Gates and High School Reform

Its always noble when someone of means attempts to tackle the problem of poor and worsening education at the high school level in the United States. After all - it makes people giddy because money is supposed to solve everything right?

I don't think anyone can deny education degradation is probably the biggest threat to America's future, but for all the money and intellectual street-cred the Gateses have, its amazing their lack of planning.

I won't say anything more against them because its just wrong to sit back and criticize someone for at least trying to tackle such a large problem. So I'll offer a little advice in what is going to be a prolonged struggle.

When we decided to put a man on the moon - did the first rocket have the strength to get to the moon? No - it didn't. Was the plan of attack a single iteration whereby a rocket was either going to get thor or not ? No. Accomplishing the goal was made through accomplishing several smaller goals which prepared everyone for the ultimate challenge. Why not do the same for education?

Or to put the analogy closer to Bill's home - did he try to build Windows 95 first? Of course the answer is no - that came only after he had DOS, Win 3.x and Apple to help guide the vision. The point is that smaller successes and innovations were needed before the OS for the masses could be made. Some argue Windows XP is still far from perfect - but thats another story.

Albeit fixing the MOST troubled school would generate the biggest bragging rights, but why not tackle some schools which exhibit some of the problems of the worst school, but have less inertia to being fixed. I'd take some small victories and build on them over the high risk/reward of trying to shoot for the moon. If you fail - its twice as hard to get people to believe in your ability the second time around. So try promising little and delivering big.

Find out what it is that is causing the students on the margin to drop out. How much effort would it take to convert the 5 students of every 100 who have the most potential to graduate yet are for some reason or another dropping out.

Add a couple wins to your belt, gain some converts in the education system, build up the reform base, and offer a plan that has proof of success.