This post is a response to Clay Burell, blogger for Education on Change.org, one of my new favorite online networks. I’ve followed Clay for a long time both on his personal blog, Beyond School, and in his new home. He’s one of the few educators whose ideas truly make me think, and I admire him for his tenacity and his forthright initiatives, which are all too often very difficult to maintaing in this field. This is not the first time Clay and I have disagreed, but it is perhaps the first time we have disagreed so strongly. You might want to read Clay’s original post first, and the comments that follow — a lengthy debate about Bill Gates’ TED talk and Clay’s response to it. Clay’s last comment to me challenged me to find and quote him on the unjustified assertions I accuse him of. Before I go further, please note that I see this as very healthy banter.
Well, maybe it’s gone past banter now…?
Clay, the links you reference to KIPP schools *are* valid. But I thought you were writing this post about Bill Gates and his TED Talk, not KIPP schools. Therefore, many of the references to KIPP don’t really belong in this argument about whether Gates is attacking teachers. Perhaps instead you’d like to write a(nother) post on why KIPP schools don’t work and why people like Gates shouldn’t support them. But your post title references Gate’s TED Talk, of which KIPP is a part, not the whole.
On making connections and jumping to conclusions
There are many places in your post and your comments where you make links between ideas, words, and concepts which simply are not logical or obvious. What follows are examples of your doing this.
“I think what Gates is getting at is firing teachers and dismantling public schools in favor of privatized charters”
The word dismantling means taking them apart, destroying them. Thus, I think it’s reasonable for myself (and others) to have concluded that you were referring to the end of public schools.
“Mosquitos cause pestilence. Let’s drive that point home with massive projections of them – and then release them into the audience.
Then let’s talk about undesireable people that our society can do without.”
And later,
“Let’s close the ‘pestilence’ – ‘teachers’ pattern with the final frame of two more diseases: pneumonia and AIDS.”
Here, and in your video, you make a connection between pestilence and teachers, but Gates doesn’t do that. Gates simply says mosquitos cause malaria. Poor structure on his part, yes, but he’s NOT talking about undesirable people that our society can do without – that’s your unfounded and unsupported conclusion. Nowhere does Gates use the word “pestilence” or anything resembling it.
“Then let’s sell two things: technology that will collect test scores we can use to fire teachers (he doesn’t say this, but that’s why “Some people are threatened by this stuff,” as he so dismissively puts it); and a book on the “great teachers” at KIPP schools (two of which are currently accused of intimidating teachers for moving to unionize).
It’s a push for technology and charter schools.”
Gates is not making a plea here to push the technology for standardized testing. He’s pushing a new model, KIPP, yes. But technology? Huh? He’s saying that some people are threatened by new models and new ways of thinking of education. Your jump to it being “a push for technology and charter schools” is an unreasonable one. (I’ll come back to the charter schools issue in a minute.)
Another instance of you making an assumption and judgment is when Gates says: “the teacher improvement data could not be made available and used in the tenure decision for the teachers. And so that’s sort of working in the opposite direction. But I’m optimistic about this, I think there are some clear things we can do.”
But you translate this as:
“He does liken teachers who resist test-based evaluations to ‘the problem.’ “
No, he does not “liken teachers who resist test-based evaluations to ‘the problem’.” He talks about teacher improvement data – which could, actually be a LOT of different kinds of data, not necessarily test-based – and how it could not be used to decide tenure, and how THAT is a problem. (And, it is a problem.)
“Gates doesn’t have time for those studies, apparently. To him it’s ‘simple.’ We need KIPP schools and no more unions.”
Again, Gates doesn’t mention unions, and he uses KIPP only as an example. Which reminds me, I think we are talking at cross-purposes regarding the “privatization of public education.” To me, privatization means tuition or business ownership. Charter schools are, as far as I know, publicly funded — ie., taxpayers dollars. So what do you mean when you say “privatization of public education”?
One more jump-into-the-inaccurate-accusation lake: when you mention Gates’s
“use of statistics and scientific-looking graphs to justify the scapegoating.”
So the next time any teacher or tech integrationist — or anyone for that matter — uses statistics and graphs to prove a point, and that point happens to be about specific group of people, they are propaganda-ists?
