Bill Gates says that teachers don't improve after 3 years. Stunning statement.

That fits right in with the recent education reformer moves to do away with teacher tenure and to pay private companies to hire teachers who are only obligated for 2 years. I mean, dang, why give a teacher tenure if that teacher won't improve?

That makes it easier to encourage schools to recruit teachers from private companies like Teach for America or the New Teacher Project. It enriches the coffers of the school recruiters, and it also replaces teachers with seniority who have built up higher salaries.

It is an unbelievable statement from the man whose school agenda has been adopted by Arne Duncan at the DOE.

A comparison of their education goals shows they are almost the same.

Arne's goals:



Bill Gates goals:



Here is more on the outrageous comment by Bill Gates from Gotham Schools blog.

Garrulous Mr. Gates



In case there is disbelief, here is Bill Gates on video saying those exact words...about 12 minutes in.

Bill Gates on mosquitoes, malaria and education

What else does he say about education? Here is more from Goldstein.



Goldstein responds:



I never heard of a principal or administrator who is restricted in observing teachers. Ours used to literally pop in and out, sometimes several times a day.

Recently Bill Gates also criticized teachers' pensions as being too expensive.



It doesn't even make good sense for Bill Gates to say that teachers don't improve with experience and practice. It is so obvious he knows little about education. Yet his goals are primary ones now.

Our secretary of education has over 4 billion dollars to pay school districts who fulfill his plans of merit pay and charter schools and ending tenure.

Recently a retiring congressman tried to take away some of Arne's money and use it to help teachers facing layoffs this fall.

Obey says the Secretary of Education is somewhat unhappy.



A veto was threatened.

Bill Gates has the money to put behind his belief that teachers do not improve after 3 years. He is being given the power to use it.

Strange how Billy doesn't talk about that.

Can't tell parents to slap the x-box controller out of their child's hands and give them a book. That would hurt his profits.

that they can find. that would be why charter schools are expanding. parents want choices. who says parents are failing, or are the problem? the worst school shut parents out.
and what about the community? hmmm. seems to me that bill gates would be a member of the community. yes, he has a stake in education. guess what. we all do.

i wish i saw more constructive dialog on this issue.

The problem is that charter schools -- in many cases -- only accept the best and the brightest. This creates a brain drain from regular, public schools and therefore a two-tier, educational system funded by you and me, and I really don't think that's helpful or in the best interest of our society.

What we need is to reaccess what a "good" or "sound/solid" education is. Corporations, such as Microsoft, have too much say in how we should educate our children.

I would like to see our children being educated to become good citizens, not trained to become corporate automatons.

the best and brightest do not learn the same way as more typical kids. it isn't better, its just different. those kids are entitled to an appropriate education.
however, your comments are something of a canard. few of the charter schools in chicago, which is what arne and bill are trying to emulate, have selective enrollments. several public schools do, tho. there is no line here. your comment is not really germane to the issue.
parents seek the RIGHT school for their kids, not so much the best school. some kids are artistic, some are math whizzes, some come from a language rich environment and benefit from language immersion. one size does not fit all.
are they done badly in some places? i would question what the common schools are like in the same area. both probably suck. here in chicago, we do them right. that is the model that arne is looking at.

parents have been screaming for school reform in chicago since i remember. but the fact of the matter is that fewer parents vote with their feet today than at any time since i have paid the least attention to this subject. (oldest is 34, and gifted. that would be the math of it.) fewer families are moving to the burbs, and the catholic schools have all but collapsed. take you test scores and well, you know. these numbers do not lie. parents are choosing these schools. and in the end, parental know what their own kids need. and that is what we are ALL supposed to be about.

You are missing my point. I do not doubt that students learn differently, and that some students might need special attention. My contention is that charter schools are using public funds to do something that public schools can and in many cases are already doing. Additionally, I am quite aware that many states have laws that govern admissions requirements for charter schools, but many still have their ways of promoting the acceptance of the "best" students, while rejecting the not-so-best. Trust me. And, then, politicians who support this sort of thing turn around and say, "See? The Private sector does education best", knowing very well that you cannot compare educational outcomes of charter schools, which tend to have smaller, classroom sizes; the best and the brightest students and a "selective" admissions process with public schools which are being defunded mostly because of the bad economy (due to plummeting real estate values which affect tax revenue), larger classroom sizes, stressed out teachers who are faced with mountains of paper work (thanks to NCLB state mandates) And lately, another aspect that is compouding the problem is a growing lack of security of teachers' jobs and salaries.

Now, I know that you are looking at this from a "micro" stand point, but the "macro" standpoint is equally important. At the end of the day, charter schools will certainly not "meet the need", as you've stated. They are a bandaid solution to a problem that is far more egregious and complex. I liken it to the B.P. Oil Spill. The cap on the tube really doesn't speak to the larger issue of our fossil-fuel depence -- first and foremost; also, it does not speak to lax MMS regulation and so on. In the same way, charter schools fail to address the issues of why public schools are REALLY failing, i.e.: defunding; "teaching t"o some state test, as opposed to REAL education; lack of funding for the arts, after and before school care/programming and so on.

I was a public school teacher for five years, and a professor of education for twenty. Education is not the same as training; I educate my students, I train my dogs. One involves cognitive ability, the other involves conditioned response. I got into many heated battles with the dimwits at my last institution trying to explain the difference. I believe that we will not meet the needs of our students, and ultimately the country, until these distinctions are understood and addressed.

You've hit the nail right on the head. The lack of individualized evaluation for students is a serious failure of the current educational system -- that includes K-12 and colleges and universities. The paradigm of teacher standing in front of the classroom spouting facts and figures works for some learners but not for others. We are, in effect, picking the winners and losers by pandering to only one type of learner.

Teaching someone how to learn, to compare and contrast information, to deduce, to think creatively in solving a problem should be the primary task of educators. Yet I never hear any talk of trying to figure out how students learn best.

Some students learn best by hearing the material, others get nothing from that. Some need to read it, some are visual learners, some need to write it out, some are hands on. Some are one type of learner in one subject and another type with another subject area.

Do you have any friends or family who are teachers? They would probably talk about it, but perhaps do not unless asked. It's kind of wonky and maybe they think people aren't interested.

I agree that's ideal, the reality is that 40 students in one class, 180 students over all, preclude that kind of in depth assessment. There just aren't enough hours in the day - and I don't mean school day hours because teachers work much longer hours than the school day. A teacher has to sleep, too ya know.

Yet how many times have you read here on DU alone how teachers can do that which we all know is impossible. Sure, many if not most really want to try but it is an impossible task. Is it the teachers' fault? Definitely not.

It is the classroom structure that has to be thrown out. At the risk of sounding like a onenote-Johnny there is a solution to the problem. Remove the classroom walls and put all lessons on computer, in video form as well as text and audio only. Each student follows along at the speed they are comfortable with and learns at their own pace. End of chapter/segment quizzes would be far more in depth and successive lessons are designed to reinforce what you learn in previous lessons. If a student cannot understand or needs assistance then multiple teachers are available to assist in understanding, with a focus in the higher grades on individual critical thinking and/or creative problem solving.

