Dumb and Dumber: The Gateses on Parade

In my entry of September 24, I mentioned that I had written "Yo Bill Gates, If You're So Rich How Come You Ain't Smart" after his 2005 speech to the National Governors Association and that he was at it again in Parade magazine. Now, as if to say "Anything you can do I can do worser," comes wifey Melinda on the October 6 op-ed page of The Washington Post.

Her essay, which would not get a passing mark in a ninth grade writing class opens like so:

"Number of students who dropped out of high school last year: 1.1 million.

Difference between the lifetime earnings of a high school dropout and a college graduate: $1.5 million.

Of 300 questions asked in presidential candidates debates this year, number that addressed this issue: eight."

Let's start with that last statement and "this issue." What issue? She hasn't mentioned any issues. What on earth is she talking about?

She can't possibly have data on the number of dropouts from "last year." Lordy, I wish we had statistics gathering technology that grabbed the numbers that fast but we don't. According to The Condition of Education 2007, there were about 15,000,000 students enrolled in high school in 2005. A figure of 1.1 million is less than 8%. That actually seems low.

And since the whole article is about high school students, why does she compare the lifetime earnings between high school dropouts and college graduates? Answer: Because the comparisons with high school graduates ain't that dramatic.

Later she continues, "American high school students have some of the worst math skills in the developed world." Well, the last time I looked the 9th and 10th graders in the PISA were outranked by 20 of 28 OECD nations but the average score wasn't that far off, 483 vs, 500. If she's thinking of the earlier TIMSS "Final Year" study, I showed in the May 2000 Educational Researcher that that was an apples to aardvarks set of comparisons. Kids in the different countries differed vastly. When I parsed the numbers for the American students most like their peers in other countries, they were smack in the middle.

"Our country won't be able to address other major issues, such as the economy, the Iraq war, health care or immigration, if our high schools don't adequately prepare the next generation of leaders." This leap of illogic is amazing. At least this sentence indicates that she realizes the Iraq war will go on forever.

"And our schools won't improve until their problems are recognized." Takes my breath away. This sentence leads her into to her major pitch which is for the Strong American Schools campaign organized by her husband and Eli Broad to, in Broad's words, "wake up the American people" about how bad their schools are. Eli Broad is 73 years old. Where on earth has he been during the aftermath of Sputnik, the blaming of schools for the urban riots in the 60's, the putative fall of the SAT, "A Nation at Risk," and the rising tide of reform reports that followed that 1983 booklet?

Strong American Schools is just another fear-mongering device from people who want to control schools and curriculum. They should be ashamed.

But, I guess, being very rich means never having to say you're sorry. Oh, if you're wondering how such an awful piece of work could end up on the Post op-ed page, Melinda Gates is a Director of the Washington Post Co.

Comments

[BerylSaint]

Schools continue to dumb down, and since the "mediocrity" slam in 1983 public education has progressed from mediocrity through numerious mendacious reforms to our current situation. On close scrutiny one begins to realize that the post WWII vision of education for all is a grand illusion.

But there is hope. Reversing the near-demise of our public education system begins with admitting where we are. Only when Bracey-like defensive denial of our current situation ends can we do something about it.

Gerald Bracey is a good man, and he genuinely means well when he looks at the bright spots of our public education, of which there are many, and defines the entire public education system by them ¦ declaring the dying patient as healthy and well.

Our cultural instinct to stay positive is a treasured strength only when it is authentic. Authenticity, the real truth, today insists that we redefine public education and create a new system, one different from our current Eisenhower era model, that is appropriate to our society"s multi-cultural, global village.

Every other national institution has changed at least some to reflect current realities ¦ except for public education.

[drblack]

The gates could do worse things.
To improve education we have to make critical, empirically based thinking important again.
When half the country debates evolution with the bible you have a problem.
Also the insanity of "The War On Some Drugs" has caused such a rise in gangs and guns that inner city schools spend too much money on security, so a repeal of all Drug Prohibition laws would cut violence to an all time low, free up trillions of dollars , end violent gangs and make it harder for minors to abuse drugs.
Science and Technology have ALWAYS been the key to the advancement of humans.

