Thank you Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - Knowledge Works Grant

With the passing of Steve Jobs several days ago and all the tributes to him that are on the Hub Pages and in the media right now, it is sad we wait until someone dies before we tell them or let them know how we welcomed their genius and appreciated how our lives were revolutionized and transformed by their genius. Why did I wait until Jobs died to write my tribute to him? I certainly had realized his brilliant contribution to this world before October 5, 2011, the day he passed away, but I neglected to herald him until his death.

Therefore, I am not waitting until Bill and Melinda Gates die to write a tribute to them and their foundation which helps so many globally. Their interest is in helping

• to ease extreme poverty in the U.S. and throughout the world,
• to enhance healthcare globally, and
• to expand educational opportunities globally, and with more access to information technology.

They are to be commended that through their philanthropic foundation they are making a difference in this world for the better. It shows that one person or one couple can make a positive difference in this world. Rather than be the public face for several charities to raise money, they have created the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to take on the toughest world-wide issues of our day: poverty, health care, and education. They have built an endowment fund to fund grants in these three areas to help transform this world in the 21st century.

Bravo Bill and Melinda Gates for living a life well-lived!

Of course, I do not know Bill and Melinda Gates personally; however, my life and that of my students was greatly impacted by them and their foundation's Knowledge Work Grants granted to the high school I taught at before retiring.

Although they fund grants to those working to fight poverty and to those working in the health industry, my emphasis here will be in education, which is always an issue near and dear to my heart. This is my personal experience in working with their foundation to make education for my students in the Canton City School District in Canton, Ohio, a world-class education, funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through their Knowledge Works Grants.

The Knowledge Works Grants are given to public high schools to reform and revise their educational programs for their students. Through extensive research, the foundation found that one in five students is unable to read and grasp the contents of what they read. African-American and Latino students especially fall into this category according the the foundation, and they usually only graduate from high school with the skills of a middle schools student. Working at McKinley High, I would have to agree with those sad statistics. Therefore, the foundation came up with a plan to reform public high schools in America by creating new small schools within the high schools to reduce student to teacher ratios. In some inner city public schools the student to teacher ratios are sometimes as high as thirty-five to forty students to one teacher. By creating smaller schools within a large high school the student to teacher ration was reduced to twenty-five to thirty students to one teacher. The foundation alloted $250 million to grant to high schools to create these new small schools and reduce the student to teacher ratio. Having experienced this method, I found it a brilliant way to reorganize large high schools.

The Canton City School District is actually one of the better inner city school districts in Ohio and a leader of them in innovations and new ideas. We do struggle with all the other outside factors that affect inner city schools: poverty, single parent homes, drugs, alcohol, abuse ,homelessness, gangs, prostitution, pimps, the whole nine yards, in other words. I was proud to work for this school system as I was able to make a small difference and contribution in my students lives thanks to the Gates Foundation and their help. The McKinley High School was granted the Knowledge Works Grant in, I believe, 2004. They have two large high schools in the city of Canton, Canton McKinley Senior High School and Timken Senior High School. McKinley was the larger of the two high schools with approxmately 2000 students in grades nine through twelve. McKinlely received the Knowledge Works Grant and immediately began to form the smaller schools within the larger high school.

We formed four small schools within our large McKinley High School. Each school offered college prep and school to work programs for our students. Our four small schools were named:

• Freshman Academy - these students were all freshman coming to McKinley
• Impact - these students were hoping to make an impact on our world
• Stars - these students were "shooting for the stars" in their quest for education
• International - these students hoped to pursue a profession in the international sector/world

As you can see, each school had a little bit different and unique focus on their education. All the incoming ninth graders from the three middle school all entered McKinley at the Freshman Academy. I taught Spanish in the Freshman Academy. Here our emphasis was on transitioning our students to high school as well as their freshman studies and education. Through this grant from the Gates Foundation, we had many social programs available to help students with their problems from their homes. Our guidance councelors would actually make home visits to talk with the family for our most "at risk" students. We brought in former football or basketball players who had successfully graduated from McKinley in the past to work with some of the boys only who were involved in gangs. They worked valiently to get these boys out of gangs, to turn them around in their studies, and to begin turning them into leaders rather than to the criminal life many were falling into at that age. They were a tremendous help to us also in the classroom when we had this group of boys in class. they mentored these boys, helped them at study tables and with completing and turning in assignments.

Once students had successfully completed the ninth grade, then they chose which small school they wanted to go into to complete their sophomore, junior, and senior high school years: Impact, Stars, or International. In these small schools students were able to be in smaller classes and were able to receive more individual attention from their teachers. They stayed within the small school all day and became closer to their peers and teachers in positive ways that built strong relationships with them as they learned in the classroom. Since it was a more personalized education experience, we began to see our students thrive and grow in education and in maturity. Students would come together and see others from the other small schools at lunchtimes, study table times, pep rallys, and all school assemblies.

Each small school also had a graduation requirement that was beyond students' educational studies and that was participation in a volunteer program or philanthropic work. Here students learned to give