With the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation vowing to double down on its current efforts to raise academic standards and improve teacher quality, educators here and around the country have retreated to their usual camps鈥攕ome supporting the group for its steadfastness and others freshly condemning it.
The foundation announced its plans to stay the course during a two-day forum last week that gathered grant recipients from across the country. The teacher-focused panels and speeches at the event seemed to hammer home the message as well: That teachers鈥攁s well as measures to support them and hold them accountable鈥攍ie at the center of the foundation鈥檚 plan for improving the U.S. education system.
The conference here served somewhat as a celebration of Gates鈥� 15 years in the education-funding business. 鈥淚 believe we are on the right track,鈥� Bill Gates said in a keynote speech at the U.S. Learning Forum Oct. 7. 鈥淔or today, and for the coming years, this is our vision: Every student deserves high standards. Every student deserves an effective teacher. Every teacher deserves the tools and support to be phenomenal.鈥�
Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank and Gates grantee, said continuing the current work is not a bad idea for the Gates foundation.
鈥淎merican education has far more faddism and short-term bandwagon-jumping than it needs,鈥� said Hess, who did not attend the forum.
However, Hess also said that he hopes that 鈥減art of staying the course is backing away from grandiose efforts to make everybody do this right now the same way.鈥�
Elsewhere beyond the Bellevue gathering, some educators and advocates were more sharply critical about the past and future direction of the foundation. They said that the group is trying to fix teachers when poverty is the problem. And that Gates, in concert with the federal government, has pushed too many changes too quickly.
鈥淭he Gates reforms of [Common Core State Standards] plus testing plus teacher evaluation based on test scores has been a disaster in New York,鈥� said Carol Burris, the executive director of the Network for Public 91制片厂视频 and a vocal Gates critic. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e done a lot more damage than good.鈥� Burris was previously a principal in the Rockville Center school district in New York.
Improving Teaching
Gates first laid out the foundation鈥檚 teacher-effectiveness strategy during a similar speech seven years ago. Since then, the foundation has been involved in a variety of projects related to teacher quality and professional development, including the Measures of Effective Teaching project. Between 2008 and 2013, the group spent nearly $700 million on teacher-related initiatives. (91制片厂视频 Week has received several grants from the Gates Foundation over the past decade, most recently for coverage of implementation of college- and career-ready standards.)
While there鈥檚 no shift in direction, there will be more even more emphasis on professional learning and support, said Vicki Phillips, the director of the foundation鈥檚 college-readiness program. And in terms of teacher evaluations, 鈥渨e need to put our shoulder into making sure the feedback teachers get is actionable.鈥�
Perhaps the most controversial of Gates鈥� efforts has been its focus on linking test scores to teacher evaluations. In his keynote, Gates acknowledged that debate and emphasized that student growth should be just one piece of an evaluation. He pointed to Denver鈥檚 teacher evaluation system, which combines observations, student surveys, and test scores, as a model.
鈥淭his isn鈥檛 a system for sorting teachers into groups; it鈥檚 a framework for moving up the learning line together,鈥� Gates said. 鈥淭he principal can visit the class, discuss it with the teacher, and decide together where the teacher stands. If they鈥檙e not satisfied, they can settle on a plan for getting better, including coaching from fellow teachers.鈥�
Promise and Pitfall
Conference attendee Dean Marolla-Turner, a principal at Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, part of a Los Angeles charter network, offered a view of both the potential and the pitfalls of Gates鈥� theory of action regarding teachers.
Under a Gates grant, his school has moved from basing salary on seniority to a performance-based pay system, he said. Coaches help teachers pinpoint weaknesses and improve on them鈥攁nd Marolla-Turner says he鈥檚 seen classrooms change as a result.
鈥淚 walk into classrooms where students used to be afraid to ask questions, and now they鈥檙e stopping the teacher to say, 鈥榃ait, I don鈥檛 understand,鈥� 鈥� he said.
That doesn鈥檛 mean implementation has been easy, though鈥攕ome teachers have pushed back on the system, which incorporates student-growth scores. 鈥淭hey think there are too many things for them to work on, too many components,鈥� Marolla-Turner said. 鈥淚鈥檓 concerned. 鈥� Teachers are wanting to move away from [the model].鈥�
Linking test scores to evaluations has been especially problematic in New York, according to Burris. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a reason that over 220,000 students opted out of the common-core exams,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f you talk to parents in the opt-out movement ... what they say universally is they do not want their teachers evaluated by test scores because they understand that when they are, there鈥檚 a hyper-focus on teaching to the test.鈥�
Gates is living in 鈥渁n echo chamber,鈥� Melissa Westbrook, a public education advocate in Washington state, said in an email. 鈥淗e says he was surprised at the pushback and outcry over common core and testing and yet seems to want to forge on in that direction. Yet, all around the country, the dominoes are falling in a line against a focus on those two issues.鈥�
The kinds of changes the Gates Foundation has pushed over the years are still subject to swings in public perception, Gates acknowledged in a discussion with Gwen Ifill, co-anchor of the PBS NewsHour. The most disappointing part of working on U.S. education is that 鈥渢he work can go backwards,鈥� he said. 鈥淣obody votes to un-invent our malaria vaccine,鈥� he added, in reference to the group鈥檚 global health work.
The foundation鈥檚 investments in teacher effectiveness will continue to fall into several categories, Phillips said. Those include professional learning, teacher tools and supports, increased time for planning and collaboration, and teacher voice. 鈥淭he No. 1 thing teachers tell us they need is time. We鈥檙e figuring out how they can get more time to collaborate,鈥� she said.
Phillips declined to offer financial details on future grantmaking, except to say, 鈥淲e set our priorities and invest around that. ... We鈥檙e still investing healthy numbers as we have been doing.鈥� She did say that the foundation is waiting on the results from a RAND study on personalized learning, due in November, that could affect funding priorities.
Common Core
As for the common-core standards, which the foundation has backed since conception, Gates praised them again in his speech. 鈥淚t鈥檚 unfortunate that many of the attacks about the common core have drowned out the facts鈥攁nd the fact is, the standards are starting to work for students and teachers.鈥� He said the standards have made it easier for teachers to find materials online that meet their needs, and have given educators a common taxonomy.
Overall, the event made clear that teacher effectiveness will remain a priority for the foundation for many years to come. Thelma Jackson, co-founder of the Black 91制片厂视频 Strategy Roundtable in Washington, which has received about $350,000 in grant funding from Gates, said that鈥檚 a good thing.
Bill & Melinda Gates 鈥渁re portrayed ... as having a sinister agenda,鈥� said Jackson. 鈥淏ut their agenda is my agenda. 鈥� They鈥檙e working for equity and ridding the system of disproportionality. They鈥檙e deliberate about it.鈥�
Teachers鈥� unions are among those concerned that the focus on teacher performance could distract from factors like poverty and opportunity.
Andrea Prejean, director of teacher quality for the National 91制片厂视频 Foundation, said in a statement, 鈥淢r. Gates鈥� comments center on in-school factors, but we believe that we must discuss these issues as part of a system where all students have what they need both inside and outside the school building.鈥� The group has received Gates funding in the past but does not now.
The other national teachers鈥� union, the American Federation of Teachers, which stopped taking Gates money for its innovation fund in 2013, declined to comment on the speech.
