Bill Gates Whines "Unmotivated Students" Are The Problem With The Education System

Via Diane Ravitch's blog, here's an AP story on Bill Gates stroking himself at an event at Los Alamos:

Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates says eradicating malaria, tuberculosis and polio is easier than fixing the United States' education system. But what he says he really wishes he could do is write a check to eliminate biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.

Gates made the comments in a 45-minute talk Monday to a packed auditorium of employees at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Gates, his son Rory and a friend were in northern New Mexico for a private tour of the nation's premier nuclear weapons facility, which also does a wide-range of cutting-edge research across all fields, including an HIV vaccine, which the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation helps fund.

Gates, who had to fly in to Santa Fe because his personal plane was too big to land at Los Alamos, said he enjoyed the "great science, amazing history."

Obviously, he said, he loves science.

"It's the thing that makes the world interesting. ... It gives us a chance to save the world," he said.

...

Gates is still a technical adviser to Microsoft, but has turned his attention to the foundation. It's key areas of focus include lobal health and education.

Gates talked about his foundation's work improving and distributing vaccines across the world. But he says making advances in education is the foundation's hardest challenge.

"You name it, we have been passed by," Gates said of the country's math and science programs.

New technology to engage students holds some promise, but Gates says it tends to only benefit those who are motivated.

"And the one thing we have a lot of in the United States is unmotivated students," Gates said.

Couple of things to point out here:

Notice the arrogance of his "Science...is thing that makes the world interesting. ... It gives us a chance to save the world..." claptrap.

I would argue that it is "science" like the stuff pursued at a death trap like Los Alamos that causes so many of the problems in the world to begin with.


I might add there are plenty of other instances of Gates' "science" causing more problems than they solve - namely his education policy agenda and his GMO agenda.

And the ego on him to think that he can "save the world" through his genius and efforts - it's just breathtaking.

And yet, he still can't admit when he's wrong about stuff or take the blame when he screws things up.

After a few years, it became apparent that Gates' small schools initiative was a failure - he blamed teachers for the mess.

Notw that it's becoming clear that his latest solutions for solving education problems - national standards with national tests and teacher evaluations tied to those tests - aren't solving anything either, he's blaming "unmotivated students" along with teachers for the mess.

It seems the only person who is never to blame for anything is Bill Gates and his Gates Foundation functionaries.

Gates is an arrogant clueless prick of the first order - too bad not enough Americans see through his bullshit and say, "Take you billions, Bill, and go the fuck away!"

Still, more and more people are seeing this, especially in his education policy efforts - we may get to there just yet.