[rmreddicks]

I'm a bad one to comment on public education, but allow me to leave you with this post. I'll leave it to any and all to find negatives or positives.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-brown/public-school-teachers-en_b_67676.html

[vox populi]

As far as our ranking goes, the critic always leave out the following fact- the countries we're ranked behind make NO attempt to educate all their people. They track them early on- before high school- into non-academic / non-college tracks and THOSE people never get tested at all. So it's the cream of the crop from these countries that we're compared against.

Meanwhile, the US makes a noble commitment to ALL its people to give them a high-school education. That includes immigrants, people from disadvantaged and impoverished backgrounds etc etc. All THOSE kid's scores go into the overall score.

Gates knows this, just like he knows the visa system is abused to create a class of indentured servants for his company and drive down wages for programmers. He knows that's why Americans are choosing to NOT enroll in computer science.

[Desiderata]

I started with 5 dollars an "A" and nothing for lesser. My daughter was a straight "A" student through grades 1 thru 6.

Junior high required 10 dollars for each "A" and 5 dollars for each "B+". She never earned a grade below a "B"

High school required 25 dollars an "A" and 10 dollars for each "B+" She never failed to collect.

The downside is that she is less focused in college. I wonder if my position that I should no longer reward her now that she is an adult has anything to do with that? She thinks I should reward her 100 dollars per "A" and 50 dollars per "B".

I've decided to do this.

The idea that students will excel out of some innate love for learning is crap. The reward for good grades works.

We adults work for money and worker harder to be rewarded with more money. So should our kids be rewarded when going to work at school.

[NoMoFearNoMoHate]

Pu-lease.

I did exactly what you seem to think is crap.

It's attitudes at home.

[langstonhughesfan]

Well, Mr. Bracey certainly paints a nice picture of secondary schools in this country. And for many children in lots of neighborhoods, school really is a very nice place to be each day. But for too many others, it is a nightmare. He needs to pick up a copy of Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation to get a clear picture of the horrific disparities between schools in lovely, suburban communities and those in troubling urban settings.

Gates raised the "issue" of the alarming rate of high school dropout and what that means for some children's futures. If Bracey can't tell from her opening sequence of statements that THAT is her issue, I don't know what to tell him. She points to the comparison between dropouts and college graduates because if a student never completes high school, she or he simply is ineligible for college attendance. It's true that the earning power of high school graduates is also pretty low. However, this fact actually supports the position that completing high school is a first step in attaining admission to a post-secondary program.

Bracey may not agree with Gates' facts or her logic and that's fine. I don't think Gates' article is particularly well-written either. But the bottom line is that there is truth in what she's saying. Too many schools are rotten. Too many kids find these places unloving and unresponsive to their needs. I'm just glad somebody is trying to point that out.

[DavidHealy]

And Melinda Gates is on the Washington Post board because . . . . . . when it became clear that this nerdy kid Bill Gates was going to be a mega millionaire, Warren Buffet invited him to games of contract bridge with Katherine Graham, who then controlled The Washington Post Company.

[TommyMcCarthy]

Bill and Melinda Gates have demonstrated on more than enough occasions that thier hearts are in the right place. Neither one claims to be a professional educator. If they have opinions they want to express we should applaud thier good works and ingnore thier inaccurate statistics. Mr. Bracy should give them a break.....tm

[NoMoFearNoMoHate]

If their hearts are in the right place then I'm sure that they will not mind being called to task for getting the facts straight and not using fuzzy math to pursue a dishonest agenda.

Gee, what's next - if someone's heart is in the right place we'll let them off for what? Murder? Or are you really just trying to excuse them because of their excessive wealth of which they let a tiny percentage fall upon the masses? If their work was so good they would accept the criticism that they dish out so regularly and would more than welcome a well thought-out critique as Gerald's above.

It's about conversation folks and we need to keep it going - beware anyone who encourages the cessation of rational conversation.

[mamacat]

The Gateses may not be doing a very good job of doing what tax dollars are supposed to be doing, but at least they are trying. Maybe, just maybe, they will apply the intellect of all those outsourced brains to try to fix what is wrong with America and the world.

