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."

Comments

Re:I could be sarcastic

[arpad1]

No, education isn't that big or that complicated.

We've made it big and complicated but the evidence is all around that it needn't be.

There used to be little, red schoolhouses all over the place and their modern descendants, charter schools, are also all over the place. Neither one needed/needs a school district with its inevitable central administration bureaucracy and both had/have to concern themselves with teacher competence since parents can don't have to incur the expense of changing their residence if they're not happy with the school.

Gates almost got it right with his small school idea but the problem isn't the size of the school so much as it is the lack of choices open to parents. A lot of small schools for parents to choose among would mean a lot of schools that live and die by parental satisfaction. Since parents are the only group that can legitimately claim to be interested primarily in getting kids a decent education that makes the concerns of the parents the concerns of the schools.

In a school district the concerns of the parents may, or may not be, of any interest to the professionals because they don't have to care.