The key is that each student is free to explore the material for as long as they feel they need (within reason) and pace themselves by their own ability to absorb the information. Testing is all done on computer and trends can easily be flagged (if you can do it in an excel spreadsheet then the educational system should be able to manage that feat, no?) and students can be guided back onto the right path where needed. Teachers would also be encouraged to monitor students lessons (using screen sharing software common in business today) to try to identify those students with special needs or who may have hit a roadblock in their learning, etc.

I see no reason for homework in such a system but that can be debated. A national education curriculum must be enforced. We are one nation, not three or 10 or 50. We need one standard for what students need to know so they can build and maintain our society and bring America back to the top in educational standards. I also believe that a free education is every citizen's right and that includes a 4-year degree.

What do you propose to do with them? You're advocating a one size fits all yet kids are not that way. The human element is extremely important in education. Computers don't nurture, computers can't adapt and come up with alterate explanations/activities on the fly.

This approach is a spoon feeding and I don't see much inquiry, critical thinking, or social skills being develeoped.

I'm advocating individual pacing to all learning, I don't see where you see a one size fits all solution there.

Students can see a video of the lesson being given by the best experts in the field. They can read the text. They can hear it as an audio file. They can choose how to learn each lesson. Each computer station should have access to encyclopedias and a full range of other source material. If they need more time, they are 100% free to take as much time as they need. If they need to go back one, two , three sections to repeat something, they are 100% free to do that.

I don't see any validity to your point. Please "educate" me.

Your proposal seems to be the transmission model of education where kids are fed information. It is very limited, especially in science education. My guess is that you don't see the validity because you are not a teacher, especially not a teacher of science. Staring at a computer screen is no substitute for a robust, interactive class discussion and hands-on lab that leads students to a new or better understanding of physical phenomena. But I can see there's no convincing you of this so, sigh. Thankfully there are many in the education field who take pedagogy seriously and are actively researching and implementing innovative and better ways to teach science.

Here is a link to a couple of articles and a website that addresses a particularly successful method of teaching science.

http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling/WhatModlInstructionIs09.htm

http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling/ModInstrArticle_NSELAspr08.pdf

http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling/McLaughlinS_PropReas-I_03.pdf

http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling/Whiteboarding_DonYost03.pdf

http://modeling.asu.edu/Projects-Resources.html

All pedagogy is based on imparting information to the students. Isn't that the very definition of school? Your field may only be able to use computer based learning for a part of the curriculum but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. I'm sure a wood shop teacher would agree with you, then maybe a gym teacher will chime in. I'll grant you your partial exception with the understanding that labs are a vital part of learning science. There is still required reading and lectures so you only get a partial, though.

What of History, Math, English, Social Studies, Health, Foreign Languages, etc? All would benefit greatly from a self paced study approach. And remember that teachers will monitor students progress, the computer system will flag a student for inactivity and lack of academic progress so the teacher will know exactly who to monitor. Students will also have instant access to several teachers if they need help. They won't just be thrown in the basement with laptops and then we lock the door, that's what school is now.

I'm glad that you brought up a "partially successful method of teaching science." My point is that one out of three students will not graduate high school which tells me that the entire educational establishment is using a partially successful method of teaching. Is 66% a praiseworthy grade in your classroom?

You want a magic bullet that will fix the broken educational system in America. My point is that there is NO magic bullet. All the initiatives that have come out over the past 30 years have amounted to nothing more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, all done by very well meaning people mind you. Mixing metaphors, when the entire house is crumbling and broken from the foundation to the shingles it is time to tear it down and rebuild. The upside to all of this is that we can remake education and found it upon the latest understanding of how kids learn.

Don't put words in my mouth. And, for your information, the entire house is NOT crumbling. You're believing the spin. If you were out in the eduction world and saw first hand schools in operation you would not say this. Nothing is perfect but there's no reason to throw out traditional schools in favor of others. A mix of schools can be helpful if all are treated fairly.

You never answered my question about whether you are an educator. My guess is that you aren't - and it shows.

And let me say it again: computer based learning is not for everyone, especially those at the lower end of the achievement scale. I know it's your idea and your married to it but hey, it isn't based on pedagogy.

Your links and your comments about a new "partially successful" way of teaching science lead me to believe that you feel the current system is just fine, that it just needs a tweak here or a new process there. That's not putting words in your mouth, that's using your words to illuminate your position IMO. I may have used the wrong term when I said magic bullet perhaps. But please correct me if I am wrong in thinking that you would prefer the education model stay the same as it is now even though 30% of our nations children do not graduate high school in YOUR system.

As to whether I am an educator, I have already answered that in another post. I am not now nor have I ever been a member of an educational establishment. Nor am I an automotive engineer. Does that preclude me from a discussion about Toyota's acceleration problems if I believe I have a valid point to contribute to the discussion? I have a vested interest in road safety because my family and friends are ON those roads daily. You seem to feel that parents should have no say in how schools are run, in how our kids are educated (or in the case of our schools today, failing to be educated). I've noticed that from reading a large number of your posts. That's your opinion, one that I and millions of parents in this country disagree with. Teaching is your job, you want to have job security, you want to be well paid for what you do. I get that. But your "product" is our future, our children, so excuse me if I have an opinion about the quality of work I see in the statistics. Statistics, not "spin" by the way. Calling the failure to educate our kids "spin" is an egregious insult to parents all across this nation. When we're 10th in the world in high school graduation rates and 49th in math and science scores that is not a spin it's a crying shame, it's an unacceptable situation that calls for immediate and decisive action.

Computer based learning is not for everyone? So you're saying that poor kids don't have the intelligence to be taught how to watch a video or read text off a screen (or listen to an audio recording of the lecture)? Most children who do poorly in "the achievement scale" as you so coldly put it have been marginalized in classrooms just like yours for so long that they may even believe the label you put on them. They may have been told by all-knowing teachers like you that they just need to shut up and go along to get along in class, while their needs are not being met. I have called for individual determination of the way THAT PARTICULAR CHILD learns best and using that as a guide in helping them in all phases of the computer based learning experience, beginning, middle and the end. Passing off our collective failure to keep these kids from falling through the cracks as just their natural position on the achievement scale is very wrong in my view.

Read my other posts about computer based learning before you "put words in my mouth" about being married to this idea. I could equally make the same charge against you that no idea is good if it isn't based on pedagogy. What does that even mean anyway? That only the status quo in education is worth investigating or investing in? That only teachers could possibly have a worthwhile idea about how to help our kids. Teachers are supposed to be teaching our youth how to have an open mind, how to think critically about a problem (or issue) and yet you are closed minded about any idea that doesn't come from a fellow teacher or a school administrator or bureaucrat in the ED.

I never intended my idea to be embraced by the teachers here on DU, it's just food for thought.

i really urge people to go and read the actual facts about rttt. it is about a lot, lot, more than charter schools. it is about measuring teacher performance and fixing the most serious and obvious problem in education, which is making sure that we have teachers competently teaching what they need to be teaching. we collect a lot of data on kids, and judge them with it, but we have never looked at that data to see which teachers are getting their kids to where they need to be. seems like a logical thing to do to me.

and about the walls coming down, i hear ya. not all kids can do that, but for a whole lot of gifted and talented kids, that would salvage a lot of lost talent. my youngest had to make up a class in her first summer of high school and did illinois virtual high school, which is sort of a back up school for kids who can't physically attend school, etc. she finished a 2 semester class in 2 weeks. granted it was a class she had taken, but failed. but i guess that says a little about how wrong some assessments are.
they aren't letting that genie out of the bottle here, tho. they hardly let anyone take these classes.

