How Bill Gates misinterprets ed facts
This was written by Richard Rothstein, a research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit created in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. This appeared on the institute's website. By Richard Rothstein Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates authored an op-ed published in The Washington Post late last month, “How Teacher Development could Revolutionize our Schools,” proposing that American public schools should do a better job of evaluating the effectiveness of teachers, a goal with which none can disagree. But his specific prescriptions, and the urgency he attaches to them, are based on the misrepresentation of one fact, the misinterpretation of another and the demagogic presentation of a third. It is remarkable that someone associated with technology and progress should have such a careless disregard for accuracy when it comes to the education policy in which he is now so
The Michigan Fish Test and school reform
This was written by Larry Ferlazzo, who teaches English at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, California, and prior to that, a community organizer for 19 years. He is the author of Building Parent Engagement In Schools and writes two blogs, including one on Engaging Parents In School. He is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network. By Larry Ferlazzo I’ve just read one of the most interesting things I’ve seen in awhile — a guest column on CNN by Columbia Business School Professor Sheena Iyengar titled "The Michigan Fish Test And The Middle East". She describes an apparently famous experiment of showing a picture of three large fish in a sea scene. When people from the United States were asked to describe it, they focused on the large fish. When Japanese participants were asked to describe the same picture, they gave a much more holistic description of the
