Jump right in to the discussion:
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To Nick from
Ted |
To Ted from
Nick |
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Or check out some background:
The
Education Summit Web
Site included a forum open to all who
could reach it to participate in a discussion of the issues
raised. The forum had
three areas: (1) Technology and Education, (2)
Standards and Education, and (3)
Comments about the Summit website. Ted posted one of the
first messages in each forum:
Below is Ted's first message to Nick, wherein Ted suggests a way for he and Nick to begin their discussion. In it, Ted notes that one response he received to his post On Standards and Education was signed Bill Gates. Naturally Ted was curious to see if perhaps the most powerful man in computers and media had actually written the piece, so Ted e-mailed a copy of the message to Bill Gates. Below is the e-mail Ted sent to Bill and Bill's reply.
Shortly after their exchange, the bogus message was removed from the forum.
Perhaps we can begin with my posts and then take on other issues as they arise.
Some
fun history:
An interesting thing happened on the standards
post. A person named Bill
Gates responded to my post. I wrote
to Gates (see **** area below
for our
correspondence.)
asking him if he really wrote this post. He
didn't and had
it removed. The site says post removed. We have
it because I saved it.
Boy did he act fast.
****
From: Ted
Nellen[SMTP:tnellen@mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us]
Sent: Monday,
March 25, 1996 7:57 PM
To: Bill Gates
Subject:
Setting Standards The Old Fashioned Way: The
Marketplace
Mr Gates,
Did you really write this letter?
If so I will respond,
otherwise, I will disregard it.
Thanks for your attention to this
matter.
Ted
Ted Nellen's sad lament about how "a society without standards" can even dream about setting educational standards reminds me of a joke quite popular these days regarding Microsoft software engineers. The joke raises the question, "How many Microsoft programmers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?" The answer: None --- Bill Gates just redefines the standard as darkness!" In education, especially American public K-12 education, there has recently been many heated debates that echo Ted Nellen's desire for multi-culturalism, multi-standards, and a different set of standards for each diverse community. That approach would quickly turn America into a Yugoslavia, or even worse, a Miami. Sorry, Ted, but you're way off track. America needs to graduate kids from our high schools who can read, write and computer --- whether it's with my Windows95 or Lou's OS/2. All of us --- in the information industry or the education business MUST set measurable standards of performance and accountability for our students and schools AND our teachers and administrators. Perhaps Educational America can learn a few lessons from Corporate America about goals and standards setting and accountability. And I don't expect the Bureaucracy in the education establishment to like being woken up --- or downsized and replaced or augmented by technology to like it any more than the deadwood businessmen and politicians liked it when they got kicked out of office. Setting standards for the emerging global economy and marketplace which will be brimmed full with competition is today's reality. And redefining standards based on everybody's individual take on diversified cultures all being equal is stupidity
Cheers,
Ted 8-)
http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us
http://www.dorsai.org/~tnellen
**********************
>From
billg@MICROSOFT.comTue Mar 26 14:41:21 1996
Date: Tue, 26
Mar 1996 09:54:00 -0800
From: Bill Gates
[billg@MICROSOFT.com]
To: 'Ted Nellen'
[tnellen@mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us]
Subject: RE: Setting
Standards The Old Fashioned Way: The Marketplace
No I did
not write this. Where did it
appear?
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To Nick from
Ted |
To Ted from
Nick |
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Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in
Webbed Environments.