A Gates Foundation Education Initiative Fizzles 459
theodp writes "Three years ago, Sarah-Palin-bogeyman William Ayers published a paper questioning the direction the small school movement was taking (PDF) with the involvement of would-be education reformers like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And now, after $2 billion in grants, Bill Gates concedes that in most cases his foundation's efforts in that area fell short. 'Many of the small schools that we invested in did not improve students' achievement in any significant way,' said Gates. Bill does cite High Tech High as one of the few success stories, but even there has to limit his atta-boys to the San Diego branch — the Gates-backed Silicon Valley High Tech High closed its doors abruptly due to financial woes (concerns about the sustainability of Gates-initiated small schools were voiced in 2005). Not surprisingly, some parents are upset about the capital that school districts wasted following Bill's lead."
I could be sarcastic (Score:5, Insightful)
What? (Score:4, Insightful)
What does Sarah Palin have to do with anything? What the fuck is even the point? Protip: The election ended 3 months ago.
Shit like that really makes the site look bad.
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not an educator but it seems to me that we're all in search of a process. Maybe outcomes are less of a product of the system that is used and more a result of the skill and effort level of the educators and parents in question.
Not that I have much experience with the subject; merely an uninformed opinion...
Maybe, just... maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps you have to know what you're doing.
article should read (Score:3, Insightful)
"William Ayers writes"
This kind of shit just bothers me. You know what? Anyone can claim something will fail and they have a 50/50 chance of being correct. Ok, so the guy is so brilliant, why isn't he the one with the multi-million dollar program trying to improve the school system?
Please, this isnt news...
Skimming... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not about wealth, equality, social justice, or any of that. It's about parents who care enough to push their kids to do well in school.
Only on Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, I voted against GOP last year too, in part because this was 40 years ago and and it was cheap for the Republicans to wait so late to bring it up. However, the fact that Ayers was criticized by some lousy political candidates doesn't that he deserves no criticism. This guy is a symptom of why the Left is a minority philosophy in the U.S., and can't win a Presidency without a major recession or impeachment just before the election.
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:3, Insightful)
Having worked with a small non-profit in this regard, I agree with you. Education can't be fixed with broad brush strokes -- it can only be fixed at the local level, one community at a time and one school at a time. It starts with analyzing the education requirements in the community. Throwing money at a problem doesn't fix anything: You have to have a real, sustainable plan that's customized to the community's needs.
The biggest part of the problem isn't money, it's people. It's finding and attracting the kinds of talented and committed people it takes to build or improve a school to world-class levels. As it stands now, you have too many administrators and teachers wayyy too worried about not 'rocking the boat.'
Education improvement starts and ends at the community level. Once people see that, and not merely pay lip service to it, then we can begin to improve things.
Re:Who thought it was a good idea... (Score:1, Insightful)
Harvard drop-outs >> Graduates from almost everywhere else.
What's your deal Tapecutter?
Well run schools succeed (Score:4, Insightful)
What should be really obvious is that well run schools succeed and poorly run schools fail. What is a bit less obvious is that not every school can be well run in exactly the same way because the needs of the student body, community, and dare I say faculty (yes they have needs too!) differ from one school to another.
Much time, money, and ink has been spent on trying to find the magic bullet that will "reinvent our concept of education." Funny thing is, non-educators are rarely able to make their ideas work by imposing reform from the top down. What that suggests to me is that A) perhaps schools are harder to run than they appear to be, since outside "reformers" are no better at it than "insiders"; B) maybe professional educators are not the problem after all since no one else seems to be able to consistently do their jobs better than they can; and C) centralized mass production of education via curriculum mandates may not be the way to go (since when that approach is applied broadly, it still succeeds only narrowly).
Instead maybe it's time to look at schools one at a time and recognize that properly running a school is a management challenge like any other.
Re:article should read (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't have to approve; but knowing what you are talking about can't hurt.
