Mon Quotidien, para lectores de 10 a 14 años, llega a 60.000 suscriptores con noticias y juegos
La tapa de Mon Quotidien y el despliegue gráfico de las notas en las páginas internas Foto:
John Tagliabue The New York Times
PARIS.- Cuando Elisa Cammarota vuelve a casa de la escuela, arroja al suelo su mochila y se dedica a leer su diario de cabo a rabo. También lo hace Anthony Azoulay, aunque él se concentra en los artículos sobre fútbol y en las páginas con grandes fotografías. Elisa y Anthony tienen 10 años, y empiezan a cursar el quinto grado en el próximo otoño europeo. Los dos son suscriptores regulares de uno de los más populares periódicos cotidianos de Francia.
Se trata de Mon Quotidien (Mi Diario), un periódico para chicos de entre 10 y 14 años, nacido en 1995, con tanto éxito -en su tercer año de existencia alcanzó una circulación de 50.000 ejemplares- que los socios fundaron otros dos diarios, Petit Quotidien (El Pequeño Diario), para chicos de entre 7 y 10 años, y L´Actu , (algo así como Los Titulares), para adolescentes entre los 14 y los 17 años. La combinación de contenido con una hábil estrategia de marketing ha llevado la circulación de los tres diarios a los 165.000 ejemplares.
Los periódicos, que aparecen todos los días salvo los domingos, son una mezcla de noticias vívidas y llenas de color, fotografías, tiras cómicas y series de acertijos y preguntas. Un ejemplar reciente de Mon Quotidien llevó en tapa una foto y una nota del pulpo Paul, el cefalópodo que vaticinó con éxito los ganadores de los partidos del Mundial de fútbol de 2010. Otro número estuvo dedicado al diminuto auto nuevo que se exhibió en la muestra automovilística de Berlín, que se pliega para poder guardarlo en espacios pequeños.
Una anomalía en el mercado
En una época en la que muchos chicos son adictos a las computadoras, los iPods y los iPads -y en la que los periódicos sienten esa presión-, Mon Quotidien parece una anomalía, más aún en Francia.
Pese al gran nombre de periódicos como Le Monde y Le Figaro , los franceses leen cada vez menos los diarios. Según las estadísticas, en Francia se vende la mitad de diarios que en Inglaterra o Alemania, y el porcentaje de lectores es particularmente bajo en el segmento de los más jóvenes. Sólo el 10% de los jóvenes de entre 15 y 24 años leían un periódico pago en 2007, la última vez que el gobierno hizo una encuesta, un porcentaje que se había reducido a la mitad respecto del 20% de una década antes.
Como parte de su estrategia de marketing, Mon Quotidien invita a varios de sus lectores a la redacción a editar el diario dos veces por semana, exceptuando la tapa, pero permitiéndoles elegir los artículos de las otras siete páginas.
En una de las últimas reuniones, la editora nacional, Caroline Hallé, propuso un artículo sobre una escuela británica que había comprado halcones para ahuyentar a una plaga de gaviotas que estaban ensuciando y arruinando las instalaciones. También propuso la noticia sobre el reciente descubrimiento de algunos buzos que encontraron champagne francés que el rey Luis XVI había enviado al zar de Rusia, pero que había quedado sepultado en el mar cuando el barco que transportaba las botellas se hundió en el mar Báltico.
François Dufour, de 49 años, el editor y fundador de la publicación, propuso un artículo que, según creía, provocaría la aprobación de los chicos: los periódicos británicos informaban que los científicos habían descubierto cuál había existido primero, si el huevo o la gallina. Su idea fue recibida por rostros absolutamente inexpresivos. "Nosotros proponemos y ellos eligen", dijo Hallé, de 34 años, quien ingresó en el periódico hace nueve años, después de haber trabajado en un sitio de noticias en Internet.
"Es algo muy bien hecho", afirmó Françoise Dargent, crítica literaria de Le Figaro cuyas dos hijas mayores, de 11 y 13 años, son ávidas lectoras. "Es una manera de que los chicos estén informados y desarrolla en ellos una buena predisposición para la lectura." Sin embargo, no hay señales de que Mon Quotidien y sus diarios hermanos estén generando lectores de periódicos a largo plazo. Con cada grupo etario sucesivo de lectores, el número de suscriptores disminuye. Petit Quotidien tiene 75.000 suscriptores; Mon Quotidien , 60.000, y L´Actu, sólo 30.000.
La empresa editora tiene otra estrategia. "Cada mes de septiembre enviamos 15 millones de ejemplares gratuitos a todos los maestros de Francia, 30 ejemplares a cada uno. Eso es el 90% de los 5 millones de euros que gastamos en marketing directo", dijo Dufour. Los chicos conocen el periódico en la escuela y después piden a sus padres que les paguen una suscripción.
En ese nivel, los periódicos siguen siendo redituables, pero aumentar la circulación produciría pérdidas, agregó Dufour. Los periódicos sólo se venden por suscripción, porque eso evita mantener bajos los costos de distribución. Más aún, asegura que piensa resistir la presión del mundo digital. "No hacemos nada en Internet", dijo Dufour, aunque Mon Quotidien tiene un programa online gratuito de cinco minutos de noticias. "Los padres no querrían pagar por eso", afirmó.
Premium article access courtesy of TeacherMagazine.org.
Most of the time, 6th graders arrive in middle school feeling lost and scared, and it takes some time before the bullies and troublemakers have the nerve to separate themselves out from the pack. But last fall at our Los Angeles middle school, trouble was brewing almost from the start.
