It’s truly amazing to me that a person as smart as Bill Gates can be as clueless as he is about education. It appears that the Arrogance Of Bill Gates is going to be a running series in this blog. Today, he really out-did himself in The Washington Post.

My Teacher Leaders Network colleague Kenneth Bernstein has already offered an eloquent response, so I’m not going to write a lengthy post here. (Stephen Krashen has also posted a response).

I would, however, like to point out a few things.

One, in response to his praise of his foundation-funded teacher evaluation strategy of having thousands of teachers videotaped and having “experts” review them and tie them to test score improvement, he and others might want to read Why I’m Afraid The Gates Foundation Might Be Minimizing Great Tools For Helping Teachers Improve Their Craft, Videotaping teachers the right way (not the Gates way), and/or There Are Some Right Ways & Some Wrong Ways To Videotape Teachers — And This Is A Wrong Way.

Second, in response to his dismissing the value of class size reduction, he and others might want to read The Best Resources For Learning About How Class Size Does Matter.

And, third, in response to his advocacy of teacher merit pay, he and others might want to read The Best Resources For Learning Why Teacher Merit Pay Is A Bad Idea.

Additional responses to his column are welcome….