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Everyone is excited, rightly so, about the donation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to NYC public schools: $51.2 million to open 67 small high schools. Large failing high schools would be turned into smaller theme-based schools so students will get more personalized attention, an effort to curb the dropout rate as well as failures to meet the state's student standards. It seems some were more amused by other factors:
- The sight of Bill Gates alongside current Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, who spent a lot of time as a DOJ official trying to nail Gates' Microsoft ass.
- Billionaire Boys' Club: Gates and Mayor Bloomberg, together
- Presence of Caroline Kennedy, the Department of Education's Strategic Partnerships Chief Executive
- Gates' remark: "There's one fact about my past that I am glad Mr. Klein didn't mention. Of course, what I mean is that despite my commitment to education, I am actually, personally, a college dropout."
The Mayor's press release and the Department of Education.
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f bill gates. it doesn't matter how much money people give to the schools, when the people in charge (principals, superwhatevers) do their best to squash the up beat attitutdes of new teachers, just cause it gives them a power trip, and makes the caring of kids secondary. we need to clean house, and no amount of money or rebranding of districts and curiculum is going to do jack squat when there are teachers who have lost the reason they became a teacher. and for most of them sadly was to get summers off.
no wonder all the good teachers go to the burbs, they are appreciated there
/vent
I'm not so sure about that, Neil. While I have little or no faith in the DOE, the creation of new small high schools through a systemic change program has proven effective. The New Century High Schools Initiate in NYC isn't just slapping new schools onto the map-- it actually begins with changing how districts/regions go about creating and maintaining schools effectively. The new schools go through an intense 16-18 month planning process before they open with a large amount of professional development and assistance from outside organizations and local partners. In addition, these schools are part of a campus model, which means that 4-5 small schools will replace (through yearly phasing out) failing large zoned high schools.
It seems to me that generalization of all higher level administrators is rather ignorant. There are, of course, those who do act in the manor that you describe, just as there are ineffective people anywhere.
Additionally, studies have found that the larger portion of teachers leaving urban school systems are leaving the profession all together, not moving to the suburbs. While suburban schools may pay more and have better facilitites, they still have many of the same problems that you cite. Being a teacher is a hard job where ever you are.
It would be damn nice if Microsoft would stop getting special tax exemptions from Washington state. The damn company pays almost no taxes to the state and then bitches about the local school system.
as someone who teaches in one of the New Century High Schools, I can only applaude the Gates Foundation contribution. I've seen the changes a small school environment can have on students. But when the powers that be (klein and bloomy) start mandating standardized curriculum (i.e. a set plan, day by day) for schools that have not even had a graduating class, they are able to defeat a powerful force before it could even get off the ground
I went to one of those large failing NYC public HS, and having gone to see some of the new small schools, and the interaction of the staff, with the principals and the students, I can say that I would have been much better off in that environment, rather than a number in my graduating class of over 1000 students. It really is nice to see this change, and the embrassing of these smaller more personalized, more human ways of meeting student needs.
I want the personal email address of bill gates. i want to congratulate him for his works.
Thanks,
sumanta sengupta