Students might have been conducting themselves properly in classrooms, but on the yard there was a movement afoot. A group of about 30 boys and girls, organized by a ringleader, initiated a “gang” of their own, with recruited members being “jumped in” during nutrition and lunch breaks. I found out about this around the third week of school when eight or nine students in a class I co-teach gathered around my desk to inform me that they’d had to meet with the deans to discuss the consequences that would follow any continued action. That was our first discussion about bullying.
As the year progressed, many of these initial troublemakers decided it was in their best interests to settle down on the yard. However, a significant number of students, mine included, continued to bully or were victims of bullies. Aware that bullying peaks during middle school, I chose bullying as our theme when it came time to develop a persuasive unit for my students. First, students completed a quick survey or “anticipation guide” so I could tap into their opinions. Then we talked about bullying in general.
The next day we read a story entitled “Tuesday of the Other June” about a girl named June who runs into another student with the same name. Other June informs June she is not June; she is "Fish Eyes" and other derogatory names. As we read, the students again completed quick-writes and discussed the main character’s experiences with a bully. We examined the reasons why she put up with the bullying for so long and how she eventually rid herself of her bully. This led to a discussion about ways to deal with bullies, including the possibility that striking back physically can lead to the bullied student getting suspended for fighting.
We then turned to an article from bullybeware.com to examine some statistical evidence about bullying. Thirty percent of students in grades 6 through 10 are involved in moderate or frequent bullying. Many students avoid bathrooms and hallways because of bullies. Half of all bullying incidents go unreported. Cyber-bullying is growing as we speak. Bullying statistics show an increasingly strong relationship with homicide and suicide.
I pointedly mentioned that just 25 percent of students report that teachers intervene in bullying incidents, whereas 71 percent of teachers believe they always intervene. This led to a discussion about reporting or “snitching” on bullies, as well as an eventual discussion about how those who stand around and do nothing while someone is being bullied are a part of the problem—and can be a part of the solution.
We learned about the four main types of bullying: physical, verbal, relational, and reactive victims. We looked at the main causes of bullying:
• the desire to dominate peers;
• the need to feel in control;
• a deficient sense of remorse;
• a refusal to accept responsibility, and
• family and/or parental problems.
We learned, too, that bullies who don’t outgrow or change their ways suffer long-term consequences. These include alcohol use, smoking, inability to make friends, and poor academic achievement. Middle school bullies can be popular; older bullies are not. Most interesting to students was the statistic that by age 24, 60 percent of adult bullies have a criminal conviction.
Involving Students
After all of this input, my students’ performance assessment was to write a persuasive letter to our principal. In their letters, students were to first share their learning and then make suggestions about how bullying might be dealt with at our school. Their suggestions included more supervision on the yard and near the bathrooms, announcements to share information about bullying, lessons in every advisory class, and more severe consequences for bullying behavior.
Quite frankly, their letters were awesome! Many of my students this year were special education students, and writing well was a goal we had worked on all year. I was really proud and impressed by the results because these letters were an indicator for me of how meaningful our work had been. Our wonderful principal read all the letters and gave personalized feedback on each within days.
Within a week, however, one of my students returned from lunch, put his head on his desk, and cried. His friends nearby let me know that Jesus was upset. When he hadn’t recovered after about 10 minutes, I asked Jesus if he could write me a letter to explain what was wrong. Which he did. Bullied at lunch. Kicked and hit for no reason. Tired of being bullied since the 5th grade.
I asked the class to work independently so that I could talk quietly with Jesus and his friends. When I asked if they could help Jesus stand up to his bullies, this extremely nice group of four boys was horrified! They were obviously terribly frightened of being bullied themselves. I reminded them of the importance of speaking up to an adult when they witnessed a bullying incident. I advised Jesus to have a serious talk with his parents to see if they wanted to intervene on his behalf.
We then devised a support plan together. If his friends witnessed Jesus being bullied, the first “point person” would immediately peel off from the group to locate an adult. If he were absent, the second “point person” would take off, etc. The look of relief on Jesus’ face was very powerful.
I am hopeful that my persuasive unit on bullying made a difference in my students’ thinking. I remain highly concerned, however, about the causes and effects of bullying in our schools. More bullying takes place on school sites than on students’ trips to and from school. Unless we work together to change the culture of bullying and "snitching", we may only face increasingly dire consequences, both for the bullied and the bully.
Kathie Marshall teaches middle grades language arts in the Los Angeles Unified School District. A former literacy coach, she writes frequently about instructional practice and the teaching life.
Global differences in intelligence is a sensitive topic, long fraught with controversy and still tinged by the disgraceful taint of pseudosciences such as craniometry that strove to prove the white “race” as the most clever of them all. But recent data, perplexingly, has indeed shown cognitive ability to be higher in some countries than in others. What’s more, IQ scores have risen as nations develop—a phenomenon known as the “Flynn effect.” Many causes have been proposed for both the intelligence gap and the Flynn effect, including education, income, and even nonagricultural labor. Now, a new study from researchers at the University of New Mexico offers another intriguing theory: intelligence may be linked to infectious-disease rates.