[vox populi]

Bill Gates and Microsoft are public enemy number one for American college graduates in Computer Science.

Gates actually called for UNLIMITED immigration for high-tech workers (called the H1B visa program).
http://programmersguild.blogspot.com/2007/03/programmers-guild-rebuttal-to-bill.html
http://weblog.infoworld.com/realitycheck/archives/2007/03/to_gates_on_h1b.html

Unlimited???!!! There's not even an economic model for what happens to wages (and thus the number of people in the field) when the labor supply goes to infinity. Basically, the wages go through the floor, taking the motivation to study for the job with it.

Would Gates enter into a market where there was NO chance of making a profit? I don't think so. But he wants his employees to do just that.

Gates is just another Robber Baron who longs for unlimited cheap labor. Let someone else pay their people enough to actually BUY anything.
His support for massive importation of "workers" has led to a staggering decline in enrollment in computer science for Americans because the perception is either the job will be outsourced or, more likely, replaced with an indentured servant in the form of an H1B.
http://www.zazona.com

As far as our ranking goes, the critic always leave out the following fact- the countries we're ranked behind make NO attempt to educate all their people. They track them early on- before high school- into non-academic / non-college tracks and THOSE people never get tested at all. So it's the cream of the crop from these countries that we're compared against.

Meanwhile, the US makes a noble commitment to ALL its people to give them a high-school education. That includes immigrants, people from disadvantaged and impoverished backgrounds etc etc. ALl THOSE kid's scores go into the overall score.

Gates knows this, just like he knows the visa system is abused to create a class of indentured servants for his company and drive down wages for programmers. He knows that's why Americans are choosing to NOT enroll in computer science.

[TommyMcCarthy]

Have to disagree w/ "vox-populi" on one hand and agree whole heartedly on another.

It is a fact that many of the countries we rank behind in test scores make little to no effort to educate ALL thier citizens: an EXCELLENT point that is generally not well understood. That is at least one legacy of the new deal/great society that the Republicans have not managed to buffalo the public into de-funding.

Unfortunatly there IS an economic model for what happens to wages when the labor supply goes to infinity. I speak of construction related trades here on the west coast. Unlimited immigration has not only depressed wages but in an odd twist has engendered a two-tiered system. Higher-skill higher-wage jobs (often union) are largely closed to undocumented workers by law and/or union rules. Ironiclly less regulated construcion projects (Where the vast majority of the jobs are) can often be de-facto closed to non-immigrants, by the choice of the contractors. I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions as to thier motives........Regards..tm

[cuddletuffy]

Ctd...

I work in the software industry. I have seen firsthand off-shoring and experienced that reality and the myth of India and China's engineers. They have some talented and smart people so do we. However, they exaggerate the number of real engineers vs. mere technicians that they produce.

It is a complicated issue. Too complicated for 350 words. Let me say that a good number of engineering and computer science majors I have worked with in the field are actually worse programmers/engineers than those from other disciplines - some completely unrelated. Many of the best programmers, not all, I've worked with have no degree. Part of that is because resolving many real world problems requires good solid decision making based on very fundamental principles of deductive and inductive logic and problem solving taught in 8th and 9th grade chemistry and physics courses. Specialized technical genius is abstracted and reused in toolkits so that creative genius can make innovative applications.

To be sure, some positions in scientific and engineering fields require advanced degrees and in-depth knowledge. These are very strategic roles that make up a very small percentage of the jobs available. Most of the jobs require smart people with common sense, good problem solving skills based on abstract thinking, creativity that can't be taught, and experience. Sometimes academic pedantry is the worst thing you can have in your front-line work force.

Academic technical prowess can allow one to obtain and dazzle in interviews. It is not always a good predictor of who will excel and be your product differentiators. This is true in, "high-tech", and other jobs. Sometimes the people you most want, are those that have done far more than follow rules and learn by rote. Case in point - Bill Gates; Bill Joy; Steve Jobs; Steve Woszniak ... ... and all of the unsung productive workers whose creativity and passion for quality are far more important to their success than their pedigree.

