A partial response to Bill Gates' op ed about teachers

03-01-2011

Blog by Ken Bernstein/Daily Kos

Today's Washington Post features an op ed by Bill Gates titled How teacher development could revolutionize our schools. Teachers are the latest focus of Gates and his foundation. Before I respond to anything in this particular piece, let me remind readers that the last time Bill Gates got enthused about something in education, it was small schools. His foundations sank a huge amount of money into getting districts to create small schools while ignoring the research that had been done by those who had focused on the issue for years. The result was that the endeavor was not all that successful, the foundation has now pulled out of the effort, in some cases pulling the plug on ongoing efforts it had encouraged, and unfortunately tarnishing the concept and making it more difficult for those attempting to do it right. Gates is now pushing a focus on teachers and teaching. That in itself would not be bad, except that as seems part and parcel of his approach, he has already locked himself in to certain approaches that are not necessarily going to help students all that much. (more...)

Also: Huffington Post

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A partial response to Bill Gates' op ed about teachers

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