Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Bill Gates Doesn’t Get It
At Spectator.org, Jane Robbins reviews what has been going on in the world of education:
"How many other education 'reformers' can afford to be so clueless?
We’re told that students must have grit, tenacity, and perseverance to succeed in the 21st-century economy, and that schools should spend more time instilling those characteristics than actually teaching academic content. The poster boy for GT&P could be Bill Gates.
After wasting many years and billions of dollars on remaking American education in his own image, Gates is undeterred. True, his small-schools project crashed and burned. True, the Common Core standards that he spent boatloads of money developing and marketing have led to reduced academic achievement and are roundly despised by parents and teachers. True, despite pumping billions into classroom technology — replacing human teachers with machines — 'we really haven’t changed [students’ academic] outcomes.' But he remains optimistic that the education establishment and parents will overlook his miserable record and embrace his new venture: telling us what curricula our schools should use."
