Er is een nieuw evaluatierapport van een van de duurste experimenten van de Bill en Melinda Gates Foundation dat zowat 600 miljoen dollar kostte waarbij gekeken werd naar het effect van een teacher-Effectiveness Program. De conclusie in grote lijnen? De leerlingen presteerden niet beter ondanks de enorme investeringen.

Wat zijn de conclusies?

• The sites succeeded in implementing measures of effectiveness to evaluate teachers and made use of the measures in a range of human-resource (HR) decisions.
• Every site adopted an observation rubric that established a common understanding of effective teaching. Sites devoted considerable time and effort to train and certify classroom observers and to observe teachers on a regular basis.
• Every site implemented a composite measure of TE that included scores from direct classroom observations of teaching and a measure of growth in student achievement.
• Every site used the composite measure to varying degrees to make decisions about HR matters, including recruitment, hiring, and placement; tenure and dismissal; PD; and compensation and CLs.
• Overall, however, the initiative did not achieve its goals for student achievement or graduation, particularly for LIM students.
• With minor exceptions, by 2014–2015, student achievement, access to effective teaching, and dropout rates were not dramatically better than they were for similar sites that did not participate in the Intensive Partnerships initiative.
• There are several possible reasons that the initiative failed to produce the desired dramatic improvement in outcomes across all years: incomplete implementation of the key policies and practices; the influence of external factors, such as state-level policy changes during the Intensive Partnerships initiative; insufficient time for effects to appear; a flawed theory of action; or a combination of these factors.

Lees meer over het experiment en de resultaten in dit artikel in Edweek.

Het is een nieuw item op ondertussen een lange lijst van mislukkingen door Gates en co waarvoor Bill Gates zich al eerder excuseerde. Maar goed nieuws! De man heeft een nieuw idee dat onderwijs zal beter maken…