Slashdot Mirror
A Gates Foundation Education Initiative Fizzles
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."
...and say that nothing that Microsoft contributes to schools facilitates education, but that would be unfair. Gates is not the first, and will not be the last, businessman to try to give money to schools to encourage them down a path that he supports. I am sure they all mean well - but education is too big and complicated, and depends too much on local factors, to benefit from this kind of investment. It's been said that the only thing that businessmen should do is to take a leaf out of Carnegie's book and donate libraries. Not a bad place to start, especially if you are big enough to realise that you will profoundly disagree with some of those books, and that is actually a good thing.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
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.
...to ask a drop out for advice to government on how to spend education dollars?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
...after the following sentence in the first paragraph:
And you wonder why conservatives don't like Ayers?
The money was spent by the schools on PCs and Windows Vista? Thats why they didnt improve! Its faster to write the document by hand.
The first high school class is graduating this year. Their high school graduation rate has gone from less than 10% under the old school to 96% in the new school, with all graduates going to college.
There are a lot of factors here of course. But that's what I'm saying. It's far, far too premature (and simplistic, and utterly reductionist) to say "well, small schools work" and "small schools don't work." Some small schools work well. Some don't. Some are more or less educationally sustainable than others.
But some Gates foundation schools have had dramatic success, and we should keep that in mind before we universally condemn that mode of education. Tagging OP as misleading here.
...you can't fix education by throwing money at it.
Perhaps you have to know what you're doing.
"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...
If sharing a song makes you a pirate, what do I have to share to be a ninja?
Skimming through the articles, I saw LITTLE mention of just about the only thing that really works in education - parental involvement. We Americans are FAR too convinced that throwing money at education is bound to fix the problem, when we spend more than any other country per student and don't get half as good results.
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.
Take a couple million dollars and set a prize.
$100,000 for the best grades.
$50,000 for the second.
$25,000 for the third position.
$10,000 for ten more students.
etc.
Then, if you discover the grading system is completely flawed and tells more about the test passing skills than the knowledge... Well, you only spent a couple million bucks for a valuable knowledge.
... can a guy intentionally making homemade explosives that killed people, who had a role in major riots, who detonated bombs in public parks, and who never really apologized for any of it get cast as the GOOD GUY against Bill Gates!
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.
You see stuff like this happening all the time in the private sector. Notable guy buys stuff, everyone else jumps in and buys the same thing he does. Notable guy sells stuff or stops funding everyone else does the same.
When will people realize that even Notable people are human, are prone to mistakes just like everyone else. So except for blindly following what they are doing you should more carefully examine what they are doing. If you disagree with it, then don't follow, if you do agree with it then follow.
I am sorry there are no quick fixes in life. There is no Messiah who will make things all nice and easy (Even if you are Christian, Jesus actually made peoples lives more difficult then easier, forced them to think about ethics of religion vs just blindly following the rules). Sometimes people will get lucky and become successful quickly however for the most part hard work and dedication is the way.
To improve education there is no quick fix, small schools large schools, high-tech schools low-tech schools... All these are one detail in a more complex subject. If you say swap all the kids from an over achieving schools with those in an underachieving schools with the same budget you will find the overachieving kids will still overachieve. As they have parents who are more willing to participate in the child's education, they understand the value of education.
There is no quick fix for education you will need changes on all levels. Improved Parental involvement, Classes that help integrate other classes, ability to evaluate teachers and reward them for good performance, A grading system that rewards learning and allows mistakes as part of the learning process , not punishes the students for mistakes, Fair market pay for teachers with their skills (Pay Math and Science teachers as much as Engineers). And I know I am missing a much more.
Just putting money in education doesn't fix the problem, if that was true New York State would have the best education in the world. But how you wisely use the money and and work on changing the culture.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Looks like Gates just got Bill Ayres'd!
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.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
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.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
hip hop crap. Therein lies the problem. You need rock and roll to progress, not 'gansta' polka-crap. Kids are stupid today, much more so than ever before, because of, yes, Michael 'Peado' Jackson's takeover of MTV which allowed this crap to infest the culture. da hood homies works in Sugarhill but it only makes stupid white youth even more stupid.
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.
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
Boy talk about bad logic. Are you a reporter?
Just because there are two (more?) possible outcomes to a given situation/argument doesn't mean there is a 50% chance each one will come to pass.
