DEAR MR. GATES: Here’s a witty letter from New York educator, Katie Lapham, imploring Bill Gates to volunteer his time, not money, at her school. Having spent 40 days out of her ESL classroom this past year to “prepare and organize testing materials and to proctor exams,” Lapham clearly is unimpressed by the data collection and accountability agenda that she feels the Gates Foundation is pressing. The out-of-class time -- a whopping 22% of the 180 day school year -- is certainly alarming. The big question is will the resulting test data improve instruction for the remaining 78% of classroom time?