The Idea
The brain, say author Christopher Eppig and his colleagues, is the “most costly organ in the human body.” Brainpower gobbles up close to 90 percent of a newborn’s energy. It stands to reason, then, that if something interferes with energy intake while the brain is growing, the impact could be serious and longlasting. And for vast swaths of the globe, the biggest threat to a child’s body—and hence brain—is parasitic infection. These illnesses threaten brain development in several ways. They can directly attack live tissue, which the body must then strain to replace. They can invade the digestive tract and block nutritional uptake. They can hijack the body’s cells for their own reproduction. And then there’s the energy diverted to the immune system to fight the infection. Out of all the parasites, the diarrheal ones may be the gravest threat—they can prevent the body from getting any nutrients at all.
The Evidence
Using data on national “disease burdens” (life years lost due to infectious diseases) and average intelligence scores, the authors found a striking inverse correlation—around 67 percent. The countries with the lowest average IQ scores—Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Mozambique, Gabon—have among the highest disease burdens. In contrast, nations with low disease burdens top the IQ list, with Singapore, South Korea, China, Japan, and Italy in the lead.
The study controlled for other potential causes of the IQ gap, such as the aforementioned education, agricultural labor, and income levels, as well as climate (colder lands tend to have higher IQ scores, and some theorists have proposed that lower temperatures may evolutionarily select for higher intelligence) and distance from humanity’s African cradle, which is the notion that unfamiliar lands might have forced migrating humans to become smarter. However, with the exception of this last theory—which has in any case been challenged—it turns out that “infectious disease remains the most powerful predictor of average national IQ.” The study’s findings may also help explain the Flynn effect, which can’t be accounted for by evolution (the IQ gains occur over time spans too short for natural selection). So what’s going on instead? As nations develop, they improve their population’s access to safe drinking water and to vaccines and medicine—all of which lower parasitic infection rates.
The Conclusion
If the study holds up, it could be revolutionary for our understanding of the still-bewildering variation in national intelligence scores—and also a pressing injunction to continue the fight against malaria and other developing-world diseases, which some global-health watchers have recently declared unbeatable.
Para Economist Intelligence Unit, país precisa investir em infraestrutura, qualificação, inovação e reconhecimento de marcas.
BBC
As deficiências do Brasil nos setores de infraestrutura e educação estão entre os principais "desafios" que o país precisa enfrentar para crescer de maneira sustentável, avalia um relatório da consultoria britânica Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) divulgado nesta terça-feira (27).
O estudo reuniu dados da própria consultoria, entrevistas com analistas e especialistas e um levantamento feito entre abril e maio junto a executivos de 536 companhias em 18 países.
A EIU identificou quatro áreas nas quais o país precisa fazer progressos se quiser realizar o seu potencial econômico: educação, infraestrutura, inovação e reconhecimento internacional de marcas.
"Se estes desafios arraigados puderem ser solucionados na próxima década, a economia poderia sustentar taxas de crescimento acima de 5% ao ano por um longo período", disse a especialista da EIU para as Américas, Justine Thody.
"Para um país de renda média com uma população perto de 200 milhões de habitantes, seria um dos mercados mais atraentes do mundo."
Percepções e realizações
O relatório, encomendado pelo banco HSBC, procurou avaliar "como os investidores veem o Brasil e como o Brasil vê o mundo".
Quase metade dos entrevistados (49%) disse perceber o Brasil como um "mercado jovem e crescente à altura da China, Índia ou Rússia" e dois em cada cinco (40%) disseram ver o país também como "um ator emergente na cena mundial".
Entretanto, 31% associaram a economia brasileira a um "mercado com grande potencial, mas contido por um ambiente pobre de negócios", enquanto 13% afirmaram que o Brasil é "principalmente conhecido pelos extremos de riqueza e pobreza".
A EIU estima que o país crescerá 7,8% neste ano e 4,5% no ano que vem, chegando a 2014 com um PIB per capita de US$ 13,8 mil.
Entretanto, para sustentar um crescimento em torno de 5% em níveis prolongados, o país precisa resolver gargalos pelo menos nos quatro campos citados no relatório, segundo a consultoria e os entrevistados ouvidos na pesquisa.
Desafios
Questionados sobre os principais obstáculos operacionais para seus negócios no Brasil, por exemplo, praticamente metade dos respondentes (49%) citou os baixos padrões - ou os altos preços, daí o termo "custo Brasil" - da infraestrutura do país.
O estudo aponta que as atividades de frete ainda dependem de transportes rodoviários custosos, a malha ferroviária é pequena, os portos e aeroportos estão congestionados e o potencial hidroviário permanece inexplorado.
Entre outras respostas frequentes, os pesquisadores da EIU também registraram a preocupação dos empresários com o não-cumprimento de contratos, a corrupção e a fraca governança corporativa (34% das menções).
No quesito educacional, o relatório apontou a falta de mão-de-obra qualificada para preencher vagas cruciais nas empresas. Entre as companhias americanas, por exemplo, esse é considerado o principal desafio a ser enfrentado pelo Brasil (na opinião de 47% das empresas).
Para a EIU, a saída passa, além da melhora no currículo educacional e o treinamento dos professores, por um redirecionamento dos recursos públicos do ensino universitário para a escola secundária.
"Uma educação pobre e poucos recursos na educação secundária significam que os alunos que terminam a escola estão entre os menos educados do mundo", afirma a EIU.
Inovação e reconhecimento
Por fim, o país enfrenta também desafios relativos à inovação e ao reconhecimento de seus produtos no exterior. Mais da metade dos entrevistados no Brasil (57%) disse não ter estruturas voltadas para pesquisa e desenvolvimento, ou sequer planos de criar tais estruturas.
