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Rand Study: Gates Foundation Wasted $575 Million on Teacher Evaluation Initiative

By dianeravitch
June 22, 2018 //
46

Remember the excitement about using test scores to measure teacher effectiveness? Remember Raj Chetty, who expected to win a Nobel Prize for his research on teacher effectiveness tied to test scores? Remember the heated debate about whether a single teacher could produce huge lifetime gains in earnings? Remember when reformers confidently asserted that they knew how to identify the best and worst teachers (by the rise or fall of student scores)? Remember the starry-eyed predictions that schools would get rid of all the “bad” teachers and would soon have only “great” teachers. The architects of Obama’s Race to the Top were so impressed by these claims that they required states to change their laws to require this method of evaluating teachers. Most such laws are still in force.

A new study by the Rand Institute finds that this initiative failed. The Gates Foundation spent $575 million to implement this policy and it produced nothing, other than to discourage teachers from working with the neediest students.

Matt Barnum of Chalkbeat reports:

“Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address reflected the heady moment in education. “We know a good teacher can increase the lifetime income of a classroom by over $250,000,” he said. “A great teacher can offer an escape from poverty to the child who dreams beyond his circumstance.”

“Bad teachers were the problem; good teachers were the solution. It was a simplified binary, but the idea and the research it drew on had spurred policy changes across the country, including a spate of laws establishing new evaluation systems designed to reward top teachers and help weed out low performers.

“Behind that effort was the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which backed research and advocacy that ultimately shaped these changes.

“It also funded the efforts themselves, specifically in several large school districts and charter networks open to changing how teachers were hired, trained, evaluated, and paid. Now, new research commissioned by the Gates Foundation finds scant evidence that those changes accomplished what they were meant to: improve teacher quality or boost student learning.

“The 500-plus page report by the Rand Corporation, released Thursday, details the political and technical challenges of putting complex new systems in place and the steep cost — $575 million — of doing so.

“The post-mortem will likely serve as validation to the foundation’s critics, who have long complained about Gates’ heavy influence on education policy and what they call its top-down approach.

“The report also comes as the foundation has shifted its priorities away from teacher evaluation and toward other issues, including improving curriculum.“

In 2012,Melinda Gates claimed on the PBS Newshour that the Gates Foundation already had the knowledge to assure that there was an effective teacher in every classroom. She believed it. It wasn’t true.

Does the Gates Foundation ever learn or does it just break dishes and move on?

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations

Gerald Coles: Billionaires Want Poor Children’s Brains to Work Better

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2018 //
71

Education psychologist Gerald Coles reports that Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg plan to fund neurological research to find out why poor children’s brains aren’t working well enough to produce higher test scores.

Coles writes:

“Why are many poor children not learning and succeeding in school? For billionaire Bill Gates, who funded the start-up of the failed Common Core Curriculum Standards, and has been bankrolling the failing charter schools movement, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, it’s time to look for another answer, this one at the neurological level. Poor children’s malfunctioning brains, particularly their brains’ “executive functioning”–that is, the brain’s working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control–must be the reason why their academic performance isn’t better.

“Proposing to fund research on the issue, the billionaires reason that not only can executive malfunctioning cause substantial classroom learning problems and school failure, it also can adversely affect socio-economic status, physical health, drug problems, and criminal convictions in adulthood. Consequently, if teachers of poor students know how to improve executive function, their students will do well academically and reap future “real-world benefits.” For Gates, who is always looking for “the next big thing,” this can be it in education.

“Most people looking at this reasoning would likely think, “If executive functioning is poorer in poor children, why not eliminate the apparent cause of the deficiency, i.e., poverty?” Not so for the billionaires. For them, the “adverse life situations” of poor students are the can’t-be-changed-givens. Neither can instructional conditions that cost more money provide an answer. For example, considerable research on small class size teaching has demonstrated its substantially positive academic benefits, especially for poor children, from grammar school through high school and college. Gates claims to know about this instructional reform, but money-minded as he is, he insists these findings amount to nothing more than a “belief” whose worst impact has been to drive “school budget increases for more than 50 years.”