On Emotion and Blogging
I observe the similar juxtaposition between the structure, symbolism, and rhetoric of Gates’ talk and a propaganda film that happens to have been a product of an historical era that causes emotional reactions from people.
That’s just it – I think you’ve made this too emotional. It’s not. It’s a big-name CEO sharing his thoughts about what he thinks needs to be changed about teachers. You are taking it personally, for reasons unbeknowst to your blog audience.
Yes, propaganda relies on emotional appeals – like yours, I’d say. But Gates? I didn’t see any emotional appeals in there. None at all.
Blogging about an intial reaction, finally, is not a problem. That’s what bloggers do. The reaction was justified with the similarities I’ve already repeated ad infinitum.
Perhaps this is what bloggers do when they are simply sharing and not aiming to convince. If you want us to believe you (and Change.org exists, well, for regular people like us to create change), you will provide reasoned and logical responses, not knee-jerk first reactions. So tell me please, what was your purpose in writing this post? Was it simply to express an emotion? or was it to persuade? This is, I think, what Jean was getting at with the reference to the selling. It seems as though you were trying to sell an idea, and doing so in an emotionally charged way (as Jean says) just doesn’t hold water with me. In fact it makes your points, even if they are worth listening to, less credible. My point here: if you want to express emotion and outrage in an initial reaction, go ahead. But perhaps the Change.org venue is not the place. Or, you can title your post differently. Purpose and audience: you know they are the two golden keys to effective writing.
You know, Clay, that I respect you greatly and have keenly followed your work and ideas for some time now. But this post has really rubbed me the wrong way. Even if your points are not valid, the method in which you’ve chosen to present them is inflammatory and rash.
This week, you win the Jump-to-Conclusions Award… which reminds me of a funny scene from one of my favorite movies, Office Space. If you haven’t seen it — a must-see for anyone who has ever worked in a corporate American-style office — watch the clip below. [Warning: this clip has some strong language]
(And yes, I did know Gates was a college, not HS, dropout. Thanks to Carl and Alfred for correcting that. Sorry – I was writing rather quickly.)
His latest post might help with some of this. I think you’re missing a few things. Here’s the link: http://education.change.org/blog/view/more_on_bill_gates_ted_and_edu-propaganda
Anon (whoever you are),
I don’t think you read my entire post, or even made it past the first 2 paragraphs, where I explain my purpose. I do hope that the next time you visit, you leave a name and URL so I can learn more about you.
Adrienne
The whole KIPP business coming in response to the Gates TED video stems from the fact that that was the only type of charter school he mentioned. I suspect this was due to time restrictions and that he was in fact only showing one possible way to support improvement. However, I do know that the Gates Foundation’s support of Public Charter Schools goes far beyond the KIPP model. It is unfortunate that his talk misrepresents this. Unless, however, he has had a change in thinking lately.
Why this is so important is because of the vast influence he and his money can have. Gates is our modern day Andrew Carnegie. How many communities would not have public libraries were it not for Andrew Carnegie? How much has free access to books and periodicals influenced our society and the education of the general public in the 20th century? Whatever Gates decides to do with his fortune is likely to have the same scale of influence on our future and how that is directed is and managed as well as which philosophies are behind those social investments is very important. This I believe is the fuel behind Clay’s emotional knee-jerk response to the video.
