Bill Gates rather meaninglessly opines...

In Newsweek, Bill Gates predictably comes out for Joel Klein as Education Secretary and also for Mayoral control:

Gates argues that rigorous accountability is the only option, from mayoral control (elected school boards are mostly a menace) to principal control (teacher tenure and onerous work rules are quality-killers) to data control (IT systems that closely track performance are a must).

I wonder if his foundation is one of the secret backers of NY Learn – the organization pushing the continuation of Mayoral control here in NYC.

Gates, of course, also strongly supports charter schools, and claims that “At YES College Prep in Houston, 95 percent of the students are African-American or Hispanic and 80 percent are poor. But since 2000, every student has gone on to a four-year college. One hundred percent.”

Wow! That is impressive. Yet according to the school’s website, “Every student must be accepted to a four-year college or university in order to graduate from YES Prep.”

Hmm. That means by definition, all their graduates must have been accepted at a four year-college. Oh well.

What this meaningless statistic does not tell you are how many of their students are shed along the way.