Mr. Gates — who is gaining considerable clout in education circles — plans to urge the 50 state superintendents of education to take difficult steps to restructure the nation’s public education budgets, which have come under severe pressure in the economic downturn.Bill Gates understands that educational success requires focusing on results and not process, that teachers are overpaid for what their students' learn and that increases in pay without student results are undeserved.
He suggests they end teacher pay increases based on seniority and on master’s degrees, which he says are unrelated to teachers’ ability to raise student achievement. He also urges an end to efforts to reduce class sizes. Instead, he suggests rewarding the most effective teachers with higher pay for taking on larger classes or teaching in needy schools.
Unfortunately, the existing education establishment is part of the problem, but not the whole problem. Cultural changes have to be made in low performing education student groups and families to raise educational expectations, so success, graduation and learning are looked upon favorably, become the norm and are not considered inappropriate and selling out.
