Bill Gates (charter school funder) vision for education (gag me) & an antidote

[Hannah Bell]

"Secretary Arne Duncan recently announced that $350 million of the stimulus package will be used to create just these kinds of tests—next-generation assessments aligned to the common core.

When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching. For the first time, there will be a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better. Imagine having the people who create electrifying video games applying their intelligence to online tools that pull kids in and make algebra fun.

There can also be—and there should be —online videos of every required course, taught by master teachers, and made available free of charge. These would help train teachers. They would help students who need some review or just want to get ahead. Melinda and I have used online videos when we’ve helped our own kids on some of their school work. They are phenomenal tools that can help every student in the country—if we get the common standards that will encourage people to make them.

If your state doesn’t join the common standards, your kids will be left behind; and if too many states opt out—the country will be left behind. Remember—this is not a debate that China, Korea, and Japan are having. Either our schools will get better—or our economic position will get worse."

http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/21stcenturyeducation/films/film-yong-zhao.html


Notice the nod to "a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn"?
Bill is salivating for those bucks - & the control.


Now, the antidote: a Chinese-born US professor, the first in his family to get beyond the third grade, celebrates US education over Chinese & deplores NCLB:

"I was quite lucky in a sense; I did not have a 'good education'. Thus I was not subject to all the things the Chinese system could have done to me.."

"This is just crazy! We are returning all our (american) workers into lower-level left-brain directed workers (through NCLB testing & similar 'reforms')

"We should stop comparing with other countries. americans should be more 'american,' not more chinese or indian or japanese'.

The section where he talks about his kids' elementary-school pageants in terms of creativity function is interesting...

http://www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/21stcenturyeducation/films/film-yong-zhao.html

[sjdnb]

1. Bill Gates and his ilk are why I use Ubuntu/OS

He screwed so many better technologies during the 80's/90's, just to fill his greedy pockets, it set tech advancement back at least one or two decades. MSFT undermined technology that would have us leap years ahead of where their crapnology has left us.

[Anakin Skywalker]

2. No Bill Gates Here!

Proud to not use anything Micro$oft.