O relatório aponta que é necessária uma maior aproximação entre empresas e universidades para gerar conhecimento e inovação - a exemplo do que já ocorre nas áreas ambiental e agrícola, nas quais o Brasil é um exportador de tecnologia.
Na questão da percepção da "marca Brasil" - essencial para garantir uma boa acolhida aos produtos brasileiros nos mercados destinos -, o relatório indicou que as companhias verde-amarelas "ainda sofrem do pouco reconhecimento no exterior".
"À parte algumas companhias de alto perfil, as marcas brasileiras ainda carecem do reconhecimento global de suas concorrentes ocidentais", afirma o estudo.
Nada menos que 84% dos entrevistados disseram que as marcas brasileiras não são reconhecidas ou apreciadas no exterior. Nos EUA, por exemplo, apenas 3% das empresas crêem que as marcas do Brasil alcançam este grau de distinção.
Já na China, as marcas brasileiras são bem-recebidas por 24% dos empresários.
The Microsoft founder's foundation is betting billions that a business approach can work wonders in the classroom
Bloomberg News
Daniel Golden
It's been two years since Bill Gates left his day-to-day role at Microsoft (MSFT) to concentrate on supervising the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—and his new enterprise is booming. Headquartered in a converted check-processing center in Seattle's Eastlake neighborhood, the 10-year-old foundation plans to move into a 900,000-square-foot campus and visitors' center near the city's Space Needle next spring. The Gates Foundation opened a London office this year; it also has offices in Washington, Delhi, and Beijing, and 830 employees around the world, up from about 500 in 2008. With assets of $33.9 billion as of Dec. 31, 2009, and America's two richest people—Gates and Warren Buffett—as trustees, the foundation plans to spend $3 billion in the next five to seven years on education. If there's such a thing as a charity behemoth, the Gates Foundation is it.
While its efforts in global health are widely applauded, its record in America's schools has been more controversial. Starting in 2000, the Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars on its first big project, trying to revitalize U.S. high schools by making them smaller, only to discover that student body size has little effect on achievement.
It has since shifted its considerable weight behind an emerging consensus—shared by U.S. Education Secretary and Gates ally Arne Duncan—that quality of teaching affects student performance and that increasing achievement is as simple as removing bad teachers, identifying good ones, and rewarding them with more money. On this theory, Gates is investing $290 million over seven years in the Tampa, Memphis, and Pittsburgh school districts as well as a charter school consortium in Los Angeles. The largest chunk of money, $100 million, will go to Tampa's Hillsborough County school district, the eighth-largest in the U.S., with 192,000 students and 15,000 teachers. These carefully selected programs, which will favor or penalize teachers depending on whether students make larger or smaller gains than their test scores in prior years would have predicted, are intended as models that, if proven successful, can be rolled out nationwide.
The Gates agenda is an intellectual cousin of the Bush Administration's 2002 No Child Left Behind law, which required all public schools—though not individual teachers—to make "adequate yearly progress" on student test scores. Some opponents of No Child Left Behind questioned its faith in data; are scores too narrow a gauge of how well kids are learning? Gates sees nothing wrong in relying on quantitative metrics. "Every profession has to have some form of measurement," he said in a late June interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. "Tuning that, making sure it's fair, getting the teachers so they're enthused about it" are the keys.
Still, the prospect of such measurement makes some educators and academic researchers uneasy. They contend that factors such as school leadership and culture exert a powerful influence on student achievement. Moreover, rating individual teachers based on their classroom's test results may be better suited to little red schoolhouses than today's large urban schools, where teachers team up, aides and tutors pitch in, and students come and go frequently.
While cities such as Denver and Cincinnati have experimented with paying teachers for performance, the Gates initiative—called Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching—marks the largest and most comprehensive effort to evaluate teachers in all grades and subjects based on student test gains. "The people at Gates believe there is a window right now," says Michael S. McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation, which supports education research. "They have in Washington an Administration that's broadly sympathetic to their view. They have the attention of the American people, wanting dramatic improvement in the schools. Bill and Melinda Gates want to see results—not just in their lifetimes, but in the next few years."
SMALL SCHOOLS, FALSE START
The last thing you'd expect from an organization headed by Bill Gates is a math mistake. Yet, according to Wharton School statistician Howard Wainer, the foundation may have misread the numbers when it arrived at its first prescription for American education. Wainer, who used the foundation as a case study in his 2009 book, Picturing the Uncertain World, says it seized on data showing small schools are overrepresented among the country's highest achievers and started pouring money into creating small high schools and subdividing big ones. Tom Vander Ark, a former schools superintendent in Washington State who was tapped to oversee the foundation's educational arm, was—and remains—a booster of small schools. The Gates Foundation declined comment on Wainer's assertion and research.
From Pierre S. du Pont, who gave more than $6 million to train teachers and build 120 public schools in Delaware in the 1920s, to the Rockefeller family, which funded child development research that helped lay the groundwork for the Head Start program, corporate leaders have long promised to ride to the rescue of public education. One of the highest-profile efforts came in 1993, when publisher Walter Annenberg gave $500 million—matched by $600 million in gifts from other sources—to strengthen urban, rural, and arts education, only to be stymied in some school districts by rapid changes of leadership and direction.