Let me guess, you'd say "well evolution could be true or not true so there is a 50% chance that it's not true". Or maybe "global warming will either occur or not occur so there is a 50% chance it will not".
I can guess where you stand on both of those issues.
You have no idea what your talking about.
Social justice, equity, and community should be goals for running schools, not the primary lessons taught by the school. You disagree? Which of these three should be ignored?
Conservatives don't disagree with these ideals -- they just feel the terminology is abused by liberals.
You seem like a Hannity listener. Maybe Rush or O'Reilly, but my money is on Hannity.
I don't recommend any of them... unless you're trying to "educate" yourself to be a little fascist anti-intellectual ignoramus living in an imaginary land where minorities shut the hell up and Reagan bends you over the table every night (even though nobody there is gay).
I am hardly a fan of teacher's unions but I do have to question the efficacy of educational testing. We seem to have this notion that we can create an institution that can make children want to learn. Learning requires individual initiative and exploration and that is something that I think children are either born with, or not. All too often, success in our present testing regime really means, how well do children follow orders or behave in a group-like fashion. The present practice of various power groups trying to indoctrinate children into their own constituencies is sickening. It's their world that they will be running, and the hangups and prejudices that we have decided in our own political alignments are best left at the classroom door. I would say that if any curricula does not prepare a child to learn how to invent or compose or craft or create, then, that instruction should best be dispensed with. Our country will be far better off if we had useful citizens, more than politically correct ones.
This is my sig.
Sacrifice? Oh, that.
No biggie. Our kids will all take care of it.
You know, even though I am a Microsoft basher I must say that at least Gates is big enough to realize that he was wrong/made a mistake. I'm glad he didn't let ideology blind him to reality unlike the previous administration. Or maybe that was just stupidity.
He is one of the multi-billionaires who is spending a large part of his fortune actually trying to make a (BIG) difference (Carlos Slim are you listening?). (I realize there are some who take a much more cynical view towards his contributions, sorry I don't know enough to judge).
Obviously, Bill Gates is bringing the same skill and insight to his charitable efforts that made Windows what it is today.
Thanks, editors! Finally an article that tells me just why I've always had trouble cheering for the Gates Foundation, in the face of all the good it does.
Because Gates is a trial-and-error visionary. The only reason he's got so high credits among the general population is that his failures are generally forgotten, even though they by far outnumber his brilliant ideas.
When people's lifes depend on that, and education is a vital part of that, it becomes more than a game.
I'm still not sure it's totally bad - we need people who try out stuff. But the amount of money behind the Gates Foundation is way too large for testing. Like windos, sheer size pushes stuff that's barely a beta into the production environment. Another foundation with less money would have had to run smaller, closely monitored test projects, instead of rushing into a full rollout.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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.
A.
Gate's article does mention that lot of the schools had increased attendance and graduation, but the goal of his project was to get college graduates and that is the basis of him saying it was a failure.
Mr. Gates still has plans to continue funding schools based on the ones the schools that worked, he also is going to expanded based on those that worked. He also plans to spend money on studing teachers who were more effective then the norm and spread those best practices around.
As for the Ayers article, Gates writes that the biggest failures were those places that were not willing to change, that kept the old ways, in other words those that took the money and spent them on doing things as they have always done them. Ayers complaint is that the Chicago project, that got money from Bill, is removing schools, which are failing, from the "public space" and into privitization. So the schools that Ayers is saying are good and should be kept going are the schools that Gates has shown are failing and not producing college graduating students.
Anyone who dedicates a book to Sirhan Sirhan is worth castigating and maybe stringing up in my book. Killing innocent cops and idolizing Sirhan Sirhan should be reprehensible in everybody's views but of course it isn't....
This guy is way out there
Ayers violently protested the Vietnam War. Shame on him for resorting to violence instead of asking politely. Bad Ayers! Bad! No treat for you!
Are you satisfied, or should we beat this dead horse into dog food?
I'll spoil some of his best lines: as part of their research on how kids can teach themselves, they dropped a hardened computer kiosk in a remote rural village where "they were assured that noone had ever taught anyone anything"... and left it for a few months for the kids there to play with. They came back to see what progress was being made, and the first kids they spoke to led with "Oh, it's your machine? Good. We need more RAM and a faster CPU, please."
Being non-american and not really giving a damn about all the fine details and political smears of the previous US presidential elections - I had no idea who the guy was.
