Today Bill Gates, an obvious expert on education due to his background in education experience as a teacher billions of dollars, has written an op-ed in today's Washington Post entitled "How teacher development could revolutionize our schools". In it, he issues deep and well thought out insights such as this:
Over the past four decades, the per-student cost of running our K-12 schools has more than doubled, while our student achievement has remained virtually flat.
All I can say this man works in misplaced causation like Picasso worked in paints. Join me after the jump as we explore how Gate's logic represents reality about as well as cubism is an example of realism.
Let's return to that opening quote:
Over the past four decades, the per-student cost of running our K-12 schools has more than doubled, while our student achievement has remained virtually flat.
Now, I've been in the public school system for most of those past four decades as both a student and a teacher. You know I seem to remember some small changes. Little things like computers didn't exist when I was a student. Copy machines eliminated those great smelling Mimiographs we used to get as kids. I also seem to remember that we had a special class for those "special" kids down the hall that we never really saw much. I'm sure none of these have anything to do with the cost of educating our students today.
But is student achievement all about the money? Another pearl of wisdom from the education expert billionaire:
When you need more achievement for less money, you have to change the way you spend.
That's right. If you want to improve education it's all about how you spend money. On teachers. Never mind the sizable chunks of school district budgets spent on computers, copy machines or the special education. It's all about the teachers:
We know that of all the variables under a school's control, the single most decisive factor in student achievement is excellent teaching. It is astonishing what great teachers can do for their students.
Note that the first half of that sentence includes the wiggle phrase "under a school's control". The single most important factor of my staying hydrated is drinking. All I have to do is drink more and I'll stay hydrated. Unless I don't have access to safe, clean drinking water. Gates ignores that the greatest variable in student achievement is poverty, not the teacher.
So what's Gate's fix? Here's the setup:
[smaller class size] has driven school budget increases for more than 50 years. U.S. schools have almost twice as many teachers per student as they did in 1960, yet achievement is roughly the same.
Say that to a teacher with a straight face and you my friend will be a great poker player. I'm sure this has nothing to do with there being more students in school than 50 years ago. But I digress. I'll be the straight-man for this joke. So, what should policy makers do Mr. Gates?
One approach is to get more students in front of top teachers by identifying the top 25 percent of teachers and asking them to take on four or five more students.
[rim-shot] Thanks' for coming. Remember to tip your waitress.
The way to revolutionize our schools is to figure out who the top teachers are then "ask them" to take more students, which will have no impact on the time they can spend with individual students what so ever because we'll just pay them more. And give them a time machine. And a pony.
You can't make this stuff up. But what do I know. I'm not an education expert billionaire.