In the past, says University of Michigan historian Maris A. Vinovskis, benefactors "were not as prescriptive about how they wanted their money spent." Now a new generation of philanthropic billionaires, including Gates, homebuilding and insurance entrepreneur Eli Broad, members of the Walton family that founded Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), and former hedge fund manager Julian Robertson, want public education run more like a business. Charter schools, independent of local school districts and typically free of unionized teachers, are one of their favorite causes. "We don't know anything about how to teach or reading curriculum or any of that," Broad said last year at a public event in Manhattan. "But what we do know about is management and governance."
Small schools promised an alternative to the impersonal bureaucracy of traditional high schools, which Gates in a 2005 speech proclaimed "obsolete." But according to Wainer, adherents overlooked a troublesome fact: Small schools are overrepresented among the lowest as well as highest achievers. Why? Because the smaller a school, the more likely its overall performance can be skewed by a few good or bad students.
Wainer says big high schools, for all their problems, outperform small ones. Scale lets them offer more advanced classes, electives, and extracurricular activities. With Gates funding, one Denver high school split into three and lost so many students that it shut down in 2006. It reopened a year later as a single school, without the foundation's support.
In November 2008, Bill Gates publicly backtracked, acknowledging in a speech in Seattle that "simply breaking up existing schools into smaller units often did not generate the gains we were hoping for." Still, the foundation has not renounced its original mission. Gates credits smaller schools for their proficiency at boosting attendance and decreasing violence. "So we absolutely believe in the small schools thing," he says. "Calling that a failure is not fair."
The experience taught the foundation the value of humility. "The Gates people are dramatically more attentive to evidence," says McPherson of the Spencer Foundation, "and more willing to consider that they need to keep learning than they were when they started out."
As it became clear that small schools alone weren't the solution, Gates installed new leadership, naming Vicki Phillips, who served as Secretary of Education for the State of Pennsylvania and superintendent of schools in Portland, Ore., to replace Vander Ark in 2007. After a yearlong reassessment, Phillips swung the foundation behind the next big wave in education reform—evaluating teachers based on student test score gains. One of her key moves was enlisting Harvard University economist Thomas Kane as deputy director of education for data and research. Kane had co-authored an influential 2006 study of 150,000 students in grades 3-5 in Los Angeles that analyzed just how vital teacher quality is to student performance. Having a teacher ranked in the top 25 percent four years in a row "would be enough to close the black-white test score gap," the study found. It made a strong recommendation seemingly borrowed from corporate America: Teachers who ranked in the bottom quarter after their first two years in the classroom should be fired.
The Gates-funded plan in Tampa will put teachers on the spot starting this school year. Of the $100 million that the foundation is pouring into the Hillsborough County school system, at least $60 million will go to teachers. With that cash comes a new evaluation system: 40 percent of the grade will be based on student learning gains as measured by standardized tests, 60 percent on observations by the school principal and teachers from elsewhere in the district. Highly rated teachers could earn as much in their fourth or fifth year as colleagues with 20 years' experience who opt to stick with the traditional pay scale. The aim is to spur teachers to adopt best practices and learn from colleagues who are more effective in handling disruptions or instilling particular concepts, according to Gates. "It's an incentive to identify the exemplars," he says. Teachers at the bottom will have to improve or face immediate consequences. "We anticipate there will be teachers who are no longer in the profession in Hillsborough County," says schools superintendent MaryEllen Elia. "They will be told, 'This is not the place for you.' "
Hillsborough currently terminates one-half of one percent of its teaching force annually. More than 99 percent of Hillsborough teachers were rated satisfactory or outstanding in 2007-2008, and 98 percent of those eligible received tenure. So how will a group that's received almost nothing but positive reviews react to a more rigorous evaluation based on student improvement? One logical response is to narrow instruction to the content and techniques needed to pass tests, at the cost of encouraging creativity, curiosity, or complex analysis. "This is likely to take teaching to the test to a new level," says Harvard education professor Daniel Koretz.
Wainer, the statistician who spotted the mathematical fallacy behind the small schools movement, is also skeptical. "It's conceivable you could get a value-added score to work at an elementary level, but how can you do it at a high school?" he asks. "How should my physics gain score match against your French score? Was Mozart a better musician than Babe Ruth was a hitter?"
Judging teachers on student performance creates a litany of such practical problems, from how to assess progress in subjects such as art, shop, or phys ed to accounting for the mobility of inner-city families. In Memphis, where Gates has invested $90 million, schools superintendent Kriner Cash says one-third of students move during the year, which means their gains can't necessarily be credited to one school, much less one teacher. Giving several tests a year can sort out each teacher's contribution, he says. Still, ratings may be tainted if frequent transience requires teachers to integrate newcomers and adjust to departures.
TEACHER REPORT CARDS
Studies of teacher effectiveness show much variability. Few instructors stay at the top or bottom statistically year after year. A study of five Florida districts from 2000 to 2005, including Hillsborough, found that only half the teachers ranked in the top 20 percent one year were in the top 40 percent the next. Tying teacher jobs to student gains "isn't as simple and straightforward as some people think it is," says Gene Wilhoit, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers in Washington, a recipient of Gates funding. "We're a bit concerned that others aren't raising these kinds of issues. We're also concerned, if you do raise these issues, it's seen as making excuses or pulling back from commitments."
Gates' approach risks alienating teacher unions, which typically have negotiated pay based on seniority and advanced degrees. In April, under union pressure, Florida Governor Charlie Crist vetoed a plan that would also have tied teacher salaries to test score results. When Bill Gates addressed the national convention of the 1.5 million-member American Federation of Teachers on July 10 in Seattle, a small group of teachers walked out, though he also received several standing ovations. "One of the things that we learned through the small schools initiative is that we've got to work with the unions," Melinda Gates told Bloomberg Businessweek. "That takes a lot of up-front work, but it's absolutely crucial."
