Jason L. Riley ends his article from the Washington Journal with, “You can quibble with Mr. Gates about … strategy. You can second-guess him. You can even offer free advice. Or you can shake his hand, thank him for his time and remember that it's his money.” But Mr. Riley should remember that public education belongs to all of us, not to people who can pay or sway.
Bill Gates’ strategy of “leverage[ing] private money in a way that redirects how public education dollars are spent” is another way of manipulating the education system into a big for profit business that would end the free public education policy of our country. That’s exactly the way Riley said it. Gates is using his money to redirect public education dollars. Isn’t that what we have elections for? Local school board elections, state legislature elections, presidential elections. What about directing public education dollars based on need, based on which buildings have holes in the roof, no access to technology, class sizes that are unmanageable. Oh, but wait, I forgot. Gates doesn’t really think class size is an impact on effective teaching.
According to Riley, “the foundation has been working on a personnel system that can reliably measure teacher effectiveness” because “teachers have long been shown to influence students' education more than any other school factor, including class size and per-pupil spending.” So, this is where Gates’ money is directing governmental attention. As a National Board Certified Teacher, I completely believe the number one indicator of student learning and achievement is an effective teacher and on the surface the Gates project sounds pretty good. The Gates Foundation’s current project includes reviewing 13,000 lessons of 3,000 elementary school teachers in seven urban districts to determine what makes up “effective teaching.”
I want to know more. Are they watching the same teacher over time? Providing any professional development and feedback? Are they looking for growth? Are they monitoring student attendance? Are they monitoring parental involvement and follow through? Were all these teachers trained the same way to begin with? Is “effective” measured by state standardized assessments or by clearly delineated learning targets presented by the teacher? For example, are you measuring my effectiveness as a teacher if I want students to identify the parts of a frog and by the end of my unit they can indeed identify the parts of the frog? Or are you measuring my effectiveness by whether or not they can pass the state standardized test that may say absolutely nothing about the parts of a frog? Who’s watching these tapes?
I have a problem with any kind of private money coming out and saying their goal is to “redirect” public money, mostly because that usually means into their own companies. For example, Coke and Pepsi did a really good job redirecting public school funds by infiltrating snack lines and score boards for brand loyalty. I’m not saying that Gates is going to come out with the “Windows for Education” model, and I’m not trying to disparage his philanthropic efforts to make the world a better place, but until all of these questions are answered, I am doubtful of any answers that come out of this study.
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