Education

unhappycamper

(60,364 posts) Sun Dec 1, 2013, 07:00 AM Dec 2013

What’s Good For Bill Gates Turns Out To Be Bad For Public Schools

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/30-0

And, actually, bad for Microsoft too, as we learned recently

What’s Good For Bill Gates Turns Out To Be Bad For Public Schools
by David Morris
Published on Saturday, November 30, 2013 by On the Commons

Schools have a lot to learn from business about how to improve performance, declared Bill Gates in an Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal in 2011. He pointed to his own company as a worthy model for public schools.

~snip~

Needless to say, the whole process of what has come to be called “high stakes testing” of both students and teachers has proven devastatingly dispiriting. According to the 2012 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, over half of public school teachers say they experience great stress several days a week and are so demoralized that their level of satisfaction has plummeted from 62 percent in 2008 to 39 percent last year.

And now, just as public school systems have widely adopted the Microsoft model in order to win the Race to the Top, it turns out that Microsoft now realizes that this model has pushed Microsoft itself into a Race to the Bottom.

In a widely circulated 2012 article in Vanity award-winning reporter Fair Kurt Eichenwald concluded that stacked ranking “effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate. “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,” Eichenwald writes. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”

7 replies

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Highlight:

What’s Good For Bill Gates Turns Out To Be Bad For Public Schools (Original Post) unhappycamper Dec 2013 OP

What is Gates claim to fame? TexasProgresive Dec 2013 #1

Both BlueStreak Dec 2013 #3

ANother part of the Microsoft plan is "schools within a school" BlueStreak Dec 2013 #2

We did that here too proud2BlibKansan Dec 2013 #4

Curious...was this a good thing? AllyCat Dec 2013 #6

I don't think they tried it long enough to see if it would work. proud2BlibKansan Dec 2013 #7

I don't think Bill knows what's good for Bill. proud2BlibKansan Dec 2013 #5

TexasProgresive

(12,263 posts)

1. What is Gates claim to fame?

Reply to unhappycamper (Original post)

Sun Dec 1, 2013, 07:28 AM

Dec 2013

Would you say he's a master of innovation?
or is he someone who rode to riches and wealth on the backs of real producers?

Now he's using his great wealth to run schools into the ground with his mediocre ideas as to how it should be done.

BlueStreak

(8,377 posts)

3. Both

Reply to TexasProgresive (Reply #1)

Sun Dec 1, 2013, 07:37 AM

Dec 2013

Read "Accidental Empires". Almost all of these high-tech billionaires are innovators, but they had to be in the right place at the right time, ind it didn't hurt that Gates father was already very wealthy and could help fund the early activities.

BlueStreak

(8,377 posts)

2. ANother part of the Microsoft plan is "schools within a school"

Reply to unhappycamper (Original post)

Sun Dec 1, 2013, 07:33 AM

Dec 2013

Several high schools in our area tried that. It was a complete mess in all but one of them. However, they are all still "officially" operating that way because they get Gates money for doing so.

You don't need "schools within a school". If you want teachers to know their students better, hire more teachers and get the class sizes down to low 20s.

proud2BlibKansan

(96,793 posts)

4. We did that here too

Reply to BlueStreak (Reply #2)

Sun Dec 1, 2013, 11:33 AM

Dec 2013

but Gates pulled out his money and the high schools went back to the way they were.

AllyCat

(16,958 posts)

6. Curious...was this a good thing?

Reply to proud2BlibKansan (Reply #4)

Tue Dec 3, 2013, 11:02 AM

Dec 2013

To have your schools go back to the way they were? Or was it harmful? Not sure I understand school within a school.

I'm deeply opposed to Common Core and interested in what Gates is doing to our schools, looking at ways to fight it in our local district...wondering how people do things differently and if his money pulling out is really bad, really good, or what.

Thanks!

proud2BlibKansan

(96,793 posts)

7. I don't think they tried it long enough to see if it would work.

Reply to AllyCat (Reply #6)

Wed Dec 4, 2013, 10:01 PM

Dec 2013

I'm not a high school teacher so I can't report how well it worked. But it was here and then it wasn't.

proud2BlibKansan

(96,793 posts)

5. I don't think Bill knows what's good for Bill.

Reply to unhappycamper (Original post)

Sun Dec 1, 2013, 11:36 AM

Dec 2013

He's an uneducated ignorant noob who just happens to have a whole lot of money. Now if he would only use that money to find a cure for AIDS or something more useful. Sigh. Remember Carnegie? He gave us libraries.

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