“Cash–rather, the lack of it–that’s the issue: “You can’t fund reforms without money and there is no more money,” he insists. Of course, nowhere in Gates’ rebuke of excessive school spending does he mention corporate tax dodging of state income taxes, which robs schools of billions of dollars. Microsoft, for example, in which Gates continues to play a prominent role as “founder and technology advisor” on the company’s Board of Directors would provide almost $29.6 billion in taxes that could fund schools were its billions stashed offshore repatriated.

“In a detailed example of Microsoft’s calculated tax scheming and dodging that would provide material for a good classroom geography lesson, Seattle Times reporter, Matt Day, outlined one of the transcontinental routes taken by a dollar spent for a Microsoft product in Seattle. Immediately after the purchase, the dollar takes a short trip to Microsoft’s company headquarters in nearby Redmond, Washington, after which it moves to a Microsoft sales subsidiary in Nevada. Following a brief rest, the dollar breathlessly zigzags from one offshore tax haven to another, finally arriving in sunny Bermuda where it joins $108 billion of Microsoft’s other dollars. Zuckerberg’s Facebook has similarly kept its earnings away from U.S. school budgets.”

Categories Billionaires, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Funding, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Poverty

When Bill Gates Fails, He Doesn’t Change Course, He Doubles Down

By dianeravitch
May 28, 2018 //
37

Marin Levine writes in NonProfit Quarterly about Bill Gates’ determination to reshape the nation’s schools. He has gone from failure to failure without changing course. The only time he admitted he was wrong was when he gave up his small schools initiative. Small schools are not a bad idea, but they can’t be stamped out in a cookie cutter fashion. Gates never understood that to succeed, they need to have a guiding spirit. Smallness all alone is not Reform.

On to charter schools, the Common Core and teacher evaluation. Failures. None delivered the Revolution he sought.

Now he is “helping” states with their ESSA plans, which means he is telling them what to do.

If only he could find a new idea, a new toy, a new hobby.

Give it up, Bill! You don’t know how to redesign American education. You never will, unless you made it your mission to give every child the same education you and your children had at Lakeside Academy.

Otherwise, he and Melinda are rich dilettantes playing with the lives of other people’s children.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations

Uganda Cracks Down on For-Profit Private Schools Run by Westerners

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2018 //
22

 

In the past few years, a group of Western investors have introduced low-cost for-profit private schools into African nations. Their company is called Bridge International Academies. It is a “tech startup” developed by entrepreneurs who hoped to do well by doing good. Veteran journalist Peg Tyre wrote a balanced yet implicitly scathing article about BIA in the New York Times Magazine. Some of the investors are Mark Zuckerberg, Pearson, the World Bank, Bill Gates, and Pierre Omidyar. The schools seek to replace the public schools, which are free but usually underfunded and poorly equipped. Bridge teachers teach from tablets loaded with scripted curriculum (apparently written in Boston by charter school teachers who understand how to write scripted curricula). It claims to get better results than the public schools, but at a higher price. Even though these schools are “low cost,” most families in poor nations can not afford to pay. It is operating schools in Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria, and a few in India.

Are they philanthropic saviors of African children or neocolonialists?

The government of Uganda is aggressively pushing back against the Bridge schools. 

Janet K. Museveni is First Lady and Minister of Education and Sports. She explains in the linked article that the 63 Bridge schools operating in Uganda are unlicensed and do not meet the standards required to operate.

The Bridge tactic of organizing pupils to march on behalf of the school corporation will sound familiar to Americans.

She writes:

“The media has been awash with news about the intransigent manner in which Management of the Bridge International Academies (BIA) which were recently renamed Bridge Schools are acting when faced with closure by the Ministry of Education and Sports for lack of licenses to operate in Uganda.

“It must be puzzling to the public particularly when all they see, as a result of the aggressive media campaign by Bridge operators, are pictures of children that look fairly “organised” as they match on streets and demonstrate at Parliament to protect the interests of the proprietors – at the risk of simply being used as pawns in a game they hardly comprehend.”

