Bill Gates again

Bill Gates Crap

Thanks to the WSJ, we hear from Bill Gates again:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204485304576641123767006518.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Two excerpts:

(1)  The intermediate goal of MET (Measures of Effective Teaching) is to discover what we are able to measure that is predictive of student success. The end goal is to have a better sense of what makes teaching work so that school districts can start to hire, train and promote based on meaningful standards. . .

(2)  Some people think that teachers should be like commissioned salespeople, receiving pay based on end-of-year test scores. We don’t believe that. When we think about the kinds of teachers we hope our children have, we realize that it’s impossible to capture everything in a single metric. We believe you need multiple measures to make evaluations accurate and fair.

There are others who say that teaching is so nuanced that it is simply impossible to measure. We can’t accept that either, because we know that just throwing up our hands is bad for students and for teachers.

Because we have been unable to define effective teaching, we now reward teachers for easy-to-measure proxies like master’s degrees and seniority, even though there is no evidence that these things help students learn. As a result, a tenured teacher with a master’s degree whose students aren’t learning much will always earn more than a recent college graduate whose students are sweeping the academic decathlon. (Emphases added.)

Cut the Crap

Dear Bill,

Read my book and blog.  Then you would know education is grounded in philosophy, not social science.  You would also know why you “have been unable to define effective teaching,” but I have been able to define it.  Philosophy is needed to define effective teaching.  Social science can only describe it.

You pursue social science evidence about the art of teaching because your stated purpose is “to discover what we are able to measure that is predictive of student success.”  Social science findings describe what is sometimes true.  Just think of any finding in psychology, sociology, education, or politics.  Not a single one is always true.  And none of them can define the richness of how we experience psychological, sociological, educational, or political matters because they have to define effectiveness in terms of a single dependent variable.

You would know that if you ever tried to study what is “predictive of student success” or tried to find which things “help students learn.”  The first questions you would have to address are, “What do you mean by “student success” and by “learn?”  If you mean higher test scores, just say, “higher test scores.”  Then the first sentence of the block quote reads:

The intermediate goal of MET (Measures of Effective Teaching) is to discover what we are able to measure that is predictive of higher student test scores.

And the block quote’s last sentence reads:

. . . we now reward teachers for easy-to-measure proxies like master’s degrees and seniority, even though there is no evidence that these things help students score higher on tests.” 

Don’t say, “student success,” and “learn,” when the only outcome you are measuring is higher test scores.  Say “higher test scores!”

It is simple.  You can achieve your goal if you stop believing social science can define effective teaching.  Only philosophy can define the educated person.  Once we define what it means to be educated in an inspiring, useful way, we also know the “effective” teacher is the one who models and teaches that inspiring, useful definition.  How could it be otherwise?

After you stop believing in the social science improvement paradigm, you should think more “about the kinds of teachers you hope your children have.”  You want your children’s teachers to model and teach understanding, imagination, strong character, courage, humility and generosity. And you want that for every child, in every classroom, every year. You don’t realize that, though, because you are looking in the wrong place for what you want.

You may be rich, but your uneducated human nature is showing itself in your lack of understanding, imagination, and humility. (The first two are ironic, the last is cause-effect.)