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High Tech High 2.0
theodp writes "A week ago, in his How to Keep America Competitive Op-Ed, Bill Gates touted the Gates Foundation-backed High Tech High as the future of American education. One small problem. Two days earlier, tearful Bay Area High Tech High students — recruited by a Bill Gates video — were told that their school of the future has no future. So would Bill be too embarrassed to lay out his education plan before the Senate Wednesday? Nah. Not too surprisingly though, mentions of High Tech High were MIA in Bill's prepared remarks (PDF), which touted Philly's imaginatively named $65M School of the Future, built under the guidance of Microsoft, as the new school of the future. Committee politicians reportedly embraced virtually all of the suggestions made by Gates."
The LA Time recently ran a story about the possibly troubling investment strategies of the Gates Foundation. You can see more of their coverage here.
There was also, more to the point, this story via the Register: Gates demands better schools as Gates-backed school closes and this much more detailed story.
If this is an example of how the deals are made and how things are managed, it points to another classic example of 'the microsoft touch' screwing things up. It quickly reads as a tremendous gift of technology squandered by poor management, the same management which had delivered on providing poor schools in the first place. Of course, Bill protected his development.
(Pardon me for being cynical)
I recall another story along this line from someplace (done in the human interest vein), but I can't place it just yet.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
By the way, we're Linux people in our household, so one of the questions we asked about the school during the High Tech High changeover and funding is "Will this mean the students are stuck using Microsoft products?" No, they weren't. The school was Gates-money funded, but the computers were all Macs and the network was Linux-based. I think the only Microsoft there was the Office suite on the Macs.
No, parents were *very* involved in the school. I used to spend as many as 8 hours a week there, coaching a quiz team, etc. Parents pretty much paid for much of the school, donated supplies and equipment, ran the front desk for the first couple of years. The problem was not parental involvement. Honestly, really? The problem was hiring a *marketing guy* to be the principal. No, really. Not kidding.