Bill Gates and public schools

Bill Gates of Microsoft fame has three children, all of whom attend private schools. I can understand that. If I had his money, I would probably do the same for a variety of reasons.

But that doesn't stop Gates from wondering about the quality of American schools. According to The Associated Press, gates says U.S. higher education is the envy of the world, but primary and secondary schools fail in their mission to adequately prepare students for college.

No argument here.

Gates told the AP that the U.S. public education system needs higher standards, clear accountability, flexibile personnel practices and innovation.

The following paragraphs are taken directly from the AP article:

“Real accountability means more than having goals; it also means having clear consequences for not meeting the goals,” he said in a speech earlier Monday to Washington state educators who came to hear the results of an education task force.
Gates said schools should also be able to pay the best teachers better and offer incentives to attract people with rare abilities.

“It’s astonishing to me to have a system that doesn’t allow us to pay more for someone with scarce abilities, that doesn’t allow us to pay more to reward strong performance,” he said. “That is tantamount to saying teacher talent and performance don’t matter and that’s basically saying students don’t matter.”

..."This nation has to do something very challenging, which is to provide a strong education to almost every student," he said.

(END AP)

There can be no accountability until schools are run with the benefits of students first. Not teachers, not admininstrators, not the job-seeking relative of the local school board member. As I've said before, my kids have had some great teachers in Cabrell County schools, and they've had some real duds. If I had my way, half the teachers in public schools would be terminated, with the money they receive now going to the great teachers who remain. The great teachers would have to do more work, but a good teacher in a room of 30 kids should be able to do better than a bad teacher in a room with 15.

We just can't clear the deadwood out fast enough.

We also would fund science, math and the arts a lot better than we are now. Soon, people will travel to Huntington to watch some kids play basketball. If only we could get them to come here so their kids could learn science and math.

Also ideally, schools would be set up to focus on a speciality and kids from neighboring counties could come here for maybe half a day to study. Why shouldn't Cabell Midland High School have such a great science program that the bright kids from Lincoln, Mason and Putnam counties find their way to Ona to study?

These are brainstorming ideas I've had in the past. I just wish the existing education system wasn't so rooted in interest-group politics and run by people clinging to doing things the way they were done 100 years ago.

My mind didn't take off until I got to college. I often wonder what would have happened if the elementary and high schools I went to had been prepared to handle unusual minds rather than force everyone into a one-size-fits-all system.