She goes on to describe the requirements of the law and the power of the Ugandan government to set standards. She describes the efforts made by the Government to regulate and inspect Bridge schools. These were the findings of the investigation.

 

“Key findings of the multi-disciplinary team that were brought to the attention of the Bridge team during this meeting are summarised hereunder:

“Issue #1: – Curriculum

“Early childhood Development (ECD):

“Children are kept for long hours at school without any designated resting places; did not use the approved ECD Learning Framework and the Caregivers’ Guide; administered written examinations which are against Government Policy.

“Lower Primary:

“The preparation, language of instruction and pedagogy were not in line with the approved curriculum.

“Upper Primary

“Curriculum Content, Schemes of Work, Lesson Plans, Textbooks, Schools and Class timetables did not conform to the approved Ugandan curriculum which they purport to implement. Many teachers were not free to adjust what they received on the tablets to teach from a central source and appeared to live in fear; claiming to be underpaid and lacking a forum for airing their grievances. Most of the Head Teachers, referred to as “Academy Managers” were not professionally trained and could not provide instructional leadership.

“Issue #2: – Teacher Qualification/Competence

“There were no clear documents on teachers’ qualifications in the Managers’ (Head Teachers’) Office; most teachers had no contracts; and about a half had no authentic Teacher Registration numbers.

“Notwithstanding the well-known benefits of introducing technology into the delivery process, teachers should have the freedom to adapt their classroom schemes of work, lesson plans, assessment and remedial activities to the practicalities of the specific teaching-learning context rather than be enslaved to the restrictions of centrally prepared and delivered lessons.

“Issue #3: – Bridge Schools Infrastructure

“All the facilities were temporary with School structures made of roofing sheet material (both walls and roof) and wire mesh, which are unsuitable for students during very hot weather conditions. The structures have no windows and battened wooden doors were used without proper framing. Sound-proofing between Classrooms is inadequate. There is no protection against lightening on any of the structures. Sanitation facilities are shared amongst students (boys and girls) and teachers. The facilities were not fit to be a school.

“Based on the findings/observations outlined above, specific and general recommendations were made on curriculum, teachers and facilities to enable them meet the basic requirements and minimum standards.”

She and the Government of zuganda are serious about regulating Bridge schools.

“I should, however, add that the impunity being exhibited by Bridge Management, and its likes, will not be tolerated and that Government will spare no effort to use all legal means to enforce the requirements of the Law to protect our children and our future, as a country.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, International, Pearson

AP Analysis: Bill Gates Can’t Stop Meddling in Education

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2018 //
41

The Associated Press reviewed the Gates Foundation’s education spending and found that Bill Gates is now engaged in “helping” shape the ESSA plans of the states. He just can’t stop telling everyone how to run their public schools even though everything he has tried until now has been a failure.

Does he care that teachers in several states have walked out due to underfunding? Is he trying to persuade governors and legislators to tax billionaires to raise school funding? Don’t hold your breath.

Presumably he wants to make sure they are sticking with high-stakes testing, Common Core, and charters, his three favorite reforms to which he never subjected his own children or their school. If it is not good enough for Lakeside Academy in Seattle, why must it be mandatory for the rest of the nation?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

A Parent Writes an Open Letter to Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2018 //
17

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg invited the public to offer their ideas, and Bertis Downs took them up on their offer. Bertis is a parent of students in the public schools of Athens, Georgia, where his daughters have thrived.

He starts his letter:

“I hear you guys are looking for feedback from people involved in public education — teachers, school board members, parents, and many others. I write to you as a public school parent.

“Since I spend time in my kids’ schools and other public schools, I talk to teachers, students, other parents, school board members and principals on a fairly regular basis. What I hear consistently is that the education policies of recent years, however good or bad the intentions, are disrupting public education — but not in a way that could be considered positive for anyone who truly wants to improve and transform our nation’s schools.