Oh I am SURE CNN tried to inform me about it during the previous year or so - but I actually tried to be kept out of the loop as much as I could.
Same way I would try to be out of the loop of German, French, Russian or Australian elections.
Alas... it was not the case.
I was bombarded 24/7 with US political propaganda so much I'm almost surprised I didn't actually get to vote - someone was obviously trying so hard to inform me about all the fine details of the campaign(s).
Still William Ayers escaped me.
From "Sarah Palin boogieman" I actually thought that he was some clueless nutjob on Sarah Palin's team who said something or other about how tech or video games are the work of Satan.
Or something along those lines.
You know... something that geeks would scare the little kids with. Hence - Boogieman.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
Imagine what good could have been done for education if the Gates Foundation had donated $ 2 billion to the OLPC project...
Participatory Governance : The only feasible option for a real democracy, where everyone really does have a say.
Even if you are Christian, Jesus actually made peoples lives more difficult then easier, forced them to think about ethics of religion vs just blindly following the rules.
Very true, anyone that says do this, it is right and it is easy, is only have right.
Just ask the family of Dr. Robert Fassnacht.
Anyone else notice that it's the haters who keep bringing her up, then whining about how she won't go away? I guess it's a good strategy, though, to make the world think the Republican party is still all about her.
that asshole is an admitted terrorist and on the day of the world trade center he was quoted in an interview stating he wished he had done more. I'd say that does make him a fucking boogeyman.
...if they switched back to education first instead of social political correctness indoctrination and brainwashing of the children.
My comments almost three years ago on the Shuttleworth foundation also trying to reform schools, and applicable here:
http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/26#comment-397
Also, a related essay I wrote:
"Why Educational Technology Has Failed Schools
http://patapata.sourceforge.net/WhyEducationalTechnologyHasFailedSchools.html
"So, there is more to the story of technology than it failing in schools.
Modern information and manufacturing technology itself is giving
compulsory schools a failing grade. Compulsory schools do not pass in the
information age. They are no longer needed. What remains is just to watch
this all play out, and hopefully guide the collapse of compulsory
schooling so that the fewest people get hurt in the process."
Gates' initiatives for small schools are probably just more of the same, to make digital slave laborers. Even the more radical reform in the news still puts the emphasis is still on making kids fit into the needs of business:
"To fix US schools, panel says, start over"
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1215/p01s01-ussc.html
At least Shuttleworth's initiatives are trying to empower kids, but that group too can't get past seeing schooling as the solution, instead of realizing it is a big part of the problem disempowering the next generation.
In twenty to thirty years computers will be about another million times faster, and we'll have better 3D printers and smarter dexterous seeing robots, and most humans just won't be employable in any sense we now understand. A previous related post by me to Slashdot on computing and education and the mindset of the class of 2029:
"Ignores the big picture on exponential computing
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=279703&cid=20354965
Marshall Brain on that theme:
"Manna"
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
A bigger generalization on that theme by me:
"Post-Scarcity Princeton"
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity-princeton.html
John Taylor Gatto, a New York State Teacher of the Year, in general on this:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
"""
A lower middle class which has received secondary or even university education without being given any corresponding outlet for its trained abilities was the backbone of the twentieth century Fascist Party in Italy and the National Socialist Party in Germany. The demoniac driving force which carried Mussolini and Hitler to power was generated out of this intellectual proletariat's exasperation at finding its painful efforts at self-improvement were not sufficient
-- Arnold Toynbee, MA Study of History
Two Social Revolutions Become One
Solve this problem and school will heal itself: children know that schooling is not fair, not honest, not driven by integrity. They know they are devalued in classes and grades, that the institution is indifferent to them as individuals. The rhetoric of caring contradicts what school procedure and content say, that many children have no tolerable future and most have a sharply proscribed one. The problem is structural. School has been built to serve a society of associations: corporations, institutions, and agencies. Kids know this instinctively. How should they feel about it? How should we?
As soon as you break free of the orbit of received wisdom y
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
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.
... wake me when they introduce Google Street View (or Cable View) to the ocean floors.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
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.
Corporatism != Free Market
Not just private money. Some money was pumped into schools that should shutdown because of population shifts. Now we have thirty or so schools in the district that are less than half full and a bunch of money pumped in them for technology upgrades. Now they are just pissing money down the drain and will continue for years to come. The money wasted on these schools far exceeds the money that they were given by the Gates foundation.