The only real point of contention when you remove the emotions from the equation is the relative value of charter schools. It sounds like you and I both support them and believe they are making a positive difference. Clay seems to think otherwise which I don’t understand seeing as his usual rhetoric would draw me to the conclusion that he would support the charter movement. Perhaps, and Clay please forgive me for jumping to my own conclusions and correct me if I am wrong, Clay is too far removed right now from the charter movement to understand the issue “on the ground.” I have worked in international schools before and the collegial environments I have encountered abroad are far different than those in the US Public School system. I think Jeff Utecht points out this difference quite well in this post from earlier this week. In general, I have noticed more often than not teachers in international schools tend to view their role different. They tend to be more academic and professional in their approach and in many ways their own self-image. There is a heavy slant in US public schools on the mainland for teacher unions to be overly dominated by teachers who more often than not have stayed in their jobs because tenure provides the security to ensure a steady paycheck but have mentally and emotionally checked out long ago. Too often these teachers are more concerned about teacher needs than student needs and in so doing even neglect their own professional development needs. Of course this is not always the case but in comparison I believe it to be true. When you unionize a group of workers who are firmly dedicated to the betterment of their profession and those they serve you get a union that improves the quality of the services it provides. When you have a union that has negotiated rather strong influence on it’s most senior member’s job conditions and included measures that ensures they will never be fired and when a large number of those workers are only after their own self interests you get a system that at best makes no gains in improving the quality of product it provides. This is just one of the problems that charter schools are addressing stateside. There are a lot of young and mid-career teachers stateside who share the same professional work ethic and drive that their international colleagues have. In schools where the unions are run by those who are worn, tired, and burned out the influence of these teachers is diminished. Charter schools provide an opportunity for these teachers to pool themselves and shed the burden of an outdated school structure. Our students deserve the best teachers and they deserve school systems that empower those teachers. The charter movement in this respect addresses an issue that I don’t believe exists in such a critical state in international schools. To understand this you have to be on the ground.
Hi Carl,
First of all, thanks for such a lengthy and thoughtful response. Second, I apologize for not replying sooner, but I was wrapped up in birthday celebrations on the weekend! 🙂
I agree with much of what you’ve said about how charter schools have the potential to be positive teaching and learning environments. My experience of charter schools is rather limited, I must admit. Where I come from in Canada (Alberta) is the only Canadian province which has charter schools, and they are not the same to those in the USA, from what I understand. In Qatar, where I used to work, charter schools were (and I think still are… someone can correct me if I’m wrong) the model that the Emir was using to change education completely in that country — something that needed doing. However, in Qatar (as in Alberta, I think), the charter does not remove the school’s responsibility. It simply makes teaching and learning more personalized. To me, this sounds like a good thing.
While I am aware of the issues surrounding charter schools in the USA, and I don’t think I would ever support these models (particularly KIPP and similar programs), I do think that charter schools have the potential to be positive forces in education, both public and private. I am not opposed to private education — after all, I have spent the last 8 years working in private international schools. Two of these schools have been non-profit, and one was for-profit. (As an aside, one of the non-profit schools operated more like a for-profit than the for-profit school did; teachers and admin had relatively little control over decisions, even as small as using the photocopier, whereas the for-profit school I worked in gave tremendous autonomy to the school and its educators.) I support both private and public schools because I firmly believe that different communities have different educational needs. This is why I think that charter schools *could* have a positive role to play. Perhaps the models need to be changed so that there is not so much emphasis on testing, tenure, and other political issues. In fact, I’d like to see a charter school that had no politics, period. I will also say that the issues surrounding public vs. private education were one of the reasons I jumped overseas initially — I was so frustrated by what was happening in Canada, and it wasn’t even half as bad as it is in some places in the USA! I was (and continue to be) perplexed by all the issues surrounding the public / private debate, and I really just wish it would all disappear so that teachers and students could get back to the real function of schools: learning! To me, all this political nonsense is background noise that I could do without.
I respect Diane Ravitch a lot and I love a lot of what she has to say about issues surrounding charter schools and the use of testing, particularly the post that Clay recently referenced on Education.change.org.
Here’s the thing: I neither actively support nor actively rally against charter schools. I *do* actively rally against standardized testing and unions. Where does this leave me, politically, as a teacher? In American terms, it leaves me without a job.
But my response post above to Clay was never about charter schools, standardized testing, or unions. It was about how unreasonable I think Clay’s response is: making references to things that ARE NOT THERE. Clay compared, via images and text, Gates to Nazis. That is not only a complete leap in connection of ideas, but totally unwarranted, rather disrespectful and needlessly emotionally-charged. Clay asks us to see how Gates has covertly persuaded us using subconscious propaganda techniques, yet when we accuse Clay of making tenuous links, he wants us to show him exactly where and how his points are unjustified. His challenge seems not only unfair, but very unpersuasive. I can find support (even if it is weak, and even if I don’t agree philosophically with it) for Gates’s statements more than I can for Clay’s, which are inferential rather than tangible. And THIS is why I object to Clay’s comparison: he has not made a logical assumption. It is too riddled with his emotional defense, and therefore, in my mind, not valid. I would say the same to one of my HS students who produced such a response.