Gates Calls For Better Teachers To Have Larger Classes

The AP (3/1, Freking) reports that Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, speaking Monday at the National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington, said that despite budget shortfalls, "schools can improve the performance of students if they put more emphasis on rewarding excellent teaching and less emphasis on paying teachers based on seniority and whether they have a master's degree." Gates said "that he's concerned that many states will reduce how much money goes to education. At the same time, he's convinced that spending cuts don't necessarily have to harm students. One way to save money would be to get more students in front of the very best teachers. Those teachers would get paid more with the savings generated from having fewer teachers overall. 'There are people in the field who think class size is the only thing,' Gates said. 'But in fact, the dominant factor is having a great teacher in front of the classroom.'"

 

Daniel De Vise writes at the Washington Post (3/1) "College Inc." blog about his interview with Gates, who "famously dropped out of Harvard in 1975 to launch the company initially known as Micro-Soft. ... Lately, Gates has been advocating paying teachers based on classroom performance instead of seniority and ending costly investments in class-size reduction, two of the more provocative topics in public education. .. Gates's central point is that the nation is spending more than ever on public education and not getting better results in return." However, "Many education leaders would say that Gates's criticism is unfounded" based on improving test scores. Meanwhile, "the research community has more or less confirmed that class-size reduction doesn't yield significant performance gains."

 

Blogger Backs Gates' Call For Larger Class Sizes For "Best Teachers." Ezra Klein writes in a blog post on the website of the Washington Post (3/1) writes about Bill Gates' suggestion that "the conventional wisdom that smaller class sizes mean better education" may be misleading, noting that he has "advocated for bigger class sizes -- at least for the best teachers." Klein concludes that it "seems worth a try, at least."