Can you provide a link or explain a little bit more about that, please? If all kids attended virtual high school we would save $$$millions$$$ in transportation costs and the kids wouldn't lose hours out of their day that could be used for study or personal development. It sounds fascinating.

parents know their kids. professionals rarely believe them, in my experience.

so what about them? Nothing in Arne's plan for them. So what do we do, put them out to pasture? I'm afraid you aren't familiar with the reality of education. Sure, the parents that care can take the kids to the charters that you seem to love so much. That just results in segregation - which is the point I guess.

and there is something in arne's plans for the kids "left behind" as you seem to think. better use of data to make sure that the kids with no one to advocate for them can count on the measure of their progress, and the measure of their teachers and schools.
i know plenty about the reality of schools. i have 5 kids. all weirdos, with special needs and unappreciated gifts. big time parent volunteer. they went to plain ole public schools except for the kid with bad problems who went to a, gasp, charter school.
we did 8 years as homeschoolers, then public schools. but i know gardner, dewey, all that. i am not stupid. and i have things to say about the state of education that seem damned unwelcome here, where people are calling for parents to step up to the plate. so here i am. at the plate. and this is what i have to say. people are sick of handing their kids over to giant impersonal monoliths. they want them to receive an appropriate education, however inconvenient that might be for the behemoth. i fought some big time battles for my kids. not everyone can do that. those kids fall through the cracks. but big mouth complainers like me sometimes put people on their toes.

why don't you try respecting my seat at the table? why don't you at least want to hear what arne is coming from, what he did here, and what his expectations probably are?

I've heard about what Arne did in Chicago. More lies and obfuscation by the privatizers. Great, it worked for your kid. What about those that have been shut out? No thanks. Arne's a train wreck who doesn't respect teachers - he doesn't listen to teachers and thinks it's perfectly acceptable to fire them wholesale, without looking deeper at problems. He wants a magic bullet which does not exist in education.

and it isn't just arne's doing. ren 2010 started long before arne got here, and goes on just fine without him. my vantage point is not how my kids- that's plural- 5 kids, did, but the city of chicago, where i live, work, and am politically active. i thank ritchie daley for having the wisdom to see that great schools are the corner stones of a great city. and for having the fortitude to take the responsibility to for them after a generation of weak mayors walled themselves off from the failures of the school system.


and there is a magic bullet- it's called FIRE BAD TEACHERS. that is a big chunk of what rttt is about. better data gathering, and data on teacher's effectiveness. that is what is really causing the howling. i have seen with my own 2 eyes how hard it is to get rid of bad teachers. deny that all you want. it is the truth.

Just how many bad teachers do you think there are and by what criteria do you make that assessment? How do you define "bad?" Is it an inability to teach or something else? I seen a lot of teachers labeled "bad" by people who couldn't get their own way, who resisted a teacher holding students accountable, or for refusing to change a grade because little Mary really should have an A (even though little Mary didn't do squat).

I'm not saying there aren't bad teachers - I've known a few of those too and they're gone now. Job protections are in place to protect teachers from arbitrary and political firings. Last year a colleague had a local official's son in her class. The kid was the class clown and rarely did his work and scored poorly on tests. He earned a C and all hell broke loose because he should have had at least a B, according to dear old dad. Dad called the superintendent who referred it back to the principal who agreed with the teacher that the kid deserved the C. Teachers advocate for students, espcially special education students who aren't getting support services they need. Sometimes they need to be vocal and vocal isn't good: it embarrasses administrators and, without protections, those administrators can exact revenge by firing the teacher. I had another friend who spoke up at a charter school's board meeting and disagreed with the director's wife who was on the board. The next day she was fired. These are examples of why it is "difficult" to fire teachers. Now that Arne has bribed states to open the doors, there will be more arbitrary firings. Too bad -- the threat of these will cause teachers to hesitate to speak up for kids.

Their outcomes are no better than public schools. I share your disdain for charters, they are nothing more than another Repudlickan effort to remove government and put in place private companies for everything. It is wrong headed, just as any politician with an (R) after their name is wrong headed.

I advocate FOR strong teachers unions, just ones that actually do what they promise: educate our kids. We've been increasing school funding for 30 years and have seen no improvements that I am aware of, only an inexorable slide toward the bottom of the heap educationally. This will destroy our country. Obviously, increased funding is not the answer. Tenure is not the answer. Bonuses are not the answer. Higher paid school administrators is not the answer.

The entire system needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up based on our state of knowledge now, not the 1800s when the little red school house was thought up.

PS, you seem to love having the protections of your Teachers Union. What, exactly, did you do to help the textile workers union, the railroad union, etc., when they were being strangled by the corporate zombies? If you didn't help their unions then why should they or anyone else care about the success or failure of your union?

Precisely.

I work full-time in student services at a local, publicly-funded community college and I work at night as an adjunct professor; therefore, I am experiencing, first hand, how corporate America has influenced how our children are being educated. One of the first signs was the trend in the late 1990's to refer to professors as "instructors" and "associate instructors", particularly as it relates to adjuncts. Then, in the early 2000's, I saw how the "propriatory" schools have quadrupled in number and in their advertising and marketing. Now, due to market pressure, the new trend in many public institutions is to defund course sections in the humanities, the arts, life and natural sciences and so on and divert those funds to business, management and marketing course sequences. I never understood why we needed business schools? Most of the so-called "businesses" that have been around for more than half-a-century were not founded by people who had business degrees. Most of these -- mostly men -- had typical liberal arts educations. Anyways, I digress. What made me almost throw up was when our campus president, at some function, said -- and I'm paraphrasing -- that our institution is on its way to leading our graduates from the classroom to the boardroom and from our science labs to the labs of 3M and he named some other popular pharmacuetical company. At that point, I stopped listening.

Education is gradually becoming more about "training" our children to work for somebody else, as opposed to educating them to become upstanding citizens with a deep sense of ethics, compassion, a cosmopolitan view of society both in the built and natural environments.

I am deeply concerned about our future generations.

don't support school disciplinary measures when they must be implemented on THEIR kids, show up for conferences or respond to teachers' phone messages or e-mails, etc.

Does anyone have others they would like to share?

some are ordinary stupid or overwhelmed humans? judging the parents while you do not want to be judged, individually or in the aggregate, is a little hypocritical, don't you think?

in the end, they are our kids. we shine where we shine, we lose where we lose. we do our best. but the responsibility tests firmly with us, even those of us not up to the challenge. and here where we are doing it right, we vote with our feet. renaissance 2020 is, in large part, built around what parents have proven they want and need for their kids.

...all the while complaining that THEY aren't respected. Blows my mind!