Schools and Technology. (Score:5, Insightful)
In order for IT to succeed in small schools, there is one thing that is key to keep in mind: Technology, especially IT, is a TOOL for the classroom, it it not a be all and end all for making a class. If you do not have a use for a tool in the classroom, then it only gets in the way.
You can be as forward thinking and as technologically advanced, laptop/netbook in ever child's hands, but if you don't have lessons to teach that make use of that tool, ti's just dead weight.
In order to overcome this issue, you first have to have teachers and instructors in place who have a learning plan, lessons, and other means that will utilize technology, such as smart boards, 'clickers' and other items in their day-to-day lesson plans in transfering knowledge to children. If these teachers aren't trained, aren't educated with how to use these IT-tools in their classrooms, then we are indeed, just throwing away money.
Re:Skimming... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's all well and good, but what, are you going to *make* parents get involved? How are you going to do that?
Not that I disagree. Parental involvement is extremely important, and "throwing money at a problem" usually doesn't do much to solve that problem. On the other hand, I would contend that at least part of the problem is that schools in the US suck. They do, really.
It's not simply the parents' fault or the teachers' fault, but it's a whole culture-wide thing where we have horrendously inconsistent ideas about what "education" is. Is it for job-training, cultural conditioning, feel-goodery, enlightenment, or what? For many people, it's just another arbitrary thing that you have to do.
Hell, I was extremely interested in math and science and even philosophy when I was a teenager, and I was in a school system that was considered one of the best in the country. Still, I almost dropped out because schools-- at least the schools I went to-- position themselves against learning, against curiosity, and against discussion. It was all about authority and power, and someone who was genuinely interested in the topic rather than interested in the grades was a "problem" to them.
Begging for meta-moderation (Score:3, Insightful)
For what it's worth, this is why the moderation, and perhaps meta-moderation system is so annoying.
The post is right (Ayers did bomb buildings) and may be wrong (I don't know about the communism part as of this minute). But it's just not a troll. At least not by any definition of "troll" I may understand.
Re:Skimming... (Score:3, Insightful)
The modern public school system was designed [johntaylorgatto.com] that way.
Re:I stopped reading... (Score:1, Insightful)
Alright then. We'll just chalk that up as "because conservatives are passive-aggressive" and leave it at that.
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:at least it was only 2 billion (Score:2, Insightful)
No biggie. Our kids will all take care of it.
Re:I stopped reading... (Score:2, Insightful)
This interview with Bill Ayers [rwor.org] might help you understand. "But he [John Dewey] never resolved a central contradiction in our work, the contradiction between trying to change the school and being embedded in society that has the exact opposite values culturally and politically and socially from the values you're trying to build in a classroom." Ayers openly admits that his purpose for "education" is to pursue a social and political indoctrination system. Since the interview is on "Revolution, Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA" I'm sure you can connect the dots as to what the intended indoctrination is.
When you consider the place of importance Marx and Engels give to public education as part of their revolution you will see exactly why conservatives don't like government schooling in general and Ayers in particular. If you read his pdf linked in the summary, you will see that one of his main objections to what's going on is what he calls the "ownership society" a.k.a private property rights.
The man wants the government to force me to give him access to my children so he can indoctrinate them with cultural, political and social values I don't agree with. What's the reason I should cooperate again?
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:3, Insightful)
Sort of. The problem is that there is no one process that will work well for everyone (that would be the holy grail of education), but if you can:
a. Devise a process that works for a certain type of learner.
b. Enroll only the people whom that process will actually benefit.
Then you can accelerate learning. Doing so is quite a challenge, however, and is nigh impossible in a public school system that mixes the entire population into one classroom and proposes a uniform style of instruction for everyone.
Re:I stopped reading... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's guys like Ayers that use terms like "social justice" to mean "everyone should get the same stuff in life, regardless of what they produce."
For someone who is complaining about indoctrination you sure are demonstrating how well you memorized the main propaganda talking points the US government inflicted upon it's population in the 60s and 70s.
