It was recently announced that Arne Duncan is giving control of the Education Department's TEACH.org website to Bill Gates and Microsoft. It will now be the property of Microsoft's Partners in Learning division. The purpose of the website is to encourage people to become teachers and provide them with education and job hunting resources.
To their credit, they recognize that there is an aging teaching workforce and shortage of teachers in high needs areas, but this marketing campaign is just something that increases corporate America's reach into education policy and our classrooms.The irony here is that the corporate ed "reformers" (Gates et. al) are always pushing the idea that we need to fire a bunch of teachers, when not long ago they were all pumping money into programs to reduce class size. Now they want to help recruit what they see as effective teachers and then schools can save money by increasing class size because the wonderful Microsoft BrandTM educator can easily and effectively teach classes of 40 plus. Of course we will know that these Microsoft BrandТМ teachers are effective because of their test scores. Not that Bill Gates would have that size of a class for his own kids.
To their credit, they recognize that there is an aging teaching workforce and shortage of teachers in high needs areas, but this marketing campaign is just something that increases corporate America's reach into education policy and our classrooms.The irony here is that the corporate ed "reformers" (Gates et. al) are always pushing the idea that we need to fire a bunch of teachers, when not long ago they were all pumping money into programs to reduce class size. Now they want to help recruit what they see as effective teachers and then schools can save money by increasing class size because the wonderful Microsoft BrandTM educator can easily and effectively teach classes of 40 plus. Of course we will know that these Microsoft BrandТМ teachers are effective because of their test scores. Not that Bill Gates would have that size of a class for his own kids.
We know the stats. Roughly half of teachers quit within five years of beginning teaching. But could all of this high stakes testing be keeping people away from teaching? As the media is filled with anti-teacher messages, are potential teachers being pushed away? That is one question a retired teachers is asking. If our education model continues to be "drill and kill" when it comes to math and reading, and we squeeze out other subjects, what is the impact? Does this create a shallower talent pool?
Maybe if we started by treating teachers better, paying teachers better and including teachers in the decisions that affect them professionally, we wouldn't have to have a billion dollar corporation recruit teachers. People would come to it on their own.
Maybe if we started by treating teachers better, paying teachers better and including teachers in the decisions that affect them professionally, we wouldn't have to have a billion dollar corporation recruit teachers. People would come to it on their own.
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