Bill Gates’s risky adventure
Bill Gates, speaking at MIT, described his foundation’s efforts to hold teachers accountable as “the riskiest thing we are doing.’’ (David L. Ryan/Globe Staff)WHY WOULD anyone give Bill Gates a bad review? The founder of Microsoft and head of the world’s largest charitable foundation has devoted the past year and about $3.5 billion to tackling problems in urban education, global health, and economic development. Yet respected historian Diane Ravitch characterizes Gates in a new book as a member of a “billionaire boys club’’ who has hijacked public policy on education.
“When we invent a vaccine, no group can uninvent the vaccine,’’ said Gates. “If you do good education, there are groups that can send you back to square zero.’’ Gates’s charitable work has taken him to unstable parts of the globe. Yet he described his foundation’s efforts to hold teachers accountable for student performance as “the riskiest thing we are doing.’’
Gates is backing efforts to broom bad teachers, provide merit pay for good ones, and identify what makes teachers effective. He is also an enthusiastic supporter of charter schools that operate free of union work rules.
“We don’t fund education,’’ said Gates during an interview after his MIT appearance. “What we fund is experiments in education.’’ And teachers unions,