Parents who won't discipline their kids or send them to school with their homework finished, return emails or phone calls, don't check to see that the kid has breakfast or lunch money, or has a freaking pencil.

Education starts at home. You may be a responsible parent but many are not.

and seen schools try to fire them with no success.

Of course, there are many fine supportive parents and no teacher would suggest that ALL of his/her students' parents are not "responsibly parental". However, there are enough of the other kind to exert an inordinately dire effect both in the classroom and in aggregate outcomes for the school.

Though they were far being anywhere near rich, my parents sent me to Catholic elementary school and were willing to pay my tuition in addition to the property taxes to pay for public schools. Vote with both your feet and wallet and send your kids to private school, it you believe they will receive better education.

first of all, i voted with my feet and every other part of my body to homeschool for 8 years. but i believe in public schools. i had the choice to send them to private schools. i had the choice to send them to selective enrollment schools instead of the neighborhood schools. i happen to have a good one, and that's where they went. and i can tell you without any fear that i am deluding myself that the teachers who taught my kids judged me and found me "fit". and almost all of them were fine teachers.

You make them out to be omniscient, able to educationally psychoanalyze each and every student. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

When my daughter was in 4th grade she kept getting up from her seat to read the other books in the classroom or look at the dioramas, etc., her teacher asked us in for a conference and demanded that we punish her for "disrupting the class." That night we talked to her about it and found out that the teacher kept going over the material twice or three times so that the "slower" students can "catch up" with the rest, when our daughter understood it on the first go around. My daughter was BORED out of her skull and was trying to keep her mind occupied by the other stuff in the classroom. She said she didn't think she liked school any more (exactly the opposite from what she'd ever said before). If we had just followed the teacher's advice we would have doomed our daughter to hate school and fail to achieve her potential, the system wanted her to just shut up and not have any needs I guess.

We had another meeting with her teacher and passed along what she said but the teacher didn't believe us at first and offered no solutions but to "keep your child under control." By this time I was getting pretty steamed and asked the teacher why she didn't just give her extra work to do, for whenever she feels like the class is moving too slow. Her teacher's jaw went slack as if we'd never heard of such a thing. It took us 10 minutes to get her to agree to just try it. We told her that if that didn't fix the problem then we'd try her way. Long story short, she never had a single complaint about our daughter the rest of the year.

Teachers may try their best but they don't know everything. Nobody does. The classroom "works" for the average, the middle of the bell curve. But it fails both the lower and upper ends of the curve. One out of three students will drop out of school before graduating. That is the failure of your super teachers and our society for trusting them with (or forcing upon them in some cases) the responsibility for helping our kids learn what they will need to know in the 21st century.

kids are not dairy products. parents want choice. the common schools are wide middle, but there is a lot of either end.

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There is constructive dialog - you just don't like the direction it's going. The worst schools shut the parents out? Ask NOLA parents about that.

You always have choice - private schools aren't going away.

from their home get a bus, until high school. then they can get a free transit pass if they qualify for free lunch.

I did not know he has teacher qualifications..........

They are just making education into a factory of leaning......I have 40 years of factory experience I should be put in charge.....makes just as much sense

The New Teacher Project, an organization that recruits new teachers, and would directly benefit from the elimination of tenure and seniority rights.

You are still the same prognosticator who thought 640KB was "enough"... Your 3 year value is the same meme I've heard spoken by those in the software industry who think that programmers do not improve after 3 years... And to that I say crap. Teachers are far more than just tools you can throw away. The best teachers are those who teach soft skills and who learn more than one or two tricks in their belts. Course these same were part of a career at a time which valued continual education and which respected their value.

This is a self-fullfilling prophecy. Just like any professional, if you avoid putting in any investment, then yes of course they have a short life span. Bill Gates, grow up and think beyond teachers as tools, but rather as role models and mentors.

L-

And I say fuck you gates as well, you fucking piece of shit.

You should put a ? at the end of your rant! I agree!

Teaching is not programming. Teaching is human. It is interacting with students. It is inspiring people. It is encouraging people. It is exciting people. The ability of a teacher depends on the teacher's interaction with the student. It cannot be measured. Teachers feel it. They know it. They know when they should not be teaching any more.

If we want "bad" teachers, teachers who are no longer called to teach teachers who have lost their enthusiasm, their love, their ability to teach to quit, we need to provide alternatives for them and incentives for them to move to other work. The problem for teachers is that, after twenty or twenty-five years of teaching, they cannot easily switch to some new sort of work. That needs to change.

I can't believe anyone takes any of the shit he says seriously. If Gates weren't rich, he'd be like that guy on the back of the bus muttering to himself. Instead, he's the driving force behind Education policies.

wouldn't be so bad if they weren't such jerks to boot...

He isn't even an expert on software or operating systems. :shrug:

or maybe pity for arne. Yeah, I could see pity.

This is the thing I hate most about the very rich: their conviction that they are experts on every subject.

Not coincidentally.

Making money and knowing about educating children are in no way related.

Yada deeda deeda dada deeda deeda deeda dum.

The most important men in town would come to call on meeeeee.

They would ask me to advise themmmmm
Like a Solomon-wise
"If you please RevTevya
Pardon me, RevTevya . . . "

Posing problems that would cross a Rabbi's eyes! -yadda dee da da, yadda dee da daaaaa

And it wouldn't make one bit of difference
If I answer right or wrong

WHEN YOU'RE RICH, THEY THINK YOU REALLY KNOW.

Too bad so many of us were too dumb to do that too.

Learn something new every day.

Educated in the finest private college prep school.

:hi:

I guess that doesn't look as nice in the brochures as the self-made man image he likes to cultivate. :D

Not shouting out the results. :)

debating my brother in email about this. He thinks Bill Gates is just this great guy for giving away all of his money to charity! I think my brother is a closet libertarian. I've been trying to school him on the facts, but he thinks government is so appalling, our only fix is accepting the handouts from rich guys. I'm afraid a lot of people think that too, and it makes me feel hopeless that we can ever get a movement going to prevent these pirates from taking over.

http://books.google.com/books?id=O-QDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA134&dq=%22james+willard+maxwell%22&hl=en&ei=V6lDTOCyBZSksQPqzrSXDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22james%20willard%20maxwell%22&f=false

1000 men of mark, 1916

james willard maxwell, born 1864, president national city bank, northern trust, alta vista land corp, etc.

http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/clarence-bagley/history-of-seattle-from-the-earliest-settlement-to-the-present-time-volume-2-lga/page-5-history-of-seattle-from-the-earliest-settlement-to-the-present-time-volume-2-lga.shtml

http://books.google.com/books?id=0G_nAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1416&lpg=PA1416&dq=%22jw+maxwell%22+%22national+city+bank%22&source=bl&ots=r7Y1-5ietq&sig=XDreOOksSbHMOFiWvQXMs_hXd78&hl=en&ei=7KpDTLeQN5GksQOc0aT4DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CB4Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22jw%20maxwell%22%20%22national%20city%20bank%22&f=false


his son was also president of national city bank (seattle).

