Bill Gates key education "reform" is toxic in his own company

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. When I was teaching on the college level, one of the best ways to work with problematic students

was to consult with their other professors and find out if and how the other professors were able to motivate them, get through to them, or squelch problematic behavior.

I also learned a lot from other professors and K-12 teachers over lunch at our annual state foreign language teachers' convention.

If I were designing state curriculum standards, I'd put them in terms something like this:

"In this grade, social studies will focus on the history and geography of the state (let's say Minnesota), starting with the Native peoples and working down to the present day. Topics will include the natural features of the state, including geological features and native plants and animals; the lives and cultures of the Ojibwe and Lakota peoples before the arrival of the European settlers, the early explorers, eastern Minnesota as part of the Northwest Territories, the Louisiana Purchase, the first settlers from New England...(and so). Join with other teachers who teach the same grade in your school or nearby to devise lesson plans that fit your teaching style and the learning styles of your students."

Each grade and subject would have similar requirements: topics to be covered and instructions to the teachers to cover them as they thought best.