I live in a socialist state where the current governing party is none other than the socialist party. Yet, capitalism is alive and well, people still get different pay checks and still see some people advance in life while others fail to do so well. So where exactly does that "everyone should get the same stuff in life" pops up?
Well, nowhere. The thing is, when socialists talk about the concept of "social justice" they are talking about benefiting from the same starting point without being hindered by some poverty-induced limitations. To put it in other words, "social justice" means that no matter how poor you are, you still get the same chance of advancing as some millionaire offspring.
For example, the access to my country's equivalent to the ivy league schools doesn't depend on your family's wealth, which means that if you are dumb as a door knob and you happen to be the son of a billionaire then you still have to work your ass off in order to be admitted to one of those schools. It also means that if you are terribly smart and talented then you may enrol in those schools, no matter how poor you are. It's raw talent that matters, now raw cash.
That's what social justice means and frankly the US sees too many raw talent going to waste just because the right people happen to be born into a poor family.
And he has spent years overtly advocating for the use of schools as idealogical indoctrination centers aimed specifically at cranking out kids who see the world as one big entitlement engine.
Are you so naive to really believe that the US, including the school system, doesn't try to indoctrinate their population? Oh really? So how come so many people foam from the mouth when faced with anything related to "communism"? Well, pretty much like you have reacted to the word "socialism", although you clearly demonstrated you failed to understand the concept.
admiting failure is awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
What most impresses me, ignoring all the Ayers stuff, is that Mr. Gates was willing to admit publically that parts of his initiative failed, and retool it. There's a little whining (some schools 'did not take radical steps', etc), but overall it was pretty frank at saying "we need to change some of our approach". I wish more school districts would take that approach, rather than requiring you remove the school board before they'll change off a destined-for-doom plan.
Not a fan of Bill Gates... (Score:4, Insightful)
IANAFOBG, but I do appreciate his initiative in attempting to help our school systems. It may not have worked out but we certainly know what doesn't work now.
I would attribute the failure to something similar of lottery shock. When people win the lottery they feel the urge to make up for a lifetime of pent up consumerism. These school districts suddenly had a ton of money thrown at them to buy and use new technology. (i.e. See the 2nd and 3rd Matrix Movies) Unfortunately it wasn't a slow, gradual, introduction. Instead the district, teachers and student were overwhelmed with trying to implement a brand new way of learning and it failed outright. In itself this is a lesson in teaching.
As an example look at laptops on a college campus. There is not doubt in any students mind how helpful their laptop can be during class. It can also be equally distracting. Now the reason why laptops work in college is because they were introduced at the rate the market would bare. There was a trickle down effect as laptops became more affordable and portable. If you went out and bought MacBook Air's for an entire class of freshman high school students I doubt you would see any positive side effects because the students would once again be overwhelmed and not know how to manage such a valuable asset. In my opinion high school teachers would end up spending a large amount of the first couple of years too heavily policing what the students were doing with their laptops. After this cultural issue is conquered I believe laptops (or tablets) would be a wonderful resource to high school students. The problem I for see is the school district not having the patience to wait out those first couple of years. Another option would be to introduce personal laptops at an earlier age to help gain more respect for them.
Re:I stopped reading... (Score:3, Insightful)
Those are the classic pillars of the 60's progressive, who wants to tax the holy fuck out of the rich and give it back to the exploited masses. It's communism lite.
Wow, what a blast from the past. It has been over thirty years since that rhetoric had any currency, and then it was already 25 years old and creaky. Your words come straight out of a time before the Internet, before personal computers, before even integrated circuits, back when there were less than 3 billion people. Now there are more than 6 billion people, the world's economies run on globe-spanning networks of communications supporting 'just in time' inventory and order systems, FOSS is critical to the operation of nearly all large institutions including government and military. Any more, no one is worrying about whether the freeze dried TV dinners in their fallout shelter have aged past their expiration dates. The world has changed.
