Why Bill Gates and the School Reform Movement Are Succeeding
This Thursday and Friday, Dropout Nation takes a look at why defenders of traditional public education struggle against the intellectual, moral and political forces behind the nation’s school reform movement. Today, Contributing Editor Steve Peha — who straddles the fence between both sides — wonders why status quo defenders can’t offer their own compelling vision. Tomorrow, Editor and Publisher RiShawn Biddle will offer a few answers. Read, consider and offer your own thoughts.
People ask me a lot of questions about education. These days, people are asking, “What’s Bill Gates up to?” I think they want me to say, “No good!” But I don’t. Instead, I say something like this: “Bill Gates is doing the same thing he’s always done—trying to make the world a better place.” People hate this answer, but I believe it’s true.
Bill Gates is a smart man. Two things make him even smarter: he doesn’t worry about making mistakes and he doesn’t care what people think when he does. If it seems he’s playing a big part in the present evolution of American education, it’s probably because he doesn’t waste time fretting about the future or pouting about the past.
Perhaps it is precisely because of these qualities that so many people believe that he must have a hidden agenda—some intricate plot to realize a grand hegemonic dream of controlling American education from a Windows-based smartphone. But I think most of us mischaracterize him, his motivations, and his foundation. In the process, we miss an opportunity to be just as intelligent and influential.
What Would You Do?
What if you had big dollars, an agile mind, and a sincere desire to change your country’s education system? My hunch is that you’d study a lot, listen to experts you liked, speak and write about your ideas, and use your money and reputation to realize your vision of the way you think things should be. That’s certainly what I’d do; I think that’s what most people would do. And that’s exactly what Bill Gates is doing.
Furthermore, if you had created one of the largest and most successful businesses in the world, you’d probably apply many of the same business principles you’d been so successful with to education.
And because education is not a business, you might make some mistakes.
Your mistakes (along with your determination and efficient disregard of criticism) might make people nervous; they might think you were arrogant, narcissistic, or just uncaring. Such is the case with the way many people in education feel about Bill Gates. Many of us are nervous because he wields great power and influence, and because, in our opinion, he doesn’t always make good decisions.
No one in education, however, has a perfect batting average. So what it comes down to is how many times one gets up to the plate. Bill Gates gets up to the plate very often. His detractors, by contrast, are rarely even on the field, preferring instead to heckle from the stands.
Is it possible that one of the most successful entrepreneurs in American history might have a little more confidence in his own judgment than many of the rest of us do? Might that cause him to back a bad idea once in a while? Or to make inaccurate statements in important speeches? Or to fund dubious ideas simply because he can afford a trial and error approach? Like all entrepreneurs, Bill Gates often takes questionable but well-calculated risks. But this is hardly the stuff of Darth Vader.
Who Ya Gonna Trust?
Many people do not trust Bill Gates. They think he’s up to something. And they’re right—he’s up to changing American education. But to say he’s “up to” it is merely to say he’s got the courage to take strong positions and to back them up with strong actions.
Some of us may be losing sleep over this, but I can assure you that Bill Gates is not. Unlike many of us who wear ourselves out with worry, I imagine that Bill Gates bounds out of bed each morning bright-eyed and battle-ready.
Most of the time, most of us tend to trust the people we think are a lot like us. On many issues in education, I trust people like Anthony Cody and Richard Rothstein. Both of these men—Mr. Cody an educator; Mr. Rothstein a policy analyst—have published very successful disagreements with Bill Gates. They’re also not billionaires (as far as I know), so they’re a little easier for me to relate to.
But if they were billionaires would they be doing anything different than using their resources to promote their ideas about education to change it to fit the way they think it should be? And if one of them suddenly hit the PowerBall would it make sense for me to switch my allegiance to under-funded underdogs just because wealthy people sometimes make me nervous? [Addendum: During the editing process, a couple of paragraphs were inelegantly summed up in an earlier version of this piece for space considerations, stating that Mr. Cody was already advocating his ideas with other people's money. This unfairly puts him in the same category as Rothstein, who, as an employee of a think tank, is doing so. Dropout Nation regrets that inelegant summation, which didn't fully reflect Steve's thoughts.]
