With voters growing increasingly disgruntled towards a US government that cannot reach a consensus with regards to spending cuts, one critical area is often on the chopping block–public education. It’s no secret that public schools are in dire straits–particularly in the inner cities where minority groups are concentrated.
Allan C. Golston, president of the United States Program of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, oversees, among other things, the organization’s efforts to increase graduation rates. With over $6 billion in funding since 1994, this part of the foundation has made a $1 billion commitment over 20 years to the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, which enables 20,000 outstanding students of color, with significant financial need, to earn a college degree. Since the 1999 commitment, 13,050 students have received renewable awards for undergraduate and graduate study. BLACK ENTERPRISE spoke with Golston about the state of public schools and how the foundation plans to tackle education-related issues. Here’s what he had to say:
BLACKENTERPRISE.COM: The foundation’s goals to increase the number of public high school graduates are going to require education reform. What’s the plan to deal with some of the pushback?
Allan Golston: I think it’s important to point two things out in terms of that. One is that we actually did a survey of over 40,000 teachers. We asked teachers what they think about performance management, rewards, evaluation, etc. What was very interesting is that teachers actually do want feedback and are not opposed to performance types of pay as long as the measures are fair and reliable. There are quite a few teachers; it came up in this survey, that actually do support this. The great thing about this work and what we are learning in the research is that this cannot only be used for supporting teachers to be their best, giving them feedback, etc., but these measures can also be incorporated into the teacher personnel system, including merit pay, or meritocracy-based system.
At the end of the day, the teachers may have the support but there are administrators to deal with. Are they also as receptive?
The administrators are also receptive. You know, the good news here is that if you j
ust use the Measures of Effective Teaching Research Project, there are over 3,000 teachers represented in this research study and school leadership, district leadership, administration. So, it’s something that is a long time coming and we are seeing the type of support. In fact, we’re right in the midst of the research work and there is incredible pressure from administrators to say, “Hey, tell us what you know now. Tell us what you know.”  We’d like to begin to implement this now. Of course we want to do that at a pace and time where the research is coming and unfolding, and the evidence of what we are learning is clear. But there is a big demand for this work and we’re excited to see that.
With these studies that you are doing, what are you finding are the keys to producing better teachers?
What I can tell you is what the theory that the research is testing. It’s all based in teacher value-added test scores. We do think that while testing can’t be the only measure it has to be a component of it. The research is anchored around what other variable explains student outcome. There are a couple of things that are surfacing. One is that students’ perception are definitely predictive of what great teaching and what not great teaching is and the distinction. Within those student perceptions, the teachers’ ability to challenge the student, the teachers’ expectations of the students, the teachers clearly signal that they have high expectations for the student. Their classroom management skill is surfacing in the perception survey.
What are the three things that you’re looking to do in the near term?
One, is a common set of expectations across every state about what students need to be successful in college and career. That’s a huge inequity in this country that we don’t expect that you can live in a different state, or different zip code, and that can be a determinate of what type of education you’re getting through what you’re expected to know. So, one goal is to level that out so that we have high expectations regardless of what state, what zip code, what school district you’re in.
The second goal is to have a great teacher for every student. So, shouldn’t matter if you’re in an urban district or a rural district, or you’re in Massachusetts or Mississippi. Every student, particularly the ones that don’t get access to a high quality education, which are typically students that are low income, minority, we’ve got to solve that problem so that there is a great teacher for every kid in every classroom.
The third goal is that students not only graduate from high school prepared to succeed but actually go into a post-secondary system and get some type of degree that allows them to get a job and earn a livable wage.
You mentioned before, and Bill Gates said the same thing–that it’s not really about money. But when you look at some of the schools, particularly in inner cities, the school on Martin Luther King Boulevard does not look like the school in 90210.
Yeah, I think that is absolutely true. But you have to really look at what’s underneath that because people often conclude that that is a spending problem, meaning a money problem in terms of, “Oh, clearly we’re not investing enough in this district.” Or, “We’re not investing enough in the system that this happened.” Actually, in many cases, it’s how the money gets spent and allocated. If you see decisions where resources get siphoned off from many of the more high need schools and moved into the more affluent schools. What Bill is saying, and what we see across the board is definitely to say, “Look, we have to invest in public education in this country.”  But we can’t conclude that it’s just a spending problem, or an investment of money problem. Sometimes it’s how the money gets spent and the policies that drive how that gets spent. Those are really, really key opportunities for us to leverage in this country for the benefit of students.