Sic Semper MicroSoft
Disclaimer: I went to a "progressive" school in the UK. My first form teacher was a Communist who had thrown bricks at Fascists in the 1930s, but many of the staff were socialists, Catholics or both. House prices went up in the area all the time we lived there because parents wanted to be in the catchment area for that school. You see, a real Communist or socialist believes that education can transform society. Whereas it's the right wingers who want everybody else to be poor and uneducated, so they can profit.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Gates also points out that some of the schools showed great improvement, and then lists some ways they are different from the ones that did not. If you throw money at a school without actually changing anything you get the same result more expensively. If you use the money to actually shake up the culture then you may get results. This is called learning from an experiment. Expect the second round of funding to be more targeted, have more conditions attached, and be more effective.
We all know /.'s opinion of Bill and his company, but let's take a moment to acknowledge that the Gates Foundation is a somewhat different animal. It has a track record of spending money on un-glamorous causes where there is big bang for the buck (e.g., malaria). Here, we see it checking the performance data and dropping a program that just wasn't working. Love 'em or hate 'em, that's the smart thing to do.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
The privatization of our decrepit school system will lead to its total demise. It's already started to. I know several individuals who left my high school to attend a local charter school which was funded by No Child Left Behind and the place was a joke. There were no certified teachers and it was administered by individuals with nothing more than a high school diploma (the school became a total joke when a graduate became a "teacher" the very next year). The curriculum was nothing more than a series of computer programs which explained concepts and then presented the student with a series of multiple choice tests.
Our local community college requires graduates of said charter school to take their "College preparatory education" classes before signing up for any credited courses and most cannot even pass those (they teach stuff I was learning in sixth grade). Basically, the charter school profits from federal grants while providing no real education to students. But students are love the charter school because you only have to attend for three hours a day, attendance is not strictly enforced, and they don't have to deal with any of that pesky learning.
Bill Gate's schools were no different except they were a blatant attempt to make tech schools which only used Microsoft products and turned America's youth into future .NET programmers. It was a sad attack against Linux, Objective C, C++, and anything else not licensed by Redmond. Corporations have no business being involved in education because it's not in their best interest for American's to be well educated.
Schools need to be federalized. The success of European and Asian schools it to be found in their implementation and funding. They don't assume that communities have the resources and know-how to educate themselves so they are federally regulated with federal criteria. The American school system hasn't had a major reform since its conception with the Northwest Ordinance of 1789 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance). The United States will continue to decline as long as we continually allow our schools to fall further behind other nations. Our educational system outdates our constitution, now we're allowing corporations to degrade it further, how pathetic.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
I have only one comment, though. A lot of work has been done on why children fail. However,to fix it would require a level of social engineering and cost that taxpayers in the US and the UK (but not e.g. Finland) will not put up with. As poor people generally don't vote, politicians have little interest in solving an expensive problem with no short term solution.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Calvinists have hisorically (in sociological literature) been considered hard workers, because they felt called to work hard and rejected (often times) "worldly pleasures" such as entertainment, therefore worked longer hours, and therefore earned more. They felt it a "sin" to purchase luxuries. Granted, some interpereted their success as divine favor.However, when you generalize a people group by any metric (religion, race, culture) you're going to have a mixture in how the members internalize specific social norms or relgious tenants. It is the same kind of generalization that lends itself to bigotry; to say all $people_group does $trait.
For the sake of intellectual honesty, it would also be very unsafe to look at historic Calvinism and people who would consider themselves "Calvinists" today, as the same thing. Much in the same way you can't look at "Americans" generally speaking today as the same as you would 18-20th centrury Americans. Significant cultural differences make the exercise of their beliefs very differently today; even amongst modern-day Calvinists which spans many national, cultural, racial, and socioeconomic classes of people, you'll find many different expressions of a common religious confession. I've lived all over the US in very different socio-political climates and have seem as much variance in "Calvinistic" circles as any other societal group.
For more reading on the historical sociological understanding of Protestantism (and Calvinism in general) see wikipedia.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
The foundation gave your town a building -
but not until you provided to lay out 10% of its cost each year for acquisitions, staff and maintenance.
The lesson does not only apply to businessmen.
It applies to the geek who bundles his "one size fits all" philosophy with a laptop computer designed for the third-world classroom.
Not that local control doesn't also come with a price.
Carnegie didn't confront racial segregation directly, but he did fund separate "Colored Carnegie" libraries.