"The Stillman and Rockefellers sealed their business partnership with a double marriage of their children and controlled the National City Bank for many years. James Stillman Rockefeller, a grandson of James Stillman and William Rockefeller, was president and chairman of the bank in the 1950's and 1960's. In 1955, the National City Bank merged with the First National Bank of New York to become the First National City Bank of New York, later known as Citicorp and today, Citigroup, the largest banking and financial institution of the United States of America."

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:q9aPBd9KMEIJ:www.raken.com/american_wealth/bankers_gilded_age/Bankers_index4.asp+%22national+city+bank%22+rockefeller&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=u


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=219&topic_id=23127&mesg_id=23152

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=219&topic_id=23127&mesg_id=23165

and mom, the "schoolteacher":

(Mary maxwell) Gates was born in Seattle, Washington as Mary Maxwell to James Willard Maxwell (Nebraska, c. 1901 –), a banker, and wife (married c. 1927) Adele Thompson ((probably Enumclaw, King County), Washington, c. 1903 –).<1> She received a degree in education from the University of Washington in 1950.

She met and married law student William H. Gates, Sr. at that time. During the early 1950s she taught school. After her husband co-founded the law practice that became Preston Gates & Ellis in Seattle, Gates turned to a variety of civic activities. Gates' volunteer roles in Seattle and King County included serving on the boards of the Children's Hospital Foundation, Seattle Symphony, Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, United Way of King County, and many other nonprofit organizations. She also served as President of the Junior League of Seattle from 1966-1967.

In 1975, Governor Daniel J. Evans appointed Gates to the Board of Regents for her alma mater, where she led the movement on the board to divest the University of Washington's holdings in South Africa to protest apartheid. In addition, Gates served on the UW Foundation Board of Directors, the UW Medical Center Board, and the UW School of Business Administration's Advisory Board. She died in 1994 of breast cancer at the age of 64.<2> Since then, her family has established two endowments in her name at the UW. The UW's Mary Gates Hall, which houses the UW's Office of Undergraduate Education as well as UW's Information School, is named in her honor.

Beyond the Seattle area, Gates was appointed to the board of directors of the national United Way in 1980.

In the for-profit world, Gates served for many years on the boards of several major corporations, including: First Interstate Bank of Washington; Unigard Security Insurance Group; Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone Company, which became US WEST Communications; and KIRO Incorporated.

Mary and Bill Gates, Sr. had three children.

Most of these people I'm referring to are one or two generations removed from the family member who started up the successful business. This generation's businessmen just happened to have the luck of being born in the right family and couldn't screw their financial future up if they tried. These people never had to worry about paying for their college or their children's. They never had to live paycheck to paycheck and their career pretty much fell in their laps.

And these are the people who think they're so smart that they can throw their weight around and dictate policy on the rest of us.

Were you being sarcastic? I'm simply curious.

:shrug:q

Microsoft makes a killing monopolizing and retarding the development of computer technology for profit. Gates wants to do the same for education.

expert in education!!

changed the world. there is a little water missing from that glass, but it is a long way from half empty.

He conned an actual programmer out of an OS after he had already sold it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Early_life

At 13 he enrolled in the Lakeside School, an exclusive preparatory school... Gates graduated from Lakeside School in 1973. He scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT and enrolled at Harvard College in the autumn of 1973.

:eyes:

are amused by his comments. I think not.

I also wonder if Bill improved at his job after the first three years. Seems a valid question, does it not?

I would love to see Bill's evaluation from his 3rd year in the workforce.

This dumbass also wants the H1b cap greatly increased based on the same "dime-a-dozen" views he expresses about teachers. Little people are nothing but barely useful bought-and-sold drones to his kind. Personally, I think he actually has a great disdain for formal education and really believes it's not much of a requirement for innovation based on his own experiences.

Oy :eyes:

code to use for himself? What a guy. But he's a billionaire, so he MUST know what we should do about everything!!

and then molesting the neighborhood children and pets.
It must be true...I said so.

Apple CEO Jobs attacks teacher unions
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/4560691.html
In a rare joint appearance, Jobs shared the stage with competitor Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Inc. Both spoke to the gathering about the potential for bringing technological advances to classrooms.

"I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," Jobs said.

"This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."

At various pauses, the audience applauded enthusiastically. Dell sat quietly with his hands folded in his lap.

"Apple just lost some business in this state, I'm sure," Jobs said.

Dell responded that unions were created because "the employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good."


Steve Jobs, Proud to Be Nonunion
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/news/2007/02/72754

Jobs knows a lot about schools; he's been selling computers to them for more than 30 years. But don't you love it when a billionaire who sends his own kids to private school applies half-baked business platitudes to complex problems like schools? I'm surprised Jobs didn't suggest we outsource education to the same nonunion Chinese factories that build his iPods.

Jobs has also been a longtime advocate of a school voucher system, another ridiculous idea based on the misplaced faith that the mythical free market will fix schools by giving parents choice.

Jobs argues that vouchers will allow parents, the "customers," to decide where to send their kids to school, and the free market will sort it out. Competition will spur innovation, improve quality and drive bad schools (and bad teachers) out of business. The best schools will thrive.

because his computers are just so darn cute.

Most of these IT CEOs are union-hating libertarians at heart. I wish they'd just stick to peeing in their own swimming pool, but they have to put that surplus profit somewhere. The party in power has opened the gates to them in Education.

That is why they cannot understand what makes people tick. There is, perhaps, a slight tendency toward autism.

Caveat: I'm a nerd myself but not a techie nerd. I'm introverted more than most so no one should be offended by what I say. To a certain extent, I am talking about myself. I have a teaching degree. I barely passed my student teaching although I got excellent grades in graduate school in other fields. Teaching as a grad assistant at a university was all I could handle. So don't accuse me of being condescending. I'm writing about you and myself. I know a lot about introverts, nerds, non-social types. I had to learn to be sociable. It did not come naturally. I still have to apologize a lot for saying the absolutely wrong, awkward, but very honest thing to my friends. That's nerdy behavior. Teachers have to be more sensitive about how other people feel.

A young woman who attended CalTech at a time when girls were a minority once told me that, at CalTech, "the odds were good but the goods were odd." She meant that the ratio between men and women favored the women but the men were really strange.

Sorry, computer nerds. Obviously there are lots and lots of exceptions. But, to be a computer nerd you have to spend hours and hours, many sleepless nights pretty much alone with a computer. And that is what Bill Gates. An extrovert, the kind of guy who goes into teaching, can't spend those long hours hugging computers. The extrovert would go just as crazy programming for a living as a computer programmer would go trying to teach six-year-olds for a living.

Gates should stop preaching to teachers. He will never understand what teaching is about.

I live around Silicon Valley and we are friends with one of the guys who helped Paypal get off the ground so it's a culture that I peek into every so often. The rank and file tech guys are just like you describe. The Bill Gates of the world are like the Hearsts of old. They come in and buy up the dreams of the little guys and turn them into shit. Profitable shit.

I'm an incredibly shy person who has to really step out of that to teach, so I totally relate to what you've said. It's a tough gig!

:rofl:

:rofl:

So we tend to ignore him as a big reform player. That's probably why.

Cute intro to DU BTW

...him? :7

:rofl:

You'll go far here.

:rofl:

This is the problem with the monopoly capitalist system we have. I have to buy a computer from one of these two fascists.

as to why unions were created.