Mr. Cody and Mr. Rothstein are people I admire greatly. I like to think that if most Americans understood what they had to say, and heard them say it regularly, their thought-leadership would drive the national dialog. In the game of ideas, both of these men—and many other sharp folks—easily beat Bill Gates in the game of edulogic.
While his detractors play their game from the grandstand, he plays the real game—up at bat taking his cuts at wicked sliders and fastballs so fast they make Stephen Strasburg look like a little leaguer. The best his critics can hope for is that he strikes out. But he’s smart enough to remember that even a .300 hitter can make the Hall of Fame. He also knows that heavy hitters who swing for the fences strike out a little more often than those who focus on singles and sacrifices.
The Secret Recipe
The secret recipe for serious change in America has always been more or less the same: well-articulated ideas backed by money brought to bear on important problems through constant exertions of power and influence. Bill Gates knows this recipe well. To many of the rest of us, it’s something of a mystery. Even if we do understand it, it still feels wrong somehow—like an injustice, or an affront to democracy, or sometimes merely distasteful. Much as I consider myself a passionate advocate for education reform, Bill Gates’ approach feels uncomfortable to me.
Fortunately, the secret recipe is not a secret. Anyone who has studied even a small amount of our nation’s history and politics knows it by heart. For good or ill, it’s simply the way we do things in America.
So why don’t the folks who are so concerned about Bill Gates use the same secret recipe he does? Why don’t they do the money, power, and influence thing? The Gates Foundation doesn’t really spend very much on education each year—only a few hundred million dollars. That’s nowhere near the largest part of their portfolio.
There are many people on, shall we say, the “progressive” side of life, who are just as smart and just as interested in education as Bill Gates. While perhaps not as individually wealthy, a group of these people could easily pony up the same kind of cash the Bill & Gates Foundation does for school reform. So why can’t we get George Soros involved? Or Arianna Huffington? Al Gore’s made a buck or two in the last decade or so, and I think his progressive bona fides are still intact.
And why does Bill Gates automatically get Bono on his side? Why didn’t we call him first? (Or at least get The Edge.) Did we forget to buy enough U2 albums? Or did we merely forget that one the world’s most enduringly popular rock stars is smart as a whip, socially aware, and probably committed to some of the same things we are? Sometimes I think that part of our problem is that our side doesn’t know how to use a Rolodex.
What about Spielberg? Beatty? Penn? Clooney? These guys have big hearts, big bank accounts, and progressive outlooks. Or how about John and Teresa Heinz-Kerry? Russell Simmons and Magic Johnson would surely have plenty to offer. There’s Jobs, Woz, Ellison, and the whole Silicon Valley crew. Sun Microsystems founder Scott McNealy could certainly be doing something more powerful than Curriki, and George Lucas could make a huge impact if he morphed Edutopia into something focused on defining high quality teaching.
Why can’t we pull folks like these together around our vision of a better education for every child?
For that matter, why is Michelle Rhee the only person beating the bushes for a billion dollars this year? She seems no more popular in many education circles than Bill Gates. Her record in education has certainly been less than perfect, and she’s said and written things far worse than any influential philanthropist. If she can find a million fans and raise a billion dollars, why can’t we?
Don’t think we’ve got the cash? Wrong. Teachers union dues, for example, amount to a far greater financial influence than that of Bill Gates; it’s just that unions don’t get very much for the money they spend because they tend to spend it on the wrong things. Instead of being angry with The Gates Foundation, why not create a foundation to counter its work in some constructive way that adds value to the national dialog?
There is no mystery about Bill Gates (or Michelle Rhee); there is nothing untoward that he is “up to”. He’s trying to do exactly the same thing we’re trying to do; he’s just mastered the game. The mystery is why we’re not stepping up to challenge him on the same playing field. Those of us who disagree with him may feel anxious and frustrated. We may impute sinister motives. But that doesn’t rock the vote as MTV likes to put it.
What we need is not more carping about Bill Gates, or Michelle Rhee, or TFA, or KIPP, or any of the other powerful and prominent entities with whom we may be uncomfortable. What we need are entities just as powerful making a different case for improving education in America—the case we believe in—by marshaling the same type of resources and influence.
In the end, the question isn’t, “What’s Bill Gates up to?” He’s just changing education in a way that matches his worldview using the strategies that work best in our culture. The real question is, “What are the rest of us up to? If what’s holding us back is some awkward sense that people just shouldn’t play this way, or that large scale education problems should be worked out differently than we work out every other kind of problem here in America, then we’ve got something much bigger to worry about than what Bill Gates is up to.
