Improving education is the most important thing we can do for our country’s economy, Bill Gates told Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter after a speech to the Council of Chief State School Officers.
How can we raise student achievement in a time of austerity? Stop paying teachers more for seniority alone, Gates says.
Like master’s degrees for teachers and smaller class sizes, seniority pay, Gates says, has “little correlation to student achievement.”
. . . Gates favors a system where pay and promotion are determined not just by improvement in student test scores (an idea savaged by teachers’ unions) but by peer surveys, student feedback (surprisingly predictive of success in the classroom), video reviews and evaluation by superiors. In this approach, seniority could be a factor, but not the only factor.
Gates’ biggest adversary now is Diane Ravitch, who distrusts rich businessmen trying to shape education policy, writes Alter.
When I asked Gates about Ravitch, you could see the Micro-hard hombre who once steamrolled software competitors: “Does she like the status quo? Is she sticking up for decline? Does she really like 400-page [union] contracts? Does she think all those ‘dropout factories’ are lovely? If there’s some other magic way to reduce the dropout rate, we’re all ears.”
Ravitch critiques Gates on Bridging Differences.
On Dropout Nation, Rishawn Biddle asks: When will Diane Ravitch get her brain back?
Jay P. Greene piles on too, accusing Ravitch of selective and misleading use of evidence and intellectual dishonesty. He links to Rebutting Ravitch by Whitney Tilson.
-->Filed Under: Education Tagged With: Bill Gates, Diane Ravitch, dropout factories, reform, seniority, teachers
CarolineSF says: November 30, 2010 at 1:13 pmIt was exceptionally nasty even for Jonathan Alter to apply the adjective “jaundiced” to Diane Ravitch in his own words. ( “Affected with jaundice; yellow or yellowish; affected by or exhibiting envy, prejudice, or hostility.”) How baffling, too, that he likened her to Whittaker Chambers (who renounced Communism to embrace American patriotism).
Alter is one of a cadre of Big Names in media who, without any background in education or education coverage, firmly made up their minds about their perspective on education policy, and have launched into a series of fervent declarations of what’s right — while pointedly avoiding interviewing or quoting anyone actually involved in schools and classrooms. Oprah Winfrey and Tom Friedman at the N.Y. Times are part of the club too. It’s strange and sad.
I have certainly never been a proponent of canceling subscriptions because I’m offended — at the Mercury we used to joke in response to kvetchy readers, “One more complaint like that outta you and we’re canceling your subscription.” But after both subscribing to Newsweek our entire adult lives, my husband and I have canceled forever, directly because of Alter’s teacher-bashing and attacks on public education. It’s not so much because we disagree with him as that his writing demonstrates how badly Newsweek’s standards have dropped, and how little research, thoughtfulness or effort to understand all sides of issues the magazine expects of its staff — which calls into question the credibility of everything Newsweek publishes.
Of course all the Newsweek and Washington Post gushing about education reform is ethically tainted anyway by the fact that their company’s cash cow, Kaplan, is now running virtual charter schools (I’m on their e-mail list and they’re positively stalking my 11th-grader).
Read Newsweek free (the unkindest cut):
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/11/28/alter-education-is-top-priority-for-gates.html
Ravitch answers Gates’ questions (asked of her indirectly):
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/diane-ravitch/ravitch-answers-gates.html
More Ravitch on Gates:
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2010/11/bill_gates_listens_to_the_wron_1.html
cranberry says: November 30, 2010 at 1:24 pmIn Ravitch’s piece, she states, “These are the people on whom our public schools depend. They care deeply about their children, their communities, and their public schools. They don’t get to speak to the Council of Chief State School Officers. They don’t control billions of dollars. ”
The people she spoke of were teachers and school board members in Virginia. The trouble is, in the aggregate, they DO control billions of dollars. In 2008, public elementary and secondary education in Virginia spent billions of dollars. http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/elsec08_sttables.xls
School board members may not draw a salary, but they control billions of dollars, as a group. Despite the emotional picture of the big, bad billionaire and the selfless school employees, annual public spending on education dwarfs even Bill Gates’ philanthropy.