There are no "60's progressives" out there any more. Or rather, the few that remain have no influence since they are so clearly senile. Discussion has turned from those old concerns to new ones that fit these times.
Please drop out of any further public discussions on the interwebs, until you have done some reading on current issues and can identify your opponents. Rather than pointing to what people were saying forty years ago, since those people are now either dead, senile, or have updated/upgraded their views.
Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Ayers [wikipedia.org]
Re:I stopped reading... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to disagree with your other points, but Harvard, Yale, and most of the other Ivy League schools have a similar policy. Harvard's current cut-off for tuition, for example, is $60,000. If your family makes under that amount, you don't pay tuition; for reference, the median annual income for US families is in the mid-$30,000 to mid-$40,000 range depending on how you choose to interpret the data.
You may have to pay room, board, and books, but if you're from a family earning under $60,000 and you're posting grades good enough for Harvard then you can probably qualify for a scholarship or grant to cover those costs. If not, government-subsidized student loans are the preferred method for many better-off families and will certainly get the job done and allow plenty of flexibility with pay-off
Again, not to push against your points, but the Ivy's programs for poorer and middle-income Americans are not government-backed, but rather a private choice made by each of those institutions. Some may argue, cynically, that the programs were put in place to deflect complaints about those institutions multi-billion dollar endowments, but the fact stands that the private institutions make those policies.
As for the other side of your assertion: that those with influence can't use it to manipulate admissions to your country's universities? That would go contrary to what the last few thousand years of political history has taught us. I would find it exceedingly hard to believe that - out of every country in all of political history - your country is the one somehow operating without influence by the powerful.
Unless, of course, the powerful aren't manipulating admissions because they're busy sending their kids to Harvard and Yale.
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:5, Insightful)
The process you are seeking is making parents accountable and making sure their children actually go to school.
How about, while we're at it, we stop telling the little brats and their brats about how special they all are and instead start sending the message that it takes hard work and dedication to amount to anything in this world?
No ma'am, your little Jimmy really only has himself to blame for that F. So unless you think a future where he spends his time shining my shoes is a good idea, how about you ground his disobedient little ass for a week till he starts doing his homework?
Re:sigh (Score:1, Insightful)
Ayers personally never killed anyone, though he did cause some damage to government buildings.
However, one of the members of the WU accidentally blew up themselves and the building they were in while building an explosive.
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the number one reason that education reform fails to make any meaningful inroads in a short period of time, if the parents are the product of a failed school system then they will be unable/unwilling to put a concerted effort into helping in their childrens education. Without the full involvement of the parents no education system will be successful for even the majority of students let alone all students.
Ayers has no credibility (Score:4, Insightful)
This man was leading a group that bombed the US Capitol and the Pentagon. He's a terrorist, and has only a legal technicality to thank for the fact that he's alive much less running around free and publishing papers as a "professor".
Indeed, the fact that Ayers IS employed in academia itself is far greater argument that the US educational system is broken beyond repair. Why is he bitching about Bill Gates? Even if you argue that his school projects are failing/have failed, at least Gates is using HIS OWN MONEY and not spending taxpayer money on failed government schools. IMHO, a true stalin-lefty like Ayers is probably harping on this more as a reason to promote government solutions to the problem with education (despite it being the main problem) over private ones.
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I stopped reading... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's guys like Ayers that use terms like "social justice" to mean "everyone should get the same stuff in life, regardless of what they produce."
That's the thing that annoys me the most about socialists. They always talk about equality of outcomes, but the never talk about equality of effort. At the same time, I understand why people would advocate "social" justice when a guy who commits a "white collar" crime that causes millions of dollars in lost wealth only gets a few years in a low-security prison, but a homeless guy who mugs somebody for $100 gets 15 year behind bars: http://www.ktbs.com/news/Man-who-took-one-bill-and-handed-rest-back-to-bank-teller-gets-15-year-sentence-23655/ [ktbs.com]
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and schools/teachers/administrators/politicians can't/won't do anything to change either one.