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[...] and other traditionalists is part of the problem. (Yesterday, Contributing Editor Steve Peha offered his own explanations.) But these are not the only reasons. School reformers are winning the day because they have the [...]
cperrius
397 days ago
Thanks for this thoughtful post. I agree with a lot of it. There is a marketplace of ideas out there and Rhee, KIPP, TFA, other charters, etc are good at creating a compelling case for their approaches. When a new charter with a new idea and message succeeds, people like Gates take notice and support it. When a traditional public school succeeds, it gets little notice, people focus on the negative stories of public ed. This is what has to shift, and the battle is as much rhetorical as it is practical around ‘what works.’
RiShawn Biddle
397 days ago
I would have to disagree. A lot of the stories about school reform success focus on both public charters and traditional public schools and districts. Think of what Joel Klein was doing in New York City (spurring both the expansion of charters and the start of new traditional public schools to replace dropout factories). Or think of Jerry Weast and Montgomery County, Md. (which hasn’t been nearly the success story some have made it out to be) or the Wake County integration effort (Richard Kahlenberg’s favored example of socioeconomic integration, even though, that too isn’t really all that successful). And don’t forget that in past decades, there has been the success of Jaime Escalante in LA Unified, Joe Clark’s brief tenure at Paterson, N.J.’s East Side High, and others.
The reality is that the stories of traditional public school success do get covered. They get lots of attention. And when a district improves its graduation rates significantly (as with Chicago under Paul Vallas and Arne Duncan), the superintendents and principals are celebrated. But the reality is that a school successfully educating kids shouldn’t have to be celebrated. Why? Because that is what a school is supposed to do. Every child should graduate on time, should be reading at grade level or better, and ready for college-level work by age 18.
Think of it this way: We don’t celebrate companies for meeting profit and revenue expectations because they are supposed to do that. Companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Proctor & Gamble are celebrated for being innovative, for going the extra mile, and for beating their competitors constantly in the marketplace. Schools should be celebrated for doing above and beyond good work; teachers should be lauded for providing more than average instruction; and principals should be commended for working above and beyond.
No one celebrates a poor-performing charter school no more than they celebrate a lagging traditional peer. And no one does. Both deserve to be shut down so they don’t send more kids onto poverty lines. The harsh light on the failures of traditional public education are deserved. And the successful traditional public schools who go above and beyond average deserve acclaim.
Anthony Cody
397 days ago
I think Steve raises some interesting points. His main thrust is that if only reformers like myself and Richard Rothstein would get on the ball and phone up Bono, we could have influence comparable to Bill Gates’.
As a matter of fact, I have been testing this hypothesis over the past year and a half. I started a very public campaign to get the attention of the President, and organized hundreds of teachers to write letters. I am afraid I did not have Bono’s phone number, but I worked with the people I connect with through my blog to try to get our voices heard. We got a rether unsatisfying conversation with Secretary Duncan, and zero change in policies.
Recently I have been trying something more ambitious. I am working with other teachers and parents to organize the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC, next July 30th. We are indeed seeking out celebrities, but they are tougher to get than this post suggests.
Contrary to your suggestion, teacher unions do not have the billions that Bill Gates, Eli Broad and the Walton family pour into their version of education reform each year. Their dues are mostly tied up in representing their membership, and recently, their very right to exist.
It is rather remarkable that you suggest that I promote my ideas now with other people’s money. I really am not sure how I am doing that. As a school district employee I use some foundation money in a small grant to carry out a mentoring program for new science teachers that I helped design.Is that what you mean? As a blogger at Education Week I use the power of my words and thoughts to promote my ideas. Is this using someone else’s money?
My influence comes from a fundamentally different place than that of Bill Gates. Gates has immediate access to any politician or policymaker in the nation, due to his wealth and willingness to spend it where it will get his ideas traction. He is in a battle of ideas with people like me and Richard Rothstein, but his money, and those of his wealthy allies, buys him friends that his ideas alone could not. When he wanted support for National standards, he dropped a million dollar grant on the National PTA so they would organize parents to advocate for them. His foundation pays for research that often turns out to be favorable to his agenda. He has created a “Media Bullpen” to monitor the press to make sure their coverage is in line with his agenda. He has natural allies in the corporate media, who naturally agree with his message that de-emphasizes the impact of poverty on school achievement, and instead focuses on increasing class size and teacher “accountability” based on test scores.
