Bill Gates Imposes Microsoft Model on School Reform:Only to Have the Company Junk It After It Failed

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/education/billionaire-bill-gates-and-his-army-reformers-terrible-idea-bringing-ruthless-corporate

Schools have a lot to learn from business about how to improve performance, Bill Gates declared in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal in 2011. He pointed to his own company as a worthy model for public schools.

“At Microsoft, we believed in giving our employees the best chance to succeed, and then we insisted on success. We measured excellence, rewarded those who achieved it and were candid with those who did not.”

Adopting the Microsoft model means public schools grading teachers, rewarding the best and being “candid”—that is, firing those who are deemed ineffective. "If you do that,” Gates promised Oprah Winfrey, “then we go from being basically at the bottom of the rich countries to being back at the top."

The Microsoft model, called “stacked ranking,” forced every work unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, then good performers, then average, then below average, then poor.

[bemildred]

1. Gates' expertise is marketing.

And you will notice that "stacked ranking" is a marketing sort of solution, you grade them and price them accordingly and somehow that magically makes them all work, or something.

[xchrom]

2. indeed. nt

[Art_from_Ark]

3. That whole concept totally...

SUCKS. It just pits employees/teachers against each other and encourages backstabbing.

[bemildred]

7. It is just "divide and rule" tarted up to look like economic theory, that's all.

It does not even matter to the "managers" whether the metric they use is accurate or fair, the objective is fear and control, and for that it works fine even if it's wrong, misgovernment is the goal.

[bemildred]

4. A bit of reading in marketing and public relations theory can tell you a lot about modern economics.

Economics used to be all about production, now it's all about marketing. It used to be about building a big company which served a big, and hopefully monopolized, market. Now it's all about the IPO and the "liquidity event" which allows you to abscond with the cash, or about using government as a private cash cow, or selling the latest technical fad, or all of those at times. We have become decadent, and our economy is run as a cash farm for the select few.

[Starry Messenger]

5. As the article notes, the foundation for RTTT.

The damage is done.

[marmar]

6. k/r

[n2doc]

8. Stacked Ranking destroyed Microsoft's creativity

Absolutely no incentive to 'swing for the fences', just keep your head down and kiss up to your superiors. No wonder their tablets, phones and operating systems have sucked eggs so badly.

[hatrack]

9. Because if you're rich, you know EVERYTHING about education!

WTF has Bill Gates ever done in school, other than arrive as the guest of honor at this or that charter school (lately) and (decades ago) drop out of college?

Does he teach? Has he ever worked in a public school - or a private school, for that matter? Has he worked as a school administrator, a counselor, a nurse, or a janitor?

Oh, he hasn't? Then FUCK HIM.