At least there is one capitalist with a conscience out there.
Even so, one has to question whether the use of soft funds to drive change within the educational industry is the appropriate way to drive transformation that is desperately needed. Meaning, if outside individuals are driving the change agenda for the educational indsutry (as in we won't fund ideas if we don't like your values), are we headed in the correct direction?
Slice:
Bill Gates raised some hackles with his withering assessment of American high schools, but at least the billionaire founder of Microsoft is putting his money where his mouth is. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested $2.3 billion since 2000 in new visions of education, with smaller schools and more personalized instruction to prepare young people for the working world and post-high school learning.
The foundation has programs in 42 states and the District of Columbia; it supports more than 1,500 high schools — about half totally new and the others redesigned. Its three scholarship programs, designed to fill tuition gaps left by other grants and aid, have assisted more than 10,000 students.
At one of its schools, the Truman Center in Federal Way, about 20 miles south of Seattle, 12 teacher/advisers tend 208 students — helping them figure out what they care about and how to pursue it. Two days a week are set aside for job-shadowing and internships in the real world.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
He wrote a withering editorial in the LA Times about how the government was handling public schools and the fact that if we do nothing about it, there will be no workforce of tomorrow. As a capitalist who understands that his own company won't have anyone to work there unless he pulls them in from other, more educated countries, he's got a heckuva point. Too bad he's an island unto himself. You'd think more people would jump on the band wagon, or that, simply given his financial clout that politicians would be shamed into addressing the situation.
Bill Gates has other problems
M$ can hire anyone it wants, they have the money. The problem for them is that they don't know who to hire. ''Education'' will not solve that problem.
Fixing public schools by throwing money at them is painting over a pimple. It doesn't solve the underlying problem in the family sending children to school. Children who have parents without jobs, parents who don't read, who have no books in the home, who don't have an internet connection and who neither send email nor read online.
Many an industry leader has been down Bill Gates path. Xerox had a plan to fix the schools. What the public needs most from M$ and Xerox is cheaper operating systems and software, and cheaper copiers. What the public doesn't need is gratuitous advice from people who are sucking money out of the system, when, if they really wanted to do something useful, they could provide better and cheaper products.
Post a Comment