To pretend this is a fair fight is really unjust.
The source of power for myself and Richard Rothstein, and the many others that agree with us, is the fact that we actually work in the schools. I have spent 24 years of my life in the schools of Oakland, and I understand the issues, and the ways in which poverty affects learning. I understand the sorts of reforms that have a chance at succeeding, and the ones that are actually destroying schools and stealing hope from children.
Our other source of power is in our ability to speak out in large numbers. That is why we are calling for as many teachers, parents and students to join us on July 30th in Washington, DC. On that day we must stand together and say enough is enough. We want our public schools back. And we want them funded and supported, not scapegoated.
Our power is not that of Bill Gates. It comes from a much deeper well. It comes from the well of knowledge borne of experience. It comes from a well of compassion, borne of direct connection with those living in our toughest neighborhoods, battling for survival every day. We want our schools to serve the least of these, and we are the people doing this work every day. We do not accept Bill Gates as our savior. His money has bought him experts but not wisdom.
Demian
397 days ago
This article is a bit right, but mostly off the mark. It’s probably true that many progressive education reformers could do better in the “marketing” of their ideas. Of course, as Anthony points out these folks are severely out-matched by the likes of Gates, Walton, Broad, and others.
But, where this article really misses the point, is that the problem is not so much with Gates’ ideas (bad as they are) or that progressive reformers don’t market well enough, the problem is that someone like Gates is able to exert so much influence _simply because of his money_. This is a reflection of how corrupt our political process has become. The biggest criticism of Gates is that he is able to act like an oligarch. As a CEO, this might be expected. But, in democracy, it should not be accepted.
So, yes, progressive reformers should certainly seek out allies and try to become more effective at “playing the game” not simply “heckling from the sidelines”. But, probably more importantly, we need to fight for our democracy so that we are not relegated to the sidelines.
Anthony Cody
396 days ago
There is something in here that is sticking in my craw.
Richard Rothstein and I are supposedly pursuing our ideas about how schools should be improved “using other people’s money.”
While Bill Gates, presumably, is using his *own* money to pursue his ideas.
What is wrong with this picture? First of all, as I indicated, I have very little money at my disposal, from any source at all.
But more importantly, we have a public education system that we spend about $500 billion a year on — in OUR money. That is ALL of our money, including mine, since I am a tax payer. I participate as a citizen in trying to make sure that money is well spent. Bill Gates and his billionaire allies are not simply spending their money to buy laptops for schools. They are trying very hard to redirect that $500 billion of PUBLIC funds in the direction of their agenda — towards test-based reforms, new curricula and assessments aligned with the new national standards they have been promoting, teacher pay and evaluations based on test scores, the expansion of semi-private charter schools, and so on. They are doing their best to have OTHER PEOPLE’S money — namely the taxpayer’s public dollars, spent as they wish.
I have not attacked their motives, because I do not know them. But certainly many of their allies, such as the testing and publishing companies, stand to gain materially from these changes. And the participation of hedge fund managers likewise may have a tinge of self-interest. Unfortunately I cannot attract allies with promises of profits or lucrative grants, as Mr. Gates can. All can do is try to speak out, and hope my words ring true. Any money that is spent as a result of my advocacy will be done so because I have offered a compelling vision, not because I have given somebody campaign contributions or grant funding.
Bill Schechter
396 days ago
In the Boston-area, unless you are a member of the Mass. Business Alliance, the Hi Tech Council, or the Pioneer Institute (conservative think tank) you can forget about getting an education reform-related op ed in the Boston Globe. They don’t even give Diane Ravitch space. Between the news coverage (choice of assignments & content), the editorials, the staff columns, and the guest op eds, there is basically one song played on our most important regional media organ. The teacher-bashing and pro-charter/pro-testing cheerleading is relentless, and it has been going on now for about 15 years. It would hardly be different if we had a state-controlled newspaper.
