I confess that I’m struggling with Diane Ravitch lately (and not for the reasons I struggled back in 2010). I think that she’s a valuable voice in the educational policy landscape and I greatly appreciate her passion and her ability to energize educators and citizens as she speaks up against political and pedagogical abuses of...
Category: Bill Gates
Content delivery and assessment v. discovery and empowerment
Audrey Watters says: Theres a line in a 2011 Wired Magazine article about Khan Academy where Bill Gates calls constructionism “bullshit.” It’s a line that’s stuck with me because it makes me so damn angry, no doubt, but also because it highlights Gates’ dismissal of established learning theories, his ego, his ignorance. And it highlights too,...
Is this what we want for our students and for our schools?
Dan M says: [Is] there a country on earth with a successful education system that has ever operated the way [Michelle] Rhee insists this country’s education system should be run? Does Finland, the model for the world, have any of the following: Teach for Finland? KIPP Finland? the Finnish Parent Trigger? the Finnish merit pay...
If new teacher evaluation systems were really about growth and constructive feedback
Anthony Cody says: while Gates and his employees constantly talk about growth and constructive feedback, they always seek to embed these systems in the evaluation process, where there will be huge consequences for those involved. I asked: If I am wrong, and the new evaluation system described by Bill Gates really is all about feedback...
So long as profits are being made, the inadequacies of ed reform ‘solutions’ can be masked
Anthony Cody said: Here is the deeper problem with [Bill] Gates’ model for education reform. It is built on a vision for social change that asserts that in order for the needs of the poor to be met effectively, the drive for profit must be unleashed. Gates views this as the driving force for innovation....