“Our teachers are at a breaking point. Mandated standardized testing remains out of control, with kids over-tested and teachers spending too much time on test prep. Many teachers are evaluated in a discredited method based on their students’ standardized test scores. Our teachers and schools have been beaten down through a narrative — that they don’t work at all — which you and other rich philanthropists have spent millions of dollars to perpetuate. These and other factors are contributing to a real crisis of morale among our educators…

“What we all need and want is pretty straightforward: schools that are the center of their community headed by strong leaders who foster and encourage a learning environment of mutual support and collaboration. That sounds a lot like the school your kids now attend, have attended, or you want them to attend, doesn’t it? (Yes, I know Mr. Zuckerberg has a very young daughter and two of the Gates children have already graduated from a private high school.)

“So why can’t the policies and politics you support mirror those priorities and practices for all our nation’s schoolchildren? Why have you funded efforts that have taken our schools in a different direction? You surely consider all of America’s kids just as worthy and deserving of good educations as your own kids.

“But what would you think if your kids’ schools pushed the mechanized, de-professionalized vision of “public education” that have come from school reforms and reformers whom you have supported? What if the private Lakeside Preps or Sidwell Friends had inexperienced teachers, large class sizes, excessive high-stakes testing, hiring and firing teachers based on test score results? How would you and other tuition-paying parents like that? Would you feel like you were getting your money’s worth?…

“If policies you have supported are such a good idea, why haven’t they been adopted in the schools either you or other reformers have supported? I think we can figure out the answer to that: those policies are not what will result in a stable, talented, dedicated teaching corps, the kind of teachers any great educational enterprise needs at its core.

“So since you are seeking honest feedback, here’s mine: Why not see now, or in the future, if your own kids want to try your local public schools? Then take the leap of faith so many of us do every morning when we send our children off for their school day at the neighborhood school. I happen to know Seattle and Silicon Valley schools have some great teachers and great schools. There are plenty, and not only the acclaimed teacher Jesse Hagopian at Garfield High School in Seattle. I bet your neighborhood public schools would be plenty good (although the teacher morale might be a bit on the low side these days).

“Your kids, and those of your reformer colleagues, would do just fine and the schools could certainly use the infusion of enthusiasm and social capital you would bring to PTA meetings and school council meetings. I think you would be amazed how much you’d learn and how much your kids would learn — in the classroom and beyond. A teacher I know in Raleigh, North Carolina, does a beautiful job of articulating some of the advantages of a public school experience especially for affluent kids: “Why Affluent Parents Should Demand Diverse Schools for their Children.” Read it if you will. My kids have benefited in some of these same ways as well.

“The really great thing about our public schools is that they are resilient. Despite the beatdown they have been subjected to over the years, despite the drubbing they take in the media and through federal and state policies, most of our public schools do a good job of educating our kids. And this is thanks to the committed and gifted teachers still teaching year after year.

“My own kids have had great teachers in Athens public schools, wonderful extracurricular opportunities, great friends, and bright futures as products of their dynamic and caring school communities. Your children would be okay in public schools too — in fact, I would contend most advantaged kids actually receive a better education as a result of the social fabric of a thriving public school. Cultural diversity is inherent in a typical, regular school setting like the ones my kids attend — and they are better off for that.”

There’s more. Open the link and read Bertis’s sound advice to Bill and Mark.

If they had sent their own children to public schools, they would have a greater appreciation for their strengths and needs. They wouldn’t suggest reinventing them every other day with their latest flash in the night.

Bottom line, Bill and Mark, join us in supporting our public schools. They are the future. Get on the right side of history.

Bertis Downs is a strong advocate for public schools because his children attended them. He is also a member of the board of the Network for Public Education, and I am proud to call him my friend.

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Supporting public schools

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg Want YOUR Ideas!

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2018 //
49

According to James Shelton and Bob Hughes, respectively of the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiate and the Gates Foundation, they want to hear from you!

They don’t understand why there is such a big gap between research and practice. They don’t see why schools are improving so slowly despite their best efforts.

They write”:

Recent months have thrust some of the education sector’s resource strains into the national spotlight. Across the country, budget constraints in several states have highlighted the difficulty of educating today’s students in crumbling schools, and with decades-old instructional materials. Meanwhile, many educators are struggling to support students through the increasing pressures of poverty, a changing economy, and a demand for higher-level skills. Yet despite these challenges, the education sector spends less than a tenth of the average percentage on research and development across other U.S. industries.