Sorry, but I don’t see the celebratory articles about public schools–and we have some great ones–unless there is some interface with testing. It must seem to the The Globe that even to acknowledge our many wonderful public schools is to admit the system hasn’t failed. The underlying agenda is privatization and union-busting (In fairness, the Globe hates all unions, not just teacher unions). I say this because no can really believe –can they?–that the test prep that has BECOME the curriculum at many schools is going to help the kids become competitive in a global economy. We are watching a clinic of how organized money (foundations, philanthropists, media, corporations) sets public policy in a profoundly anti-democratic manner. (Of course the state Board of Ed is appointed). By the way, the reformers make sure their kids get a very different kind of education than they advocate for other people’s kids.
Chuck Olynyk
396 days ago
I teach high school in L.A. In fact I transferred to one mentioned in “Waiting For Superman” as a drop-out factory. As yo what you say about the “success stories,”unless they fit the agenda of the Los Angeles Times, like the Boston Globe, they don’t get published. I watched the media manipulate the events, the media make the news rather than report it. I saw how they covered the reconstitution of my previous high school, how the media did not pursue any leads which might reveal the reconstitution for the sham it is, just as it twisted the image of my current “drop-out factory”, which is only a drop-out factory when it is convenient, but is successful when covering Mayor Villaraigosa’s educational “reforms.”
It is not a level playing field. And to have CEOs throwing the weight of their wallets around, their dollars making them educational reform experts, is wrong.
But, as you wrote, “For good or ill, that’s simply the way we do things in America.” Not really the subject for a Norman Rockwell painting, eh?
Sandra
396 days ago
One sign that the boat is rocking is evident by personal attacks on those individuals whose keyboard is mightier than a sword. I am thinking of Iron Jawed Angels as an example of persistence and a fearlessness to push against power and money for what is inherently ethical and moral. It ain’t easy. Keep the faith.
Bruce Hall
396 days ago
Bill Gates is the greatest salesman in America and perhaps in the world as attested to by his vast personal fortune. He sold corporate America and the world software bundles that didn’t work all that well, got them to say thank you and to buy “patches” to fix the crippled programs. This guy could sell oil to the Arabs.
When the rest of America shamed him into blowing the dust off his wallet, he took up a hobby called “education reform”. However, Bill Gates is insulated within the walls of his money and monied friends. Instead of talking to teachers, teacher organizations, parents, and universities, he limited himself to buying advice and got what he paid for….people who would say yes.
Lee Barrios
396 days ago
As a recently retired educator who is spending all her time and with no money I think I speak for legions of highly motivated educators that it’s just not our game. We want to teach!! I also cannot deny the politics and selfserving agenda of many like Rhee and Bush who have carried Gates’ money and influence to extreme lows!!
The power of federal and state government to put so many obstacles in the way of effective public education seems unsurmountable.
And then there is the obvious and documented but denied effect of poverty that no one seems to want to invest in because it’s not on the Superman agenda.
I believe this monster will be conquered but it will be incremental and heroic on the part of those of us who have nothing to gain and nothing to lose personally compared to the devastating losses our children and our nation are threatened with.
Lee Barrios
396 days ago
I will be in Washington D.C. July 28-31 along with Save Our Schools supporters, Louisiana teachers, National Board Certified Teachers, Parents and students to speak to the power of individual voice and expertise. Everything that nourishes grows fro the ground up!!! Flowers grow out of cracks in the dessert floor. Nobody has a plan B if there are no teachers in the classrooms anymore. What will our Education chief Operating Officers do then?
April
396 days ago
I understand a lot of what you’re saying–and agree.
BUT my problem with billionaires meddling with education is
1) that they are beholden to NO tax payers or citizens for their mistakes
2) yes, he can make mistakes, but with OUR children!! He does NOT do enough research before he pours in money and tries to convince our nation’s schools to convert.
Bruce Hall
396 days ago
I notice Bill Gates and the boy from Face Book won’t take on health care reform. I don’t see them financing a coordinated effort to take on the insurance companies, the for profit hospitals, and the AMA (the most powerful union in the U.S. according to Milton Friedman). Instead they’ve chosen what I’m sure they see as s path of least resistance for their hobby and feigned concern for middle America.
Rick
385 days ago
Bill Gates could do a world of good for our nation by supporting a Free Online University offering downloadable, inexpensive digital textbooks and recognized degrees.