"the employer was treating his employees unfairly and that was not good." With those words (if he really said them) Dell got my vote of the three just now...if I were a voting type...

Just get rid of teachers after 5 or 10 years- no need for any expensive pensions... or health care for an aging professional.

Charter schools can use the skimmed monies to profit investors... and purchase Microsoft online educational software- which will undoubtedly "allow for efficiencies of education with ever-increasing class sizes", allowing for even lower charter school labor costs and further increasing investor profits... while establishing a "captive market" for Microsoft product.

If the student test scores suffer... then it's obviously because the teachers aren't proficient enough with the Microsoft software... so Microsoft software trainers will have to be contracted to teach the teachers how to "better utilize the full range of software potentialities".

In the meantime, the actual development of the software can be off-shored to Mumbai, New Dehli, and Bangalore.

In time, even California's school children will learn to compensate for their regional accents... and adopt the Bollywood accent which off-shoring will inevitably establish as the new World Standard of English.

It's a sound business plan, really. Everyone should keep their eyes and ears peeled for the upcoming IPOs... and consider investing back in Microsoft as well when the time comes.

Think this doesn't appeal to bankrupted communities?

All building, grounds, staffing, salary, pension, benefits, and transportation costs....POOF! GONE!
Lowered property taxes! Sell the "campuses" for a profit (maybe, as happened in my town, for a home for the elderly)!

Just keep the stadium and the sports.

Should be easily adapted to K-12 ... then teachers can have classes of 125, not a mere 35... and there's no need to maintain grounds or pay for any facilities personnel.

Win-Win.

Janitors and groundskeepers don't merit consideration.

meet with your professors once or twice, maybe by phone?

You are so right!! one teacher for thousands of kids, potentially, teacher aids at $8 an hour, to turn on the monitors, oh and they can vaccuum and dust to boot...:sarcasm: (sorry gotta use this here, not for you, too many take me seriously) :fistbump:

My school is getting a new principal for the upcoming school year.
District reps asked us the top priority we were looking for in the new "leader."
Overwhelmingly, the answer was "long-time classroom experience."
Mr. Gates, nor Duncan that matter, have any idea how long it takes to become a good teacher - even when you have a talent for it.

It's a shame.

It's so great that their skills at creating monopolies and getting wealthy qualifies them to change everything for us.
I hope he starts a column like Dear Abby so the little people can learn from him.

As an educator of 30 years I find the statement to be sheer nonsense.

Teachers are becoming the scapegoat for everything.

I believe the downturn in education is due to 2 major factors:

1-Business types (including politicians) got involved and brought in things like standardized tests.
2-Parental involvement is disappearing and mass media has evolved to overtake student interest in school.

Everyone went to school...so everyone is an expert.

which justifies hating all teachers.

First it was the 3rd grade teacher who made fun of curly hair on a white kid and she decided to call him "N" head. Soon everyone else in the school used that same slur

Second was the 7th grade math teacher who loved to scream at the top of his lungs to the same kid. Telling that kid he was worthless.

Third was the 8th grade Algebra teacher whose first words to that same kid were "Well here's the asshole". The same teacher who made the kid come up to the front of the class and then made fun of his clothes, belittled everything he did, and encouraged classmates to join in the harassment. Wonderful teacher, kept calling the kid incompetent, stupid, dummy, asshole. Such a wonderful teacher that he was repeatedly elected as the school district's NEA President.

And then add in the football coach buddy of the 8th grade algebra teacher who made sure his jocks joined in on beating the same kid, stealing his books. knocking him down staircases. battering him with basketballs during gym class. The kid however saw the same coach torture a friend even worse, calling a friend the "f" word. The coach was such an inspirational motivator following the friend down the hallway repeating the "f" word over and over.

Finally the friend couldn't take any more abuse. The friend walked out of school went to the nearest bridge and jumped in the path of an 18 wheeler truck. Oh, the coach thought that was so funny, a real knee slapper.

The kid could never forgive those teachers for what they did. And he can't forgive the principal who told him to "Suck up and take your punishment like a man."

That kid grew up with such hatred of schools that he always votes NO whenever a school bond issue is on the ballot.

That kid is me.

And I'll never forget or forgive the god-damned abuse I was put through. Nor will I ever forgive them for driving a dear friend to suicide.

I could also write a book about shit that happened to me and mean people I encountered when I was a kid. We all can. My sister was the neighborhood and school bully. A few ignorant adults - teachers included - blamed our entire family for what she did and I was on the receiving end of no end of bullying, at home and at school and at church and just about everywhere.

But I grew up and got over it. I even have a good relationship with my sister today.

It's called maturity. If you can't get there therapy works wonders. I would highly recommend it.

Sorry you had a bad experience but at some point, you've got to deal with it effectively. Very few teachers are the bad eggs you describe.

Thanks, again, Obama!!

Whenever I read these stories about billionaires like Gates spending huge amounts of money on charities and foundations I always think the same thing.

Why doesn't he just directly donate to state governments?

With 20 billion dollars he could buy off all of California's debt. All of it. He could single-handedly save an entire state. Yet he creates these charities which I am sure do great work and help a lot of people but the funds get so spread out that it doesn't necessarily fix any problems in any single area.

Just for another example, with just 1 billion dollars he could pay the expenses for the entire "Doctors without Borders" organization for 2 years. Maybe I am totally missing what he is doing with all this money, but I feel like there are so many ways to use his wealth to genuinely fix problems in certain parts of the country.

If I won the lottery or inherited a fortune from a long lost relative, I would want to end world hunger or fund a cure for AIDS. If I spent money on education I'd buy books for kids or build libraries like Carnegie.

He was a total bastard in many ways, but he gave this country a great resource by building libraries (something I don't think most American even know about). I've worked in three Carnegie libraries over the years.

whether or not he is actually doing good.

Here is a post from Hannah Bell that goes into more detail:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8333944&mesg_id=8333944

That's why we call it "vulture philanthropy". It's much different from the civic donations of yesteryear.

Just like any other profession. It involves training and craft and retraining and honing your craft. It involves accumulating knowledge and skills and developing a "bag of tricks" to make your work more effectively. People get better the more they work any job - if that's their objective and they're competent.

This statement makes it obvious to me that Gates has no respect for the teaching profession, and should involve himself in fields he has a better understanding of.

Our hospital CEO once suggested that all the stewardess's laid off from the airlines should get jobs as nurses.


We are considered glorified waitresses and you (teachers) are considered glorified babysitters according to the TPTB.

And when nurses strike, you are accused of being all about the money and not caring about patients. In fact, (from what I've read) nurses strike because of the patients - the increased patient load/nurse decreases patient care, etc.

It's the same with us - we're accused of caring only about our salaries and pensions when at heart, we care about the kids.

I just wonder if the reason we get shat upon is that our professions have historically been dominated by women.

Teachers and nurses are ALWAYS in the top five.

Here's to solidarity with nurses! :toast:

I have nothing but great respect for nurses. I puked on a nurse once and can't ever apologize enough for that. It wasn't deliberate, I was really sick. LOL

He apparently doesn't know anything about teaching. Take away his money's ability to buy government officials and he'd be ignored.