So, get this, despite low teachers’ salaries, despite crumbling buildings, despite funding that has not reached 2008 levels, the real problem is that we are not spending enough on R&D.

Could you help them with some of your ideas?

Here is my idea: When you two multibillionaires come up with a plan to reinvent education, find a willing district to experiment on. Get the consent of the teachers. Listen to them before you start your Big Plan. Don’t impose it on the nation until you can demonstrate that you have tried your Big Plan in one place and worked out the bugs and determined that it helps kids and teachers. Until then, please don’t use the nation as your petri dish. Our children are not your guinea pigs.

Categories Billionaires, Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Laura Chapman on the Gates-Zuckerberg Alliance

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2018 //
48

Laura Chapman reviewed the Gates-Zuckerberg alliance and their thoughts about next steps for reformers:

Forget charter schools but not test scores.
Here is where a big pot of money is going next.
“Forget crumbling schools” and “decades old teaching materials.”
That is the wisdom coming from Bob Hughes education leader for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Jim Shelton leader of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in education collaborators on a new project: Advanced Research and Development on three areas of interest.

Citing the mediocre NAEP tests scores in math and ELA, these hired hands of billionaires say they want to “meaningfully put more students on paths to success after high school. The truth is that we need to dramatically accelerate learning, and to do that, we need to understand it more deeply in order to design teaching environments and support systems that can deliver much better outcomes”

In addition to completely ignoring the crumbling schools and decades old instructional materials to say nothing of pre-judging teachers are too lethargic and muddled in getting students ready for “success” after high school, these two Quick Draw McGraw data-hungry fans of computers and artificial intelligence want to invest in proofs of the efficacy of their interests in 1. Mathematics, 2. Nonfiction writing, and
3. Executive function (the skill set concerning memory, self-control, attention, and flexible thinking). In the press release and invitation to researchers, each of these topics is presented with a brief rationale for inquiry along with the specific interests of these funders—interests that researchers should address.

The program called: Improving Writing: Developing the Requisite Habits, Skills and Strategies is introduced with some moaning about the low “proficiency” scores in writing on NAEP tests presented in a graph with breakouts for sub-groups. That graph is followed by a 2004 claim from a College Board Report that American companies spend about $3.1 billion annually for “writing remediation.” So, the education funders begin with a misunderstanding of “proficient” on NAEP tests, plus an outdated quote about the cost to businesses of remedial writing. That claim also comes from a dubious source of information, the College Board. Apparently a good reason to teach writing faster and better is to save money for business.

The brief rationale ends with a list of ten topics of interest for funding. Researchers are to address one or more of them. Here are a few:
—-“Support for writing planning – Efficient, technology-enhanced approaches to guide the planning of writing projects, for both teachers and students.”
—-“Intelligent tutoring systems for writing – Support processes (including teacher involvement) to develop narrative, descriptive, expository, and/or persuasive writing models that meet or exceed the impact of 1:1 human tutors.”
—-“Artificial Intelligence – Writing-focused AI that can provide analytics and feedback to teachers and students for context, syntax, sentiment or other analytics to improve writing skills.”
—-“’Learning Engineered’ professional development – Professional development and support for writing instruction that is grounded in evidence-based principles of human learning and motivation. “
—-“Writing mindset and motivation – Developing and measuring positive mindsets and motivation around writing capabilities.”

I conclude that tech-oriented proposals are of great interest and viewed as potentially more perfect, precise, intelligent and efficient (time and cost) than human teachers.

For “Improving Mathematical Understanding, Application, and Related Mindsets” the draft proposal begins in the same way, bemoaning NAEP scores but with the expectation that rapid improvement can be gained by computer-assisted approaches that would scale up practices of the “best 1:1 tutors.”