Because they both REALLY BELIEVE they did the right thing.
Nobody can fix the US public primary and secondary education system. It's so entrenched in its brokenness that it not only successfully resists any attempts to make it better, but it competently attacks any attempt to supplant it by educating people outside the system. This is why, for example, there are those limits on charter schools that Gates complains about. To fix the system would require essentially destroying it and starting from scratch, with the majority of those in the current system barred from participating.
And this is true despite the fact that there is no single US public primary and secondary education system, but rather one system for every state, and districts often with high degrees of independence within those states. There is, however, one major commonality tying all the systems together, and that's the unions -- they DO operate across state lines.
"Bill does cite High Tech High as..."
"...about the capital that school districts wasted following Bill's lead."
Do you know Mr. Gates personally? No? Then treat him with the respectful formality owed to any stranger.
Refer to people by full or last name unless you personally know them, just like you would to artists or other public figures.
It's not hard to treat people properly. Common courtesy.
That is why they fail...
Yes, having a huge uneducated underclass is really going to keep the US on top of the world. You have, like most US conservatives, totally missed the point. Marx wanted to change society and realised that the way to do this included better education. If US conservatives wanted to change society in a constructive way, they would come up with a conservative state educational system that was successful, so that people would want it for their children. But all they seem able to do is try to teach Creationism and prevent sex education in schools.
Explain to me why the most socialist European countries have the most sucessful outcomes in terms of education, better than the US. If you were right, Finland would not have created one of the world's biggest high-tech companies - they'd never have let Nokia get going.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Three years ago, Sarah-Palin-bogeyman William Ayers?
Does he mean Sarah Fey? Or Tina Palin?
D.C. Public Schools spend way more money per student every year than most of those "white flight schools," or even urban charters and religious schools. Their results are much, much worse than the average school in the U.S. even though they spend way more money than the average school.
That's because the problem isn't the lack of money (there isn't any thanks to redistribution programs) but rather the utter incompetence of the School Administration. Who'd have thought that rewarding bureaucrats for failure and denying consumers choices in the market place would lead to a terrible product? The legal liabilities of Entitlement Schools making it impossible to maintain any semblance of Discipline couldn't possibly have a negative influence on outcomes either, could it?
The primary purpose Public Schools in many districts is strictly to line the pockets of the Teacher's Union Officials and the Public Sector Bureaucrats in exchange for putting politicians in office. As long as the Diploma Mill continues to hand out worthless counterfeit degrees to the illiterate and ill-behaved parents can pretend they held up their end. It is no wonder they fail.
You bought the shit. Stop complaining.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
if the big-money donaters want to improve things. However, throwing money at the problem seems to the way these guys operate. Pretty much the SOP for the unimaginative.
http://www.nih.gov/news/research_matters/december2007/12102007kids.htm
The issues in education start well before school age. In the 6-month to 4-year old range, most of the development takes place. Get the kids involved in the pre-school, and things take off.
dot-sig.
I'm not sure why the guy is still around, but his pathetic hatred of Mr. Gates and anything that can be connected somehow to Microsoft ("Oh look, the former cook at the cantina that servered people in Redmond, the Microsoft city") not only makes the site look bad, it makes any of us more moderate geeks quite annoyed.
If Bill Gates wanted to give something to the world, he would have made a good operating system.
Now it's time for Steve Jobs to step up and show how to reorganize the schools properly - maybe get rid of few buttons here and there.
Jonathan Ive could redesign the pencil sharpeners.
It's really a shame to see money get wasted when many local public schools in the Seattle area are closing. I for one always wished 'ol Bill would have helped build a better 520 bridge, you know, for the children.
It's not difficult. If you have a few hundred million going idle and want to see some kids educated: pay them. Tie pay rises to results, make sure that the highest level of their education makes them financially independent from their parents. Bingo: actual, real, live educated kids like you've always wanted - blasting out of the ghetto like bats out of hell on shining motorbikes of pure ability.
Oh, and let the schools do what they do best - let THEM do the teaching. Stay off their backs, don't mess with the coal face.
I used to be a teacher. Believe me - hit 'em in the wallet and they'll go for it.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
Well, I am an educator from a long line of them.
1) Educators often forget how to learn and change
2) Nobody will figure out education until we figure out how the human brain functions (never.)
