The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Bill Gates’ failed experiment
Technology writer Eugene Morozov coined the term “solutionism:” a pathology that recognizes a problem based on one criterion only: whether it is solvable with a simple, preferably technological, solution. Solutionists operate with a myopic hubris, believing that if they get their simple fix right, as the chair of Google once claimed, “we can fix all the world’s problems.”
In attempting to solve the world’s problems with their narrow outlook, these Silicon Valley moguls have made grave missteps at the expense of those they claim they want to help.
Bill Gates’ forays into education reform embody the downsides of this hubris.
In 2000, Gates decided that the solution to low student achievement was small high schools, and poured $2 billion to start small schools across the country, ignoring all the other factors that may affect student or school success. After a few years of lackluster results, he declared defeat, pulled the plug, and moved on to his next idea, leaving students and districts to flounder in his wake.
Gates does not just donate money. He hurls his influence around to ensure his ideas, no matter how illconceived, are implemented broadly. As the Washington Post chronicled, Gates bankrolled the effort to develop and persuade states to adopt the costly, now disfavored and never-proven Common Core Standards.
Gates’ most recent largescale failure is teacher evaluation. Around 2009, he embarked on a quest to remake teacher evaluation across the nation, convinced that linking teacher ratings to student standardized test scores would solve America’s educational problems.
He wielded outsize influence on the Obama administration’s Race to the Top Grants and No Child Left Behind Law waivers, that included as a requirement his pet idea of linking teacher evaluation to test scores.
Gates offered grants to financially struggling school districts to implement these teacher evaluation systems, notably: Hillsborough County, Florida, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Shelby County Tennessee — districts with significant populations of low-income students and students of color.
The initiative cost $575 million dollars, of which about 37 percent was funded by the Gates Foundation, and an average of 17-25 percent came from federal funds and 20-50 percent came from local district budgets. On top of these costs was the additional time spent by school personnel, estimated at $73 million in one year alone.
A newly released comprehensive RAND/American Institutes for Research analysis found that after six years, this costly program had either a negative effect or no effect on student achievement.
The researchers remarked that “(p)erhaps a near-exclusive focus on (teacher evaluation) is insufficient to dramatically improve student outcomes. Many other factors might need to be addressed, ranging from early childhood education, to students’ social and emotional competencies, to the school learning environment, to family support.”
Gee? Who could have predicted that? Let’s see.
In a 2012 column, I noted how the evidence was solid that standardized test scores were improper measures of teacher quality. Since then, numerous courts across the country have invalidated teacher evaluation systems that were based on test scores. In 2014, I pointed to the mountain of evidence demonstrating that teachers have a tiny effect, from 1-14 percent, on student test scores.
Since 1989, courts across this country have understood that schools require a complete array of staff, services and programs to ensure students learn. Thus, courts have ordered states to ensure adequate funding not only for teachers but for preschool, small class size, adequate facilities, adequate social, language, health and educational support services, adequate supplies, books, technology and security, and a rich curriculum.
Anyone working in a public school over the past 30 years knows what is now a revelation to Gates.
But, as Morozov notes, “Solutionists err by assuming, rather than investigating, the problems they set out to tackle.”
Imagine if Gates had listened to teachers, the evidence, or the many court decisions on the issue.
Imagine if Gates and poor school districts spent those wasted billions on resources actually proven to help children learn successfully.
School districts across Florida, Pennsylvania and Tennessee are inadequately and inequitably funded. The vulnerable children Gates claimed to want to help are precisely those who need support beyond teachers to ensure they can access the learning a teacher imparts. They also need the valuable teacher time that was diverted away from them to Gates’ failed experiment.
Rather than indulge the whims of wealthy solutionists such as Gates, it would be nice if our political leaders would focus on giving our children all the tools we already know they need to learn.