Ten topics of interest for research are outlined, all reeking with jargon about personalized, actionable, and scalable this and that.
—-“Performance-based measures and analytics – New and novel methods for measuring mastery, both procedural and conceptual, and providing immediate, actionable feedback for students and teachers.”
—-“Intelligent tutoring systems – Highly personalized, engaging math tutoring systems that take a whole-student approach and provide actionable information to students and teachers.”
—-“Artificial intelligence – Includes algorithms to improve personalization and/or real-time feedback to the student, virtual assistant technologies to improve engagement and interactivity with students, and support tools for teachers.”
—-“Technology-enhanced content – Innovative and engaging content to integrate in an intelligent tutoring system including, but not limited to, Augmented Reality, (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), games, comics, lecture, laboratories, etc., together with tools to connect teachers into these activities and student progress within them.”
—-“Neuroscience-based measures – Scalable technologies to provide measures of engagement, attention, and comprehension, delivering actionable information to students and teachers while safeguarding student privacy. “

I judge that the funders intend to pursue biometric monitoring of students with devices that give real-time, immediate, actionable feedback to students and teachers. See for example https://www.edsurge.com/news/2017-10-26-this-company-wants-to-gather-student-brainwave-data-to-measure-engagement

The final area of interest is Measuring and Improving Executive Function (EF). Because there are no NAEP or other test scores for EF, the funders include references for three studies is support of their desire to improve the development of the executive function (EF) in children, students, teachers and other adults. The funders cite some research to claim that skills for EF—working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control—if strong in childhood, “predict higher socio-economic status, better physical health, and fewer drug-related problems and criminal convictions in adulthood.”

In my opinion, the research citations (three) allow the funders to sidestep the profound influence of poverty on outcomes, shifting attention instead to initiatives that are “scalable, precise, and effective ways to track progress or kinds of interventions to improve EF; ” and to “affordable cost to implement (solutions)- below current market pricing for existing solutions and attainable at a variety of per-student funding levels.” Should we be surprised that the billionaires want low cost and precise interventions at several tiers of per-student funding?

The specific areas of interest for proposals are presented as
—“Tracking progress of student executive function, PreK-12,” especially with unobtrustive, real-time measures of performance;
—“Student-facing interventions/programs/practices/tools to support EF development and use,” including “Technology-enhanced programs in or outside of school: Games, simulations, or other engaging content paired with teacher and family supports…”
—”Measures of educator EF and environmental EF supports,” including…”scalable, valid and reliable, repeatable, pragmatic measures of … (an) educator’s own EF within student learning contexts;” “Adult capacity to support EF growth in students, and technology-enhanced programs for these.”
—-“Critical field-building research topics, including, EF precursor skills”…such as “autonomy, supportive teaching and caregiving;” neuroscience connections such as “neural underpinnings of EF intervention effects, neural developmental progressions, compensatory pathways vs. EF improvement in the brain” and interactions between EF and other factors (e.g., stress, biology, motivation) toward academic and nonacademic outcomes/behaviors.” WHEW.

I conclude that this last area of interest is intended to increase the use of surveillance systems in classrooms with these devices targeted to capture student behavior and teacher behavior without them being aware of the data-gathering. There is clearly a desire to get data and issue judgments about teachers and adults as more or less competent that technologies in supporting improved EF. Surveillance systems are built into games and mobile technologies. These are also of interest as sources of data for improving EF—self control, delayed gratification, and cognitive flexibility. In addition, the funders have an interest in neurology— a medical understanding of EF and intervention effects, captured with biometric monitoring.

It is worth noting that all of these research interests call for a data-gathering on individual students (and teachers). All three initiatives ask researchers to “ identify ”possible privacy implications and strategies for ensuring the privacy and security of information.” Meanwhile Gates is among many others who are marketing tech-centric personalized learning and leading initiatives to get rid of FERPA constraints for any research intended to improve student outcomes.
Welcome to the brave new world of tech-mediated interventions and hope for “precise” solutions to accelerated learning of the kind these billionaires want to invest in.

