Reblogged from NANCY BAILEY’S EDUCATION WEBSITE
There’s so much bad news about public schools. When one article makes you want to pop the cork and dance in the streets, it is easy to get excited.
Don’t. The tables haven’t really been turned.
The LA Times Editorial criticizes the Gates Foundation for their poor philanthropic use of billions of dollars spent on school reforms.
They disparage them for failing in three areas:
- Small Schools
- Teacher Effectiveness
- Common Core
They just now figured this all out?
We’ve been here before. Remember the 2006 Business Week article “Bill Gates Gets Schooled” by Jay Greene and William J. Symonds?
That article described how difficult Gates found it to break up schools. But they still did their damage.
Then there was the American Enterprise’s criticism of the Gates Foundation and their failed involvement with the Philadelphia School of the Future. The school threw away books, along with the library, and was an abysmal disaster.
A few weeks later the school was left to reinvent itself.
Gates went on to supply teachers in Tampa and Memphis and other places earbuds so they could learn to be more effective by listening to directions from the back of the room.