3) Business and Government have no bearing on education; just because you went to school does not make you an expert on education. (To be fair, it doesn't mean you can't have good ideas to contribute-- just because you spend money doesn't make you an economist... and they aren't too much better at it.) Gates didn't really solve any big problems in computers; don't know why anybody thinks he'd solve any in education (its not a business - and business is the man's talent.)
4) Students are the #1 problem. But in America, its everybody else who is always at fault.... A healthy motivated student can learn despite the teacher or even without any teacher. Sorry, can't flunk 70% of the class for NOT doing their homework anymore...That USED to happen and students knew they couldn't game the system. Consequences have been weakened with the support of modern society.
5) Psychology, homelife, and parenting ALL are the most powerful factors in a student's career. We seriously need to make each student see a shrink as part of the process (maybe then we can find/cure the nutters??) Can't fix the parents/environment; they are too entrenched, but you can help the student overcome it. That will never happen, it would scare too many sicko parents...
6) Attention Span. More importantly, DELAYED GRATIFICATION. HUGE MASSIVE problems in modern society that undermine education. "Laws are but sand, culture is rock." -Mark Twain
7) Culture. State colleges actually have funding influenced by how well their sports teams do! I rest my case. Oh, around here in my childhood it was normal to say you can't do math-- even teachers did it! (we don't dare say we can't read...)
8) Teaching styles/talents vs learning styles. One size does NOT fit all. Its not about "advanced" classes for kids with addictions to good grades (who in the end are not as successful as students without the addiction.) Students should match with the methods and even better, the student should discover what works best for them so they can educate themselves (which is largely what one does in college.)
9) Technology. Its a distraction. We have nearly everything we have without any technology involved education. Clearly the "old" methods worked quite well.
10) Social classes. Some people do not need higher education. Higher education is not for everybody. Not all kinds fit all professions. A car mechanic is more of an apprenticeship learning model and they should be respected for what they do. It takes a different set of skills despite it being extremely similar to I.T. Support which gets much more respect.
Real-world computer science is a myth; its much more software engineering and forms of computer support/technician. CS can continue as a Math degree as it started; but the others are far more appropriate as a apprenticeship model or hybrid. Again, society will promote the 4 year degree because it looks better than the latter even though it doesn't produce as well. (CS degrades over time into a trade school program because they don't want to lose it; it doesn't fit anymore and hacking it to fit is..a hack. Its like refusing to change coordinate systems and working extra hard in the wrong model.)
I also fail to see what is so bad about learning basic business, accounting, investment, economics in high school so everybody knows how to start their own business, fill out their taxes and balance their budget. Even the garbage man (who is important) has to deal with such matters.
Sorry, just the top 10 off the top of my head. I'm sure I could write up something better if I put in the effort.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
He is one of the multi-billionaires who is spending a large part of his fortune actually trying to make a (BIG) difference (Carlos Slim are you listening?). (I realize there are some who take a much more cynical view towards his contributions, sorry I don't know enough to judge).
Wake up. He's trying to make a difference, but from his actions that difference is not for the better. At best it's just leveraging PR for his investments.
Take a couple million dollars and set a prize.
$100,000 for the best grades.
How much would it cost to harass the competition to the point where they under perform and you win the prize?
Kids will injure each other for a stupid trophy, how far will their parents go for that much money? Kidnapping? Murder?
You can't take the sky from me...
The Public School System is only broken around major metrolpolitan centers aka inner city schools, do you need me to relate the demographic detail of the broken systems?
I think not and where we are the public system and the students by a vast majority are meeting state and fed mandated benchmarks and exceeding in many areas even in percentages that exceed the national average with one of my own a part of that trend.
Now lets see whats different about where I am (suburbs)from where the failing schools are (inner city), hmmm is it...oh wait can it be, ah, it cant be race can it? Oh wait were not supposed to talk about that and Obamas gonna fix it all and thats why they voted for him to the tune of 98%!
Any you want to "fix" these schools?
h a h aha ha aha a ha aha aha aha aha ha ahaha haha haah ha ha ha aha aha ah cough cough
There is nothing wrong with schools, its the students and families that occupy them and since we import more non educated freeloaders than any place in the world, what school systems do you think they end up in along with our legal resident stars of cultural dysfunction, public schools, duh!
Throwing more money at them is no different than throwing money out the window, your better off showing up at their homes and being their daddy, would do them more good than anything!