CarolineSF says: November 30, 2010 at 1:34 pmWell, one would hope so — it would be an even stranger imbalance if Gates were donating MORE to his own vision (whims, fancies, fads) of education reform than the public provides to fund schools.
I don’t see how you can say that teachers control billions of dollars; they don’t control the money, period.
For that matter, school boards are quite limited in their discretion over most of the funding they “control,” since the uses are pretty set in stone. The wiggle room is minimal. So Cranberry, it’s misinformed or misleading for you to portray things as though school board members have vast amounts of funds to move around at their discretion, and of course totally untrue about teachers.
It’s the undue influence that Gates’ money gives him, combined with his severe, crippling lack of understanding of children and teens, schools, classrooms, education, teachers and pretty much everything else involved except for data, that make him “big” and “bad.” I still believe that his intentions are probably good deep down, but his fatal flaws are his outsized arrogance; his severe inability to comprehend nuance and complexity; his starry-eyed belief that there’s an oh-so-simple magical solution; his eagerness to experiment by inflicting his whims on the nation’s children; and his contempt for the people who actually spend time in classrooms.
cranberry says: November 30, 2010 at 1:38 pmSchool boards set budgets. They have the power to issue bonds. They negotiate contracts. Far from being “set in stone,” they are responsible for billions of dollars. Those various financial contracts may have been arranged by previous board members, but it does come back to the school boards.
Far as I know, most teachers are union members. Union members and school boards negotiate contracts. Payrolls are enormous parts of school budgets. Billions, again.
JD says: November 30, 2010 at 2:05 pmRavitch’s reply is hilarious, albeit unintentionally. She claims it’s a war of money vs. ideas. Well, here’s how her spat with Gates goes:
Gates: “Tenure protects too many bad teachers from ever being fired as long as they don’t molest kids in the classroom.”
Ravitch: “But Gates is rich, and I like singing the Star Spangled Banner!”
Money vs. ideas indeed.
Mike in Texas says: November 30, 2010 at 4:01 pmThe only reason anyone listens to Bill Gates on education issues is because he buys access with his money.
EVERY program he spouts has been proven to be a failure.
Just another “reform” expert, who actually knows little or nothing
CarolineSF says: November 30, 2010 at 5:17 pmSo Cranberry, how much is your employer’s payroll, and does that mean you “control” that amount of money? Based on your description, yes it does.
Mike in Texas says: November 30, 2010 at 5:47 pmI get to control some money, a grand total of $200 a year classroom budget.
Ben F says: November 30, 2010 at 5:48 pmGates, like many ed deformers, is afflicted with hubris. He thinks he sees the solution, but he is fatally blind. Those of us who actually know something about education see his blind spots.
Feckless teachers are a problem, but a small one in the grand scheme of things. Bigger problems include:
1. Poor student behavior (one solution: make it easier to give stern consequences)
2. Chaotic family life (partial solution: strengthen the social safety net).
3. Curriculum narrowing (solution: scrap NCLB; perhaps replace with broader array of tests).
4. False doctrine being peddled by ed schools (solution: Gates could fund a new ed school that offered an alternative to the PC cooperative education-lovin’ dogma that every ed school preaches these days. Wouldn’t it be healthy to have at least one US ed school that said nice things about lecturing and E.D. Hirsch?)
5. Dumb, anti-intellectual administrators (solution: require that prospective administrators major in the liberal arts and pass rigorous general knowledge/intelligence tests?)
6. Lack of teacher prep time –excellent lessons demand tons of prep time (solution: release students early, or hire homework club proctors, to give teachers time to craft quality lessons).
cranberry says: November 30, 2010 at 6:01 pmIf I were the CFO, I would control it. If I were the comptroller, I would control the money.
Simply that people don’t understand the responsibilities of a school board, doesn’t mean that they aren’t responsible for the budget. Yes, they control the money. They decide the structure of any bonds they issue. They set the budget. When the district’s income is not enough to meet the budget they set, they decide how much to cut, even if the superintendent and his staff decide which postitions and programs must be cut.
They control the money. It’s their responsibility. Google “school boards and bond issues.”
It would be a good thing to train school board members in the intricacies of bond issues and credit swaps. There’s no guarantee that voters elect fiscally competent board members, when there are burning issues like evolution to decide.
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