Anything in those “fundamental” changes going to ensure that good teachers get rewarded for their skills and lousy teachers are made to understand their tenure is in doubt? If not then there’s nothing fundamental about those changes.

And that he knew true improvement takes years; there are no instant fixes.

Interestingly enough, that’s exactly the tack taken by those who promise true improvement and deliver an ever-receding mirage.

From what I understand of Mr. Gates he’s not a particularly patient man and distinctly impatient when faced with failure and the excuses for failure.

Apologists for the public education system have grown complacent assuming that excuses-without-end are an acceptable substitute for success, having gotten away with the scam for so long. But along with Mr. Gates I’d say that the public at large has grown weary of those excuses which is why there are forty states with charter school law.

I admire you.

Now I’m all curious about how your “school within a school” works. Are students randomly assigned to it? Do they have to apply? Is there some sort of selective admissions process? Do students then have to agree to abide by the swis’s program? Can they be dropped for failure to try? for failure to produce?

Thanks for your enlightening comment. The bottom line seems to be: project based learning can work–in fact, can get very good results–but in order for it to work, there must be a lot of teacher preparation, a lot of teacher supervision, and a lot of teacher direct instruction.

It also sounds like you have your students for three years in a row, so you can really train them into your system. Is that true?

While I admire many of these individuals greatly — hmmm… they’re not the baskets in which I’d want to place my education eggs. I wish he hadn’t failed. I wish he knew that investing in the teachers and administrators (in terms of training, time to develop curriculum, leadership training, etc., not necessarily salary) is the fundamental upon which you then add the tweaks, such as schools-within-a-school, etc. And that he knew true improvement takes years; there are no instant fixes. He didn’t give anything enough time. But, one would fully expect a genius with Asperger’s to see systems instead of people. That’s what they excel in, and that’s why Microsoft is so successful and his education initiatives are not.

One of the interesting things about tenure is that it allows the too-good geniuses to co-exist with the duds. It protects everyone equally. I do know teachers who are incredibly innovative — and geniuses — but they never end up in the newspapers with the strip searchers and child molesters, so nobody knows they exist.

You certainly won’t achieve the fame and fortune of a Bill Gates. In fact you’ll be ignored, rather then rewarded, by the institution for which you work.

And that’s if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky as an education genius you’re liable to find that there’s no place in the system for someone who’s too good.

So Gates has his second education failure and somehow this turns into educator bashing?

Gates may be a genius at software development and marketing but he obviously is not one when it comes to education, and he has the wasted money to prove it.

“The brains and hard work of Bill Gates is [sic] just a ticket in that lottery.”

Right, but there are a lot of people who don’t qualify for a ticket. Most of the people who design and build schools are neither bright nor hard-working, and that gave Gates a chance to do better.

I don’t think he did very well, but I admire his willingness to put his own money into it.

That’s more than I can say for the parasites who infest the system.

Technology is a part of our daily lives in a way it wasn’t event 10 years ago. People have to learn to live and learn in a high technology environment, and technology used in the classroom can help them adapt to the world they are going to live in as adults.

There’s an interesting piece about the successful use of technology in the classroom. It makes the argument for the necessity of using technology in education rather well, I think.

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/info/Education-Initiative.html