Dialogue with the Gates Foundation: Can Schools Defeat Poverty by Ignoring It?
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This post is the third round of a five-part exchange with the Gates Foundation. This time I get to go first, and our topic is this:
What is the role of education reform in relation to the problem of family poverty? What is the best way to achieve greater equity in educational and life prospects for children of poverty?
The Gates Foundation's central slogan is "All lives have equal value," and the thrust of their work around education has been promoting institutional and political reform, based on the premise that this will increase equity, especially for the poor. The Gates Foundation has avoided systematic efforts to achieve equity of resources for schools and the children who attend them; instead, it asserts that teacher effectiveness is the best lever in this regard, and it has focused most of its research and advocacy on promoting public investment in systems that measure and promote teacher effectiveness.
In the name of reform, the Gates Foundation has wielded its political influence to effectively shift public funds, earmarked for the service of poor children, away from investment in those children's direct education experience. Through the Race to the Top and NCLB waiver conditions, the US Department of Education has instead
This post is the third round of a five-part exchange with the Gates Foundation. This time I get to go first, and our topic is this:
What is the role of education reform in relation to the problem of family poverty? What is the best way to achieve greater equity in educational and life prospects for children of poverty?
The Gates Foundation's central slogan is "All lives have equal value," and the thrust of their work around education has been promoting institutional and political reform, based on the premise that this will increase equity, especially for the poor. The Gates Foundation has avoided systematic efforts to achieve equity of resources for schools and the children who attend them; instead, it asserts that teacher effectiveness is the best lever in this regard, and it has focused most of its research and advocacy on promoting public investment in systems that measure and promote teacher effectiveness.
In the name of reform, the Gates Foundation has wielded its political influence to effectively shift public funds, earmarked for the service of poor children, away from investment in those children's direct education experience. Through the Race to the Top and NCLB waiver conditions, the US Department of Education has instead