[TommyMcCarthy]

THIS IS QUITE LIKELY THE MOST SALIENT COMMENT ON ANY TOPIC I HAVE READ HERE AT HUFFPO.......tm

[cuddletuffy]

Mr. Bracey makes an important insight here. SparXaFire's question gets right to it. I believe that part of what Mr. Bracey is saying is that math, science and engineering shouldn't be the only measures. America elected Bush once, and let him get away with stealing the first election because we are so woefully undereducated and/or inaccurately educated in civics, history, art, literature.

He makes good points about how the numbers when closely examined are not as alarming as some claim. Creating highly specialized technocrats is the worst thing we can do. Furthermore, creating a society based strongly on pedigree is also dangerous and un-American.

Does Melinda know Bill's background in education? He dropped out! He dropped out because he didn't need Harvard as much as Harvard needs the Bill Gates of the world to maintain their mythical standing. Bill knew what he wanted to do and just went and did it. Think about all of the people who led our high tech industry who couldn't get hired in a world based solely on pedigree.

Many things in education are difficult to measure. Ex. Creativity. Creating an army of technocratic mathematicians and scientists isn't going to solve the problems facing our country. When we have citizens who have a well-rounded classical liberal education emphasizing history and civics based on truth, not corporate texts, and that includes math and science, then we'll never elect a George Bush, or swallow all of the lies fed to us by the imperialists and wall street. We'll also be more than prepared in math and science. In fact, we just might discover, that many of our problems can be avoided by not creating them with bizarre and destructive applications of math and science in the first place.

To Be Ctd...

[SparXaFire]

Sparxafire!
Let me get this straight: you are defending an education system that is so deeply flawed that its "products" elected George Bush TWICE??? My, my.
Makes my point, I suppose.
http://www.statecraftinformer.com

[mommamia526]

When I was a kid, in High School, we had a very challenging program, and yes, the curriculum was fixed. HBS-B in The Netherlands. I had fine teachers, all of them had PhD's and they took interest in their students. We were invited to visit them at home. One of them wrote a series of history novels, especially for our age group, good books, teaching real history. Another arranged exchange programs to other countries. A third had an extensive Daumier collection. I received library cards for University Libraries early, thanks to the kindness of one of my teachers. And I studied, studied, studied. Real books, real sheet music from the music library, no methods, or other joke *material*. That was all I had to worry about. Not about a job, and a car, or all that extraneous garbage that keeps kids from achieving their full potential here.

[mommamia526]

I have to wonder. Who, does Mr. Bracey think, needs to control schools and curriculum? The *psychologists*? The teachers? I have taught. I also have grandchildren. The highschool kids and their friends all say the same kinds of things, to me at least. They do not respect their teachers, or the material that is taught. They do not think their teachers are qualified. The first day I had a class, as a sub, they tried to riot in my class. Did not happen. I had a conversation with them. They told me they thought nothing of me. Next day I came in with my degrees and qualifications, as well as work references. We went to work. Garbage on the desks was collected by me and deposited at the *office* where they could pick it up. A number of students thought it was all over for them in any case, as they were in the wrong school. I showed them that they had all the hope in the world, and how to go about learning, where to find material, and, especially, to keep on going and never give up. Every day they waited outside for me and walked me home, and talked, talked, talked and asked questions. Kids need adults they can trust, and they need hope. We need to fully fund all kinds of schools, including universities, and provide the kids with resources and materials, many more direct access programs and learning via the internet, and flexibility. But curriculum is also important.A substantive base is necessary to be able to continue later. We need smaller classes, better labs, and we need to stop treating teenagers as if they are halfbaked. GPA should not be a barrier to advancement, or getting into certain programs. Sometimes kids have a difficult time, or illness, or problems with parents, and then there may be a dip in the GPA. Total content is much more important.

[demockracy]

Demonizing the educational system is a right-wing talking point. Blaming teachers (or better yet, "administrators") for the myriad of society's ills that beset the modern student body is like blaming rape on a woman's sexy clothes.

Gates and their ilk are really beneath contempt in practicing this misdirection.

Worse still: advanced instruction in "education" doesn't really have an effect on teacher effectiveness... So we're looking to a system that is based on superstition to supply results...

Thanks to Bracey for at least paying homage to truth in this farrago of lies.