As a condition of funding, the foundation required Hillsborough and the other districts to cooperate with local unions. In a union-friendly move, Hillsborough agreed to tell teachers in advance when peers will observe their lessons, making positive evaluations more likely. By contrast, in a nationally acclaimed program in Cincinnati, teachers give two lessons before evaluators without prior notice.
"If you tell teachers ahead of time that they're going to be observed, they'll just say to the class, 'O.K., kids, somebody's coming in, I expect you to behave, raise your hand when you ask a question, and if you do well we'll have a party the next day,' " says JoAnn Parrino, a teacher at Chamberlain High School in Tampa. "The only way to tell a good teacher is to go into their classroom spontaneously."
David Steele, chief information and technology officer for the district, says the decision to notify teachers was made because it didn't want to "play gotcha." Also, he says, a pop-in can waste the evaluator's time: "What if the teacher is showing a movie that day?"
Despite the opportunity to increase their income, teachers nationwide are skeptical of Gates' agenda. In a national survey of 40,000 teachers co-sponsored by the Gates Foundation and released in March, 36 percent said that tying pay to performance is not at all important in retaining good teachers, while only 8 percent said it's essential. And 30 percent said it would have no effect on student achievement—triple the proportion that said it would have a very strong impact.
"The Gates Foundation was very surprised," says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "They asked the question in a way they thought they'd get a positive result, and they got a very negative result." On the contrary, says Gates spokesman Christopher Williams, the foundation was heartened that a significant portion of teachers do believe in merit pay.
In 2007, a year after the foundation gave $21.6 million to Chicago public schools, Melinda Gates toured the system with its then-chief, Arne Duncan. "I was extremely impressed with what he was doing," she says. "We started our relationship then."
FRIENDS IN WASHINGTON
Today, the Gates Foundation and Education Secretary Duncan move in apparent lockstep. Two of Duncan's top aides, Chief of Staff Margot Rogers and Assistant Deputy Secretary James H. Shelton III, came from the foundation and were granted waivers by the Administration from its revolving-door policy limiting involvement with former employers. Vicki Phillips, who heads the foundation's education programs, and Duncan participated from 2004 to 2007 in the Urban Superintendents Network, a group of a dozen school leaders who met twice a year at weekend retreats co-funded by Gates.
When the federal government made $4.35 billion in federal Race to the Top awards available—favoring applicants that agree to link teacher pay to test score gains, increase the number of charter schools, and adopt common curriculum standards—the Gates Foundation paid for consultants to prepare applications for 24 states, as well as the District of Columbia. One of two winners announced so far is Tennessee, which had help from Gates. The state will receive about $500 million from the Obama Administration.
The Gates Foundation, which bankrolled development of the common curriculum standards, is also funding outside evaluations—by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington and the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education—of those same standards. The Boston-based business group is expected to release its report before the Massachusetts Board of Elementary & Secondary Education meets on July 21 to choose between the new standards preferred under Race to the Top and revisions to existing state criteria, considered among the most rigorous in the country.
Williams, the Gates spokesman, says the foundation frequently pays for independent assessments of its programs and doesn't seek to dictate their conclusions.
"The Gates folks are well aware of our independence and, I think, incorruptibility," says Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Fordham Institute, a nonprofit education think tank. Still, Finn says, the alliance between the government and the country's richest foundation could discourage dissent. "I've become suspicious of the phrase 'public-private partnership,' " he says. "It comes off the tongue as an undisputed good thing. It's actually a disputed good thing."
As a private entity that doesn't answer to voters, Gates can back initiatives that are politically dicey for the Obama Administration, such as uniform standards, says Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy. In the past, states' rights advocates have blocked federal efforts for a national curriculum. Gates "was able to do something the federal government couldn't do," Jennings says.
At the same time, the rapport between the federal government and the largest private education funder is raising concerns that competing ideas are getting squeezed out. "It's like a mind meld between Arne Duncan and the Gates Foundation," says former U.S. Assistant Education Secretary Diane Ravitch, whose 2010 book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, criticizes Gates for exerting "vast power and unchecked influence" over American education. If she had access to resources like Gates', says Ravitch, she'd save parochial schools that have been effective for inner-city kids but are suffering from church cutbacks.
The alliance between the Gates Foundation and the government raises other issues, too. Drew Gitomer, a researcher with the Educational Testing Service, says the foundation may be rushing a $45 million study that involves videotaping math, English, and biology lessons by nearly 3,000 teachers in the just-ended and upcoming school years. (The project lets teachers watch their lessons—and student reactions to them—to identify effective techniques, like football coaches breaking down game film.) The foundation plans to preview its findings this fall, which could help state Race to the Top winners design teacher evaluation programs.
The study "is very much fast-tracked," says Gitomer, whose role in the study is to assess teachers. "There's a feeling this is the opportune time. In a better world, it might have been nice to pilot some of these things. There's some risk associated with moving that quickly."
Phillips says the foundation maintains "appropriate firewalls." While members of its staff testify before Congress and keep tabs on federal and state policy, the foundation doesn't lobby or influence government decisions on grants, she says. Asked whether the appointment of Brad Jupp, a senior program adviser at the Education Dept., to an advisory committee for the Gates teacher videotaping study violated the foundation's firewalls, Phillips said, "It's one of those fine lines we walk constantly." When the foundation approached Jupp, he initially expressed interest in serving on the committee, he said in an e-mail. After Bloomberg Businessweek asked Phillips about it, Jupp declined the position. He said he changed course on the advice of the department's ethics counsel.
