Emperor Gates Has No Clothes
Last week Bill Gates gave a speech to articulate his foundation’s strategy for education reform and the basis for that strategy. Unfortunately, throughout the speech Gates misreads and distorts findings from research, including research that the foundation has funded or conducted itself. Why hasn’t anyone called Gates on these errors?
Look, I’m not surprised that a non-researcher misunderstands research. And I’m not surprised that a foundation is pursuing a strategy that is not well-supported by research. Frankly, he’s entitled to pursue any strategy he wants for any reason he prefers. But Gates gets up there, puts on his metaphorical lab coat, and declares that Science says… It’s then the job of actual scientists, even social scientists, to correct him. If we don’t, then we are letting Gates corrupt science. The Gates foundation doesn’t, for the most part, buy false research findings. But Gates is contributing to the corruption of social science as researchers obviously feel the need to stay quiet when he and other foundation leaders misread and distort findings.
How do I know Gates is distorting and misreading research? For one thing, several researchers involved in the studies he is referencing have told me so. They know that he, Vicki Phillips, and other senior Gates officials are mis-describing the results of their work. It’s no secret among researchers that this is occurring, they are just reluctant to do anything about it.
When I asked one researcher involved in the Measuring Effective Teachers(MET) project why they hadn’t corrected Vicki Phillips’ inaccurate description of their work, he agreed “it was Vicki’s mistake” but “anyone who reads the original paper can see the actual findings. I guess this is like lots of policy-relevant papers…” That is, he just accepted the corruption and trusted that his results would speak for themselves. Others with whom I have spoken who have worked on MET and other Gates-funded projects have not been quite so passive, but none feel brave enough to correct the Emperor.
I also know that Gates is distorting and misreading research because what he says clearly contradicts what researchers have found. For example let’s look at how Gates claims that research supports his foundation’s shift in strategy from small schools of choice to measuring effective teaching:
Early on, we thought smaller schools were the way to drive up college-ready rates. We set out to build the model of a
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