Re:I stopped reading... (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. It depends on someone else's wealth. So, you could have two extremely hard-working parents who have a kid that's of average intelligence and native academic skills. They know that putting that kid in a really excellent setting (analagous to an Ivy League school) would help the kid make the very most of his averageness. And they're willing to put their hard work (money) on the line. And then you've got another kid of significant IQ, academic potential, etc., whose parents don't have the same hustle or dedication to getting their offspring educated. You're saying that the two hard working parents should give up on having their kid go to the really good school, and instead write a check to put a different kid - one that someone else decided to have - into that school. That's "social justice?" You're making the average kid's parents slaves to the smart kid.
Wow.
I mean, just wow.
You're suggesting that the criterion for admission should be how hard the parents work?
Well no. I guess you mean it should be money. Yep. That's what you're saying. Those who can pay for it, get in.
Well, FYI, last time I checked, some elite schools actually do care about this thing called standards.
If the hard working parents want their kid to get into a top university, how about making sure he gets a good education before university so that he can get in?
And I do take it you're opposed to public elementary and high schools in the US? You know - the ones that take other's money to teach kids?
Oh no, I get it just fine. You want the government to say which kid gets to benefit from a parent's hard work.
No - he's saying he wants a system where a kid gets benefit because he works hard, not because his parents work hard. As if, BTW, a smart kid with poorly paid parents didn't "work hard" to ensure the kid grows up smart. It seems that for you, working hard equates to making money.
Your notion of "social justice" isn't that a smart kid should naturally get access to a better school, it's that hard working parents don't have a say in which child - their own, or someone else's - gets the benefit of their hard work. How just of you!
Yes, because there's no way the rich parents will benefit out of paying taxes to educate others, right? All those property taxes going to fund other people's kids! What good could that possibly do for them? How on Earth will they benefit when some of those kids become their doctors, I wonder?
True social justice is found in the notion that it's not very smart to have children when you're not ready to provide for them.
And your definition of not being able to provide for them is...? And BTW, if the average performing kid with the rich parents couldn't get into an ivy league school, then have the parents not failed him? Maybe they shouldn't have had him, right?
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"especially if you are big enough..." (Score:3, Insightful)
<diaboli subtype="advocatus">Leading to increasing populations, famine, and war.</diaboli>
Re:I stopped reading... (Score:5, Insightful)
Right. It depends on someone else's wealth.
No more than the roads you drive on depend on someone else's wealth.
So, you could have two extremely hard-working parents who have a kid that's of average intelligence and native academic skills. They know that putting that kid in a really excellent setting (analagous to an Ivy League school) would help the kid make the very most of his averageness. And they're willing to put their hard work (money) on the line. And then you've got another kid of significant IQ, academic potential, etc., whose parents don't have the same hustle or dedication to getting their offspring educated.
I'm sorry, who exactly is applying for college? Is it the parents or the kids? If the kids are the ones applying for college then where exactly would society benefit if it was only possible to provide opportunities to some kid depending on how much money the parents are willing to throw to open doors for him?
You're saying that the two hard working parents should give up on having their kid go to the really good school, and instead write a check to put a different kid - one that someone else decided to have - into that school. That's "social justice?" You're making the average kid's parents slaves to the smart kid.
If you have a hard time commenting what I said then, instead of putting words in my mouth, consider not posting at all. No one besides yourself stated anything similar to "hard working parents should give up on having their kid go to the really good school". All parents, independent of how much they make a year, should participate and invest in their children's education. Yet, the term "investment" does not nor it should mean "injecting capital" exclusively. The end result of an education is not the total bill that the parents ran up since kindergarten but talent, acquired knowledge, mental agility. That is exactly the only thing that matters and relying on money to evaluate academic matters will only corrupt the evaluation.