He was never much of a programmer, though he had lots of pretensions back in the day.

That's a common misconception.

I get tired of people defending this asshole.

This is just another reason that no one should be allowed to amass a personal fortune the size of the one Gates has. (Especially the way he did it.)

Money equals political power and anyone with that much money can advance any pet crackpot theory they please by buying those in power and by purchasing public opinion.

if they couldn't write their charitable contributions off on their taxes.

over the policies and the world's democracies are allowing them.

you're just jealous!

:rofl:

DOES ANYONE NOT SEE THIS YET?
And those in collusion---e.g., Duncan---will, post-political stint, earn Croesus-like salaries working for Gates in the future.

The world's oligarchs are transforming societies, and the world's democracies are allowing them.

His plan is to use his education business to make profit by training America youth for the minimum wage service industry, which is all that will be left.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


<wiping eyes>

Yeah, right!

He is a failed college student and a failed computer programmer. He has no college teaching courses and no teaching experience. The products he made his fortune selling are notorious for failure. Do you really want to buy education from the same person who sold you the red ring of death?

All he has even done is leach off the technological advances of others.

Usually people compare schools to factories in order to critique the system. But Bill wants to use factories as a model.

were safer and more secure than the previous versions. Just exactly what teaching credentials does this clown have?

Another case of our representatives handing over programs to elitists who want something to play with. :puke:

That's all I needed to read. He has more money than God he thinks that teachers should not have a roof over their heads after they retire.

The motto of the Corporate States of America: "I have mine, now I must take yours."

:wow:

a very good teacher--both by students and by my department.

Every year I review the way I teach my classes. I consider whether the assignments I use are working the way I want them to work, whether my classroom methods are still working with students, whether my grading standards are reasonably consistent with the standards others are applying, but without succumbing to counterproductive grade inflation. In other words, I try to improve my teaching every single year.

Teachers learn, too. We learn from experience, from observation, and from reading. I am always reading to discover new approaches, new ideas, new assignments. I am always observing the effects of my own methods, to see how I might tweak them to achieve better results for my students.

Bill Gates is an idiot.

Teaching is an art that takes years to master. It was at least 10 years before I felt competent enough to consider myself a good teacher.

then Bill Gates would say you're a slow learner and replace you with a TFA expert teacher. Or worse yet, have one of them mentor you.

:evilgrin:

Please Bill, save me. You can start with a new laptop. This one is giving me fits.
:rofl:

But free always works for me.

nightmare!! and this peer evaluation stuff is even more of a nightmare... :O

Bill Gates and the rest of the moneyed aristocracy in America would never send their own children to the Brave New World classrooms they envision creating for yours.

who did not do their job for whatever reasons and a community in which children live who contributed to such parent's failure.

No teacher can succeed in her/his job given a few hours a day for five days over nine months when parents and community can destroy all that is accomplished.

Education is a two way process teaching and learning.

You can lead a student to teach but you can't make him/her learn.

about teaching.

Education has always been a political football, but I've never seen it this bad. I can't believe Bill Gates would make such a ridiculous statement.

nice, huh?

And THIS from the "expert." The stupid really burns.

I was shocked Gates had the nerve to say that.

It's about making sure they get rid of tenure.

Took me nine cause I switched jobs and was only given one year toward tenure in my new position. But they don't even do that anymore. If you change districts you have to start all over with tenure.

That is a fucking lie of the worst order.

There is a process set up for FORMAL EVALUATION of teachers, that involves specific visits, preconferences, yes. That's all there in almost any contract, as it should be. But principals can visit ANY classroom at ANY time - and they'd better be doing it every damn day. We evaluate our principals on that.

This displays the stunning amount of ignorance and willingness to believe ANYTHING about education and teachers.

Our principal was always dropping in.

There is a willingness and eagerness to believe the worst about teachers. It's a shame to see it under a Democratic administration.

education and teachers. :(

A lie of the worst order, indeed.

Ms Bigmack and have a total of 60 years of experience in a HS classroom. Between us, we had a dozen student teachers.

What Gates says is total bullshit.

Within three years, you know whether a person "has it"... that is, you know if the person can do the job.

The skill set necessary for quality teaching is very large, and we've always said it takes 10 years for a teacher to really get good...if they are going to be good.

Not that performance evals from administrators mean anything, but Ms Bigmack and I have files of ever-more-glowing evals from our last 20 years in the classroom. We both taught more advanced classes as we grew in experience, too. Teaching World History to sophomores takes an entirely different set of skills than teaching Advanced Placement US History or AP European History to college-bound seniors.

Why would anybody give a shit about Gates' opinion if he didn't have BIG money? The guy was a self-professed computer nerd who dropped out of college.

The arrogance of the man is astounding and scary.

The fact our Sec. of Ed. is in lockstep with him is even scarier.

EVERY YEAR I spend time reflecting on what worked well, what didn't, and how to address what didn't in the following year. We all do.

And, of course, the continuous professional development required to keep our licenses means that we stay up to date, and that our practice constantly evolves.

Where does Gates get his "data" that we don't improve after 3 years?

He sure as hell isn't getting any better.

which Gates intentionally makes obsolete and inefficient after three years.

If Bill needs major surgery, force him to use a doctor who has been practicing medicine for less than three years.

If Bill needs a fancy schmancy lawyer to protect him from anti-trust lawsuits, force him to use one right out of law school.

Bill needs to fire his CPA and hire someone with less experience. He should divorce his wife because she's probably not as good a wife as she was in the early days of his marriage, and disown his children as they have probably gotten lazy in their roles as child of such an all-knowing man.

And a lot of AFT members are pissed off too. That trade-off is far from certain.

Money might buy ads and TV time, but it won't buy boots on the ground and knocks on the doors.

The ONLY reason Democrats win my state of PA is union members. And we have 502 school districts.

His ignorance fueled by his greed and self serving agenda.

are having trouble in school? What caused Gates to have such a bug in his ear about this? Were his own private school teachers substandard?

I had great teachers even though I went to schools in working-class neighborhoods and even in a poor state in the South. What is the reason for Gates' grudge against teacher? Is it something personal? Some traumatic experience?

Is it because he is a nerd and did not fit in well at his school?

We don't need nerdy types like Gates telling teachers how to deal with students. Dealing with people is not something that Gates is likely to know much about. Gates should stick to what he knows and understands. Has he ever taught school? For how long?

I don't think anyone should be making decisions about teaching unless they have been in a classroom for at least five years.

... by emulating Albert Schweitzer or Mother Theresa.

Best thing to do is pressure your Rep./Sen., and tell them you don't want the Gates agenda pushed. This is just more of the same shit that started under Bush, and mainly goes to enrich textbook & testing companies.

Bill Gates can KMA for all he knows about education. And the Sec. of Educ ... has he ever taught a day in his life?

... statement of no improvement after three years. I can think of several other alternative explanations for that assertion, if it is true.

It's just so bogus, that I can't believe we even have to have this discussion.

14 unrecs.

because Gates and Obama are in agreement, and that's more important than actual policy.

:shrug:

Which is what I interpret it to mean.

