John Thompson: Bill Gates Speech Merits a Serious Response
Guest post by John Thompson.
Bill Gates made two valid, though somewhat contradictory points, in his address to the Education Commission of the States. Both of Gates' differing pieces of advice deserve a serious response.
The text of Gates' speech gives no hint of irony as he proclaims, "The first and most important feature of a strong evaluation and development system is heavy teacher involvement throughout - from the conceptual stage, to the roll out, to revising the program once it's underway. If someone wants to rush an evaluation system into place - and they think they can speed it through by doing it without the teachers - that is a grave mistake. The system will be low-quality, and will never get buy-in from the teachers."
Whether Gates is aware of it or not, value-added evaluations were conceived in frustration, nurtured by teacher-bashing, and scaled up as a means of rapidly destroying the "status quo" that resisted test-driven accountability. Applying stakes to value-added has been a key component of the "brass knuckles" school of "reform." The rush
Bill Gates made two valid, though somewhat contradictory points, in his address to the Education Commission of the States. Both of Gates' differing pieces of advice deserve a serious response.
The text of Gates' speech gives no hint of irony as he proclaims, "The first and most important feature of a strong evaluation and development system is heavy teacher involvement throughout - from the conceptual stage, to the roll out, to revising the program once it's underway. If someone wants to rush an evaluation system into place - and they think they can speed it through by doing it without the teachers - that is a grave mistake. The system will be low-quality, and will never get buy-in from the teachers."
Whether Gates is aware of it or not, value-added evaluations were conceived in frustration, nurtured by teacher-bashing, and scaled up as a means of rapidly destroying the "status quo" that resisted test-driven accountability. Applying stakes to value-added has been a key component of the "brass knuckles" school of "reform." The rush
