Right now in the United States too much of this support is lacking. This lack of support is not going to change for the better with the current administrations in Washington DC and in so many of our local and state governments.
The Moses project should be joined with the Aaron project. Not the Hebrew leader Aaron, the baseball player, Henry Aaron. That would hit Algebra out of the park.
“Bill is tip-toeing into another education morass.”
I don’t think Gates ever tiptoes into anything.
He’s more like Bigfoot stomping his way over teachers and students alike.
Come to think of it, there is another similarity:
Bigfoot lives in the Pacific Northwest .
And so does Bill Gates.
Hmm. I wonder if they have ever been photographed together.
Also, Bigfoot has B I G in his name.
And so does Bill Gates.
Also, Bill Gates has code.
And Bigfoot has (a fur) coat.
And Bill Gates is a media star.
And so is Bigfoot.
Bored billionaire bungling again! I don’t know why Gates doesn’t do something that he could do, with a fair amount of expertise, to aid education. He could insist on building high speed, broad band infrastructure, making it available to every household in the US. He could see that every student has a computer/ tablet and internet access in their home. He could also dump a bunch of his money into insuring all learners have nutritional food to aid their brains and bodies in working. He could put people to work creating an internet infrastructure and food program to support remote learning. He could pour $$$$ into the health crisis created by poverty and the unwillingness of Repugnants to allow every person in this country to receive health. It might not be as sexy as ending diseases on other continents. Surely he could help here at home-without mucking up algebra!-AND deliver aid around the world. There are issues that can be resolved with money, rather than pouring his money into a non-issue.
Bored billionaire bungling again! I don’t know why Gates doesn’t do something that he could do, with a fair amount of expertise, to aid education. He could insist on building high speed, broad band infrastructure, making it available to every household in the US. He could see that every student has a computer/ tablet and internet access in their home. He could also dump a bunch of his money into insuring all learners have nutritional food to aid their brains and bodies in working. He could put people to work creating an internet infrastructure and food program to support remote learning. He could pour $$$$ into the health crisis created by poverty and the unwillingness of Repugnants to allow every person in this country to receive health. It might not be as sexy as ending diseases on other continents. Surely he could help here at home-without mucking up algebra!-AND deliver aid around the world. There are issues that can be resolved with money, rather than pouring his money into a non-issue.
Gates doesn’t do those things because the outcomes are dispersed and therefore not directly controlled by and attributable to his foundation (and therefore to him)