It's kind of discouraging.

So weird.

that teachers don't improve after 3 years??

No, I mean an independent study, not one funded or done by some hack from the Broad Foundation? Hmmm?

Bill has no standing to offer up more than an opinion on this matter. Same as the guy who cuts your lawn is entitled to an opinion.

Gates is talking out his ass!

The OP is very informative, as madfloridian always does a great job. And I am happy to see the feisty responses. I, too, am a TENURED, nearly three decades of experience, teacher and school admin.(BTW,I am EVERYWHERE in our building; no restrictions, it is also expected of a good school leader to be visible and invovled, and sitting in one's office is neither of those things.)

IN NO WAY can I agree with the statement that three years could mark the zenith of any teacher's career, a point from which they will never improve, (if I am reading the OP correctly). Been in the business too long to see that as having ANY validity. And where are his data? Hmm????

I do NOT believe that money from the fed should be based on competitive grants. Period. Those 'competitions' just squeeze small rural schools all the more, so I am dead set againts RTTT and was always against NCLB. I was sorely disappointed when Arne was named Secretary of Education. Sorely.

In our participation in a class action suit against MSFT, a suit we signed on to with NO HOPES of ever seeing a nickel, we were 'awarded' $100,000. But wait, that is not OUR money to spend on what we may need (like hiring another teacher, or paying the light bill, or buying paperclips). OH NO. This was for buying TECH items ONLY, and ONLY those approved from MSFT. Yep, they "lost", but still get to call the shots in how you use the money they had to fork over. Wanted to buy a math program for the primary grades. Shot down. New computer lab? You got it.

Thanks for sharing. They get to call the shots anyway.

:hi:

shocked to find out how it was going to be administered. I suppose we shouldn't have been shocked, because I think the lawsuit was about price fixing or colusion of some sort (no surprise there) so what right would we have to use the 'award' in any other way than something that amounts to colusion? It was like when Barbara Bush gave the donation to schools that were damaged in Hurricane Katrina~only you had to buy educational software programs put out or at least sold by her son's company.


I feel lucky that I am in a small rural midwestern school sometimes, because we just keep going on. We've been 'in business' since 1854. I guess we've seen it all, and luckily a lot of it passes over us. To small to be important in the eyes of the Feds, which is I guess OK seeing as how things are these days!;-)

Thanks so much for sharing.

You also sound like a wonderful administrator. Thankfully there are a few more like you out there. I have been working for one for a long time now.

I am interviewing for candidates for three jobs this week. Should I tell the candidates that we expect them up to speed in three years then out the door?

And this horsepuckey about pensions really makes me burn. You work for decades and are buffeted by all the crap that some parents and the generally uninformed public throws at you, and guess what, YOU EARN THAT PENSION!! It's like the specious articles about Social Security and how we don't 'deserve' it, we being the lazy bastards I guess...

Unless something has changed, they take a pretty big chunk out of every one of my paychecks.

I hate the speciousness the whole pension argument, whether here for teachers or elsewhere. We PAY for those pensions, it isn't some 'unearned' benefit. Like we'd ever get ANYTHING that wasn't already earned, but the ubiquitous 'they' continue to want to take it away from us.

about teaching and learning. I worked with teachers and their development for the last 12 years of my career. There is no doubt that it takes at least three years, sometimes five for a teacher to reach the best levels.

I am so disappointed with Obama. The things that gates, bennet, gingrich, and duncan want are so obviously bad and there are so many knowledgeable people who could help advise the administration that I am seriously questioning either Obama's intelligence or his humanity. Or both. He should not be president if this is what he thinks should happen. He is coming off as a very small man.

But as usual in the USA, money gives instant validation. After all, this is the only purpose of this society and the people living in it: to make as much money as possible. See, education is not about creating functional whole human beings, who have sense of self worth, and who are equipped to understand and comprehend the world around them... and armed with all that knowledge improve their lives and the ones around them. See the goal is just to create good slaves who can make more of those funny looking pieces of paper with arbitrary numbers in them. Yeah!

Funny how we pretend to be such a "Christian" nation, yet for all intents and purposes we're the ones doing all that worshiping and dancing around that perennial golden calf....

Two people who would be called experienced.

The rest of 'em? Not so much.

According to Bill Gates, the students there are right on track for Harvard and Yale.

you know it's going to be bad for generations of americans to come.

they might just end up with the domestic 3rd world labor pool they need us to be to compete globally.

should have to teach 3rd grade in my home county for five years before they so much as open their mouths to say the word "education."

I expected to be extremely disappointed in Obama's economic policies, but this business with the schools has taken me completely by surprise.

Thank you, Madfloridian, for putting these posts up. I'm 110% behind you.

....Recently Bill Gates also criticized teachers' pensions as being too expensive.

Bill Gates, who has devoted much of his time to education since stepping down from full-time work with the company in 2006. Undermining public education, he said, is a system that channels too much money to pensions for retired teachers. He predicts that state and local governments will have to lay off 100,000 active teachers in the next couple of years. “I’m very much against that,” said Mr. Gates who noted that many of the teachers who lose their jobs will be younger, more motivated teachers at the bottom of the seniority system.

Gates at the Aspen Ideas Festival

Funny how that works, isn't it?

EVERYbody has an opinion on education, learning, teachers, schools, etc. -- but the actual experts, who are there in the classrooms every day experiencing it, are at the mercy of these other "experts" (and the farther FROM the classroom they are, the more clout they have)!!

:crazy:

But effective, for political and economic purposes. :(

Or is teaching the only job where experience doesn't make you get better. The money-driven lies we have to put up with in this country are enough to make you want to leave.

1. Insist that children are being deprived a good education and won't be able to get jobs when they graduate if they aren't using the latest version of PowerPoint starting in kindergarten.

2. Insist that children are being deprived a good education and won't be able to get jobs when they graduate if they study science instead of jesus.

3. Municipalities raise property taxes so your child can be exposed to Microsoft and Intel products starting in Kindergarten and pay for a new text books and materials for an intelligent design curriculum.

4. All the overhead and distraction that goes along with brainwashing teaching Microsoft products and jesus replaces the things that science has proven to be developmentally critical for learning.

5. Between Microsoft and the Texas Board of Education and Obama's plan to privatize the schools, the right wing teaches our little darlings the value and inherent goodness of corporations, the civil war south, monopolies and jesus.

6. Now, after years of continuous schooling with Microsoft products and jesus, the new grad enters the world full of hope and ambition a bible and Microsoft knowledge and discovers that the very last technology job in America has just been outsourced by Microsoft and Intel to an unregulated labor market in Bangalore where a low skilled 24 year old is paid $7/hr and is working with computers for the first time.

7. Consulting the bible our new grad learns its all part of gods plan, and moves back in with their parents or ships out to fight the crusades in Afghanistan.

8. Wall Street and the politicians who receive massive campaign contributions from Microsoft and Intel blame the lack of jobs on teachers and not enough government investment in Microsoft and Intel products.

9. Go to Step 1.

The lesson to be learned? We need to trust Texas and jesus and educate ourselves to $7/hr with no benefits.

Say what you want about Bill Gates at least he made our computers crash on time.