Both Melinda and Bill Gates contest the notion that there is anything amiss in the foundation's relationship with the federal government. All the foundation wants is results, says Bill Gates, however they are achieved. "If people have particular ideas for improving schools, those experiments will get funded," he says. Duncan's spokesman, Peter Cunningham, says the foundation's agenda "is very much aligned with the Obama Administration agenda. We partner with them on a whole host of things."
SELLING THE PLAN
If Hillsborough district official Anna Brown had been graded on her May presentation to teachers at Tampa's Chamberlain High School about the Gates plan, she would have gotten an incomplete. One teacher of 12th graders wanted to know if she would be penalized for senior slump. Music instructors questioned the district's decision to evaluate them on their students' grasp of music theory instead of instrumental proficiency. Brown got thoroughly grilled about the new system and didn't have all the answers.
Kathy Jones, a 35-year veteran who teaches Advanced Placement world history, asked how the district could measure her students' improvement since they don't take a prerequisite course or a pretest. When Brown said PSAT scores as well as exams in other social studies courses could provide a baseline, Jones scoffed: "I don't see how it's even possible."
The testy atmosphere illustrates the challenges for Hillsborough—and the Gateses—as they translate theory into practice. The foundation has worked hard to bring teachers on board. Gates is paying $1,500 apiece to more than 600 Hillsborough teachers whose lessons are being videotaped. Says Cassie Schroeder, an eighth-grade language arts teacher at Giunta Middle School in Tampa: "I put it toward my credit cards."
Hillsborough teachers complain that they already have a pay-for-performance plan, and they don't like it: the State of Florida's Merit Award Program, which gives 5 percent bonuses based on student test score gains in the prior year. Because of limited funding, teachers within each subject compete for awards. Arlene Castelli, principal of Giunta, says teachers are embarrassed to win the bonuses. "If you can't boast about an award, what good is it?" she asks. "I don't like pitting teachers against each other."
That, in the end, is one of the major worries about the Gates plan: that it will encourage teachers to think narrowly in their own interests, to not only "teach to the test" but also refrain from the cooperative efforts that are essential to the education process. At Giunta, two-thirds of the 1,134 students in sixth through eighth grades are black or Hispanic, almost three-fourths come from poor families, and low achievers in math take two classes, regular and intensive, with different teachers. Before state testing in March, students on the bubble of passing or failing—about 20 percent of each grade—attend extra sessions with teachers who drill them on their weaknesses. Like a baseball player who won't bunt to advance a teammate, a teacher may think twice about giving a student extra help if a colleague gets the credit—and the pay raise. "We don't want teacher evaluation to get in the way of student achievement," says Castelli. "Who's to say the parents didn't work with the children at night? Who's to say the child didn't mature? Or the child blew off the test the year before?"
Shrugging off "the commune-type approach," Bill Gates says that excellence demands individual accountability. In his speech to the American Federation of Teachers, Gates struck an evangelical tone as he appealed for faith in his initiative. "You owe it to your profession and your students to make sure that tenure reflects more than the number of years spent in the classroom," he said. "It should reflect the quality of the work you do in the classroom."
Later, he added: "Sometimes the most difficult act of leadership is not fighting the enemy; it's telling your friends it's time to change."
La oratoria feminista es maquillaje, es sólo una operación lingüística, afirma la cientista social
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Josefina Licitra Para LA NACION
Argentinos y argentinas. Todos y todas. Presidentes y presidentas. Con la llegada de Cristina Kirchner al poder, sus discursos hicieron de la letra "a" una suerte de herramienta de batalla por la igualdad de género.
Sin embargo, la doctora en Ciencias Sociales Adriana Amado, que años atrás publicó un libro sobre el lugar que tienen las mujeres en los medios de comunicación -llamado La mujer del medio -, entiende que ésta es sólo una operación lingüística. Un ardid de maquillaje que sigue sosteniendo, por debajo, la exclusión social.
"El discurso feminista por sí solo no cambia la realidad -advierte Amado-. Podés decretar que a partir de ahora todas las palabras van a tener su correspondiente terminación en "a", y no por eso las mujeres vamos a ganar los espacios laborales que nos están debiendo desde hace un montón de tiempo, o vamos a abandonar los trabajos precarizados que son mayoría para las mujeres. Es decir, hay condiciones estructurales que necesitan políticas públicas de profundidad y no soluciones cosméticas."
Amado es licenciada en Letras y doctora en Ciencias Sociales por la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Flacso). Además, lleva publicados cinco libros en los que analiza, de modos diversos, los discursos públicos y mediáticos. "Es cierto que un cambio en el discurso puede generar cambios en el afuera, pero esto no sucede de modo automático -opina-. El solo hecho de no admitir el neutro y empezar a marcar la «a» en cualquier parte no garantiza nada. Me sorprenden estas cosas: parece que la rebeldía contra el idioma es una avanzada, cuando la verdad no está en los discursos, sino exactamente fuera de ellos."
-En general, buena parte de las luchas, y no sólo las que hacen a la reivindicación del género femenino, hoy parecen librarse en el terreno del lenguaje.