Oh no, I get it just fine. You want the government to say which kid gets to benefit from a parent's hard work. Your notion of "social justice" isn't that a smart kid should naturally get access to a better school, it's that hard working parents don't have a say in which child - their own, or someone else's - gets the benefit of their hard work. How just of you!
You demonstrated yet again that you don't have the faintest clue about what you are talking about. In any socialist society, which pretty much means all european states, in order to apply to a state school the only thing that matters is the equivalent of the US's SAT score. Back here that score is composed of the score that the candidate gets in a nation-wide series of tests and the equivalent to the high school grade point average. That is as much state interference as the US's SATs.
Re:I stopped reading... (Score:2, Insightful)
There are no "60's progressives" out there any more. Or rather, the few that remain have no influence since they are so clearly senile.
That's not what Bill Ayers said in this interview. [rwor.org]
That's one of the things that's actually annoyed me for about 40 years of being a progressive educator - Bill Ayers, faithfully following his 60's communist ideology to this day (well, up until October 1, 2006 anyway).
Another choice quote: But he never resolved a central contradiction in our work, the contradiction between trying to change the school and being embedded in society that has the exact opposite values culturally and politically and socially from the values you're trying to build in a classroom.
Please drop out of any further public discussions on the interwebs, until you have done some reading on current issues and can identify your opponents.
Well, since your proposition that "60's progressives" (communists) have disappeared or lack influence has been shown to be wrong, we can conclude that either (1) you didn't know you were wrong, in which case it in necessary for those of us who understand to educate others or (2) you did know you were wrong and are trying to silence opposition to communist propaganda, in which case it is necessary for us to oppose you since we disagree with communism.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume (1). Either way, no, we won't be dropping out of public discussion.
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:4, Insightful)
Hard work mean putting in the required effort to get the job done, whether that be mopping floors or writing install guides for KVM switches. If your kids can find a job where success is handed to them on a silver platter I curse my parents for not doing the same.
A foundation is just a toy of the rich. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:3, Insightful)
No no no. I'm not defining hard work as anything here, only what those who espouse the culture of hard work are always shoving it in our faces due to their own shortcomings. I didn't get where I am without hard work (6 years of college, 11 years in the military) but to the small-minded person, there's no "hard work" involved in writing technical manuals or creating a training course. You don't get nowhere in life without a little elbow grease, sonny!
There are no silver platters for us non-trustfund babies, and hard work isn't reserved for jackhammer-wielding day-laborers.
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:4, Insightful)
Please keep the parents isolated from the educational system. They are the problem.
This is absurd.
A child's parents are his single, biggest predictor of academic success. Don't believe me? Try this little thought experiment:
How long do you think it would take for the students that used to attend the worst school, but now attend the best school, to eclipse their best school to worst school student counterparts?
1 year? 5 years? 12 years? 20 years? Ever?
I'm sorry to say, but it's not the teachers who make the school. It's the students. And who makes the students?
There really isn't a lot a teacher can do to get my kids to perform. After all, a teacher will only see them for 1 hour per day, whereas I have had them their entire lives. Teachers love to bitch about parents, but the fact is, teachers can't accomplish anything without the parents. Why do you think my kid is acing your class? Because you are a brilliant teacher? Or because I taught them to speak, read, and write in 2 languages at age 3?
Teachers have very little control over education outcomes--A fact that they are quick to trumpet when a student comes from a wretched home life, but are slow to admit when a student arrives well-prepared to perform.
Re:I could be sarcastic (Score:3, Insightful)
I guess that we're some of those people too. To my wife and me, the perfect day is spent on our farm, clearing brush, splitting firewood, enjoying the sunshine, playing with the dogs and drinking a few beers. After a hard day, we sleep better in the small, lumpy mattress in the cabin than on the king-size bed at home. I guess to some people working up a sweat != misery.
My brother-in-law puts it best when he says that different people relax in different ways.