Click to access FERPA%20Exceptions_HANDOUT_horizontal_0_0.pdf

http://k12education.gatesfoundation.org/researchanddevelopment/

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Corporate Reformers, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates

Peter Greene: What Happens When Gates and Zuckerberg Pool Their Ideas? A Lot of Laughs!

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2018 //
18

Peter Greene has fun dissecting a brainstorming session featuring tech titans and billionaires Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. He says, “They never learn.” Same old, same old, repackaged as new.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are going to attempt– once again– to change the whole world of education.

Their newly-released Request For Information is looking for “all promising ideas for how to use existing and new knowledge and tools to achieve dramatic results against the challenges we describe.” The list of challenges sadly does not include “the repeated failure of rich amateurs to impose their unproven ideas on the US public school system.”

They want YOUR ideas, but they start out with plenty of their own.

A few nuggets of Peter-Greene-Wisdom:

Here are the areas they believe “require more exploration”

Evidence-based solutions for writing instruction, including mastery of the “spectrum of skills encompassing narrative, descriptive, expository and/or persuasive writing models,” a “spectrum” that I’ll argue endlessly is not an actual thing, but is a fake construct created as a crutch for folks who don’t know how to teach or assess writing.

New proficiency metrics. Can we have “consistent measures of student progress and proficiency”? I’m saying “probably not.” “Can we use technology to support new, valid, efficient, and reliable writing performance measures that are helpful for writing coaching?” No, we can’t.

Educator tools and support. Gates-Zuck correctly notes that “effective” writing instruction requires time and resources, so the hope here is, I don’t know– the invention of a time machine? Hiring administrative assistants for all teachers? Of course not– they want to create “tools” aka more technology trying to accomplish what it’s not very good at accomplishing.

Always looking for ways to get better. Kind of like every decent teacher on the planet. I swear– so much of this rich amateur hour baloney could be helped by having these guys shadow an actual teacher all day every day for a full year. At the very least, it would save these endless versions of “I imagine we could move things more easily if we used round discs attached to an axel. I call it… The Wheeble!”

They want your ideas about “Measuring and Improving Executive Function,” which Peter says should creep you out. It creeps me out!

This is personalized [sic] learning at its worst– a kind of Big Brother on Steroids attempt to take over the minds, hearts, and lives of children for God-knows-what nefarious schemes. Only two things make me feel just the slightest bit better about this.

First of all, I’m not sure that Gates-Zuck are evil mad scientist types, cackling wickedly in their darkened laboratory. I’m more inclined to see them as feckless-but-rich-and-powerful computer nerds, who still believe that education is just an engineering problem that can be solved by properly designed sufficiently powered software. They’re technocrats who think a bigger, better machine is the best way to fix human beings.

Second of all– well, wait a minute. The two guys who have bombarded education with enough money to make a small island and who do not have a single clear-cut success to point to– these guys think they’ve got it figured out this time? They have never yet figured out how to better educate the full range of ordinary students (nor ever figured out what “better educate” means) now think they can unlock the formula for better educating students with larger challenges?

This is like going to a circus and the announcer hollers that Evel Von Wheeble is going to jump his motorcycle over fifty buses, and you get very excited until you read the program and see that Von Wheeble previously attempted to jump over ten, twenty and twenty-five buses– and he failed every time.

Peter Greene is still the only blogger who makes me laugh out loud!

Categories Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Humor, Technology

The Gates Foundation’s Itty-Bitty War on Poverty

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2018 //
23

I was contacted last week by a writer for “Inside Philanthropy” to comment on the Gates Foundation’s new program to fight poverty. My response was that I was pleased to see that the foundation was acknowledging the need to combat poverty after wasting billions on the Common Core and teacher evaluation.

I thought it was a good sign. I didn’t realize when I was asked how very little the foundation was committing: $158 Million over four years. Compare that to the foundation’s expenditure on Common Core, probably $2 Billion. And that was a disaster.

Although Bill Gates is often treated as if he were Mother Teresa with megabucks, not everyone is impressed.

Read what Ruth McCambridge, the editor of “Nonprofit Quarterly,” said about the foundation’s “tone deafness.”

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/05/04/not-to-niggle-but/

Categories Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates
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