-En la universidad hace rato que venimos discutiendo eso. Si fuera por el análisis crítico del discurso, esto tendría que ser Suecia. Y, en consecuencia, ya debería haberse equiparado la situación de la mujer con la del hombre. Porque es cierto que ha habido investigaciones de género, hay muy buenas publicaciones dedicadas al tema, se han hecho denuncias y hemos escrito en los diarios. Pero no se generó conciencia. Pasan los años y las condiciones se cambian de manera tan lenta que sospecho que con el discurso no alcanza.
-¿Puede ser que el discurso sea funcional a esta idea de no hacer operaciones concretas?
-Tiene mucho que ver con eso también. Tengamos en cuenta quiénes son hoy los que hablan en el espacio público: generalmente son los grupos de poder. La diversidad que compone la sociedad no aparece reflejada en el discurso de los medios. Y esa lógica también se traslada al género femenino.
-¿Quiénes son los grupos de poder que se pronuncian sobre las mujeres?
-Fundamentalmente son los gobiernos y las empresas, que son los protagonistas excluyentes de las noticias y a su vez tienen la posibilidad de aparecer en los espacios publicitarios que compran. Hoy, a las mujeres les habla quien les vende detergentes y desodorantes, y esas entidades difunden su concepción del rol femenino, que está íntimamente ligado al rol del jabón en polvo. En definitiva, la mujer en calidad de sujeto contemporáneo no es interpelada.
-¿No cree que hubo cambios en el rol de la mujer en los últimos años?
-Por supuesto que sí. Hay una inmensa cantidad de hogares y de puestos laborales de alta responsabilidad a cargo de mujeres. Pero esos roles se ejercen de facto. Sigue faltando un reconocimiento social, no mediático. Y el reconocimiento social viene por cargos acordes, sueldos acordes y trabajos menos precarizados o al menos tan precarizados como los del hombre.
-¿Las mujeres no son responsables también por la falta de un cambio en esas prácticas?
-Claro que sí son responsables. Si muchas de las mujeres hubiéramos podido organizarnos y manifestar nuestro descontento con las publicidades ofensivas, seguramente estos señores las estarían cambiando. Así como estamos aprendiendo a reclamar porque el teléfono celular funciona mal, tenemos que aprender a reclamar a los medios y anunciantes que lo que estamos viendo no nos gusta. Hay que ejercer algún tipo de control.
-Es decir que una reacción, aunque más no sea individual, puede tener efectos sociales.
-Sí. Pero esa reacción en general no existe. Parte del deterioro cultural también tiene que ver con que la sociedad, aun estando en condiciones de tomar la palabra, no se anima a hacerlo. La visibilidad en el espacio público sólo aparece en situaciones de crisis. Por fuera de esas instancias, la palabra sigue siendo privilegio de los mismos grupos de poder.
ADRIANA AMADO Doctora en Ciencias Sociales
Profesión: docente e investigadora
Edad: 44 años
Origen: Argentina
Formación: es profesora e investigadora en la Universidad Nacional de La Matanza.
Libros: escribió, entre otros, La mujer del medio (2003), El periodismo urgente (2005), Auditoría de comunicación (2009) y el reciente Prensa y comunicación , editado por La Crujía.
Después de algunos años de descenso, lentamente se está recuperando la matrícula de aspirantes a la mayoría de las carreras de la Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (FCEN), uno de los centros de la formación de científicos "duros" (biólogos, químicos, físicos, matemáticos, meteorólogos, etc.) con que cuenta el país.
La curva asciende, pero dada la importancia de esa "fábrica" de talentos científico-tecnológicos (entre otras cosas, para imprimir un impulso innovador a la economía), cabe preguntarse por qué la afluencia de estudiantes a las llamadas ciencias duras es tan endeble: de las diez carreras que se cursan en esa facultad, el porcentaje de retención (los alumnos que, después de inscribirse, siguen cursando) varía entre el 20 y el 50%.
Para intentar superar ese obstáculo, está previsto que los aspirantes al CBC hagan una recorrida por la facultad, mantengan una charla con profesores de las disciplinas elegidas, sigan un curso de repaso de la matemática del secundario y hasta dispongan de tutores que los ayuden con sus dudas (incluso, existenciales) vía Internet. Pero, al parecer, en muchos casos ni siquiera este entorno amigable alcanza para seducir a los potenciales estudiantes. "Hay chicos que no se presentan a rendir nada (ni siquiera dan un parcial) -cuenta el decano Jorge Aliaga-. Entre los que empiezan a cursar, el gran golpe surge con Algebra y Análisis, las dos primeras materias verdaderamente «universitarias» con que se encuentran."
Seguramente, estas defecciones responden a causas múltiples. Entre otras, la tradicional percepción (muchas veces, equivocada) de que falta una adecuada demanda científico-tecnológica para estos profesionales en el ámbito privado.
Y hay más. "Los chicos suelen tener una falsa idea de lo que significa estudiar disciplinas como matemática o computación -reflexiona Aliaga-. Frecuentemente, identifican esta última, por ejemplo, con los «jueguitos», y si bien toda ciencia tiene un componente lúdico, ese disfrute se alcanza después de muchas horas de esfuerzo."
Pensándolo bien, en un entorno en el que el tesón está desprestigiado, resulta bastante lógico que materias como la matemática y las ciencias naturales inspiren temor. Después de todo, ya lo dijo Edison: el genio es 1% de inspiración y 99% de dedicación.
La tapa de Mon Quotidien y el despliegue gráfico de las notas en las páginas internas Foto: 
