A Dialogue with the Gates Foundation: How Do We Build the Teaching Profession?
July 30, 2012
This post originally appears on Anthony Cody's blog, Living in Dialogue. It is the first post in a weekly series of posts, over the next five weeks, between teacher Anthony Cody, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Irvin Scott, Deputy Director in the College Ready program.
Two weeks ago I traveled to Seattle and spent most of the day meeting with leaders of the Gates Foundation, discussing their work around education reform. I have been critical of the impact their agenda has had, but they expressed an interest in opening up a dialogue. This blog post will be the first in a series of exchanges that will explore some of the key issues in education. We plan a process where we will take turns posting our perspective on a given theme, followed by a response from the other party. All posts will be carried here, and at the Gates Foundation's Impatient Optimists blog. We will ask everyone to join in a lively discussion. The education reform debate has deteriorated at times—our goal is to engage in a constructive conversation, to turn down the heat, and to seek a bit more light.
In the weeks to come we will get into some nitty gritty issues, such as what it means to "measure" teacher effectiveness? What is the role of poverty in relationship to education reform? What is the purpose of a k-12 education? And what role should the drive for profit play in our schools? But as our starting point, we are going to take a narrower focus, and tackle something a bit more concrete. This first exchange will focus on these questions: How can educators create a strong professional culture in our schools? How do we
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