Check out how he spent a few million on Chicago schools. Check out how much student performance improved (hint: not at all).
As an educator from Middle School, High School, and University levels, let me just say, "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
It is seriously sad that people genuinely expect simply dollar bills in relatively small amounts to change the quality of education in America.
Let me break this down to those uninitiated in the workings of ground-level education:
1) Noobie teachers are, for the most part, *crap*. They are given crap training, they have crap experience, they are paid crap, and they have crap for back-up in schools. Most have the right motive, but few have the substance and quality to back up their hearts until they have *at least* 3 solid years under their belts. After those three years, your average noobie teacher becomes a "survivable" teacher.
2)When people talk about educational systems failing, what they intend to say is "Lowest common denominator is still too low." Our brightest students always have, do, and always will get preferential treatment whenever they can be labeled as "Gifted", so that's not an issue. The problem is with the part of our society that perpetuates the creation of "at risk" students (which are predominantly poor, live in poorer sides of town, go to schools with higher student-teacher ratios, and have poorer facilities).
3) The quality of education does not improve with simple access to computers, so save your money. If you give computers to a poorer school, they will either be destroyed by disrespectful/irresponsible students, become a further financial burden on the school (as they require upkeep), or help only to turn the school into a "magnet" school thus making the school exclusive and pushing out the lowest common denominators of students and perpetuating the problem.
4) Remember: Observing or measuring something changes that thing in a fundamental way. In education, a certain amount of measurement is good to check returns on investment. Too much measurement is bad. Over-testing in schools is bad. It takes time away from quality teaching and forces teachers to teach to the test... constantly! To clarify, and contradict a butt-ton (metric) of politicians, constant, standardized testing does not improve education.
So, if you are a multi-billionaire who wants to feel better about himself by throwing money in a particular direction, then throw it in the right direction. Bill Gates could have funded and supported the construction and day-to-day operations of 100 high-tech schools in California and seen the same complete lack of results because most of the students who would have attended those schools would have had access to great education anyway.
Bill, here's where *just* California is hurting:
It's a myth that it's "easy" to become a teacher in California. (For the sake of discussion, "teacher" refers to someone who can make a consistent and significant beneficial impact on the education of younger generations while attempting to do so in a public primary or secondary California school. This does not include people with "emergency credentials" or "substitute teachers".) To become a credentialed teacher in the state of California, you need to earn 4-year college degree, pay for and take the CSET and CBEST (standardized tests), possibly pay for and take the GRE, apply to a credentialing program at a four-year university (which costs money), get accepted into that four-year university's credentialing program, and complete that program (typically one year in duration) with sufficient success.
After that, you have to teach for five years (with little support) and then *go back* to school to receive your "clear credentials" to become a fully credentialed teacher-- "Credentialed" meaning that you've been taught the educational stardards and policies of California, while also getting some great tips on how to survive!
So you pay for (or likely borrow money to go to) college, you pay for two or three standardized tests $50+ each, pay for various applications to get into a credentialing program, pay tuition while in that program, work
You forgot to explain to us why children should be entitled to benefit from their parents' wealth in the first place. (And note that I said wealth, not "work" as you inaccurately put it.)
Are you adequate?
another reason why one laptop per child was a failure. did anyone even bother to try this experiment on our own kids? guess bill did, and pcs were not a magic bullet for education.
n/t
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
Works every time it's tried! Right now the inmates are running the asylum. Discipline the kids and tell the overly-sensitive parents to shove it.
All the money in the world won't help if the schools are war zones.
We condemn this mode of education, not on the merits, but because Gates is involved. It's the slashdot way.
He's a terrorist ... stalin-lefty...
And it gets 4 Insightful? This is just hate, no arguments against Mr. Ayers points.
Come on, Slashdot!
Dear Americans, stop reinventing the wheel and throwing money at the problem you don't understand. In fact it is a solved problem, there is a solution implemented by countries much much poorer than the US with excellent results. I guarantee that I can achieve excellent results at any US school with no additional funds in my area of expertise (math). Provided:
1) I can use my own curriculum.
2) I can fail anyone and as many students as I want
3) I can eject any student I deem disruptive from the classroom.
4) If a I see that a student has potential but his home environment is not conductive to his education (video-games, TV, bad parents) I can force him to stay at school after regular classes to ensure he studies and does his homework.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Fewer kids per class room.
Focus on kids abilities
Keep up to date information
Tax accordingly.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on