This Week In Education: Thompson: The Gates Foundation's Belated Evolution

This Week In Education: Thompson: The Gates Foundation's Belated Evolution:

Thompson: The Gates Foundation's Belated Evolution

by john thompson

After watching the Melinda Gates interview on the PBS NewsHour, and Diane Ravitch's rebuttal, I better understand how the Gates Foundation, and its allies, have gone wrong.  I suspect these reformers  would disagree as to whether education as a whole is broken, but certainly schools are failing to undo the legacies of generational poverty and trauma. 
I don't see how anyone can deny that there has been a systematic effort to scapegoat teachers and that it has escalated into demonization.  I would not demonize Gates, however, for the foundation's role in supporting "reformers" who demonize teachers.  After all, the Gates Foundation (belatedly) seems to also be listening to their opposites - advocates of peer review.
In her interview, Mrs. Gates recounted the three lessons learned from the Measuring Effective Teaching (MET) process which studied the practice of 3,000 teachers.  Each solution, core curriculum, curriculum supports, and professional development, is directed towards efforts within the four walls of the classroom.  That is not completely surprising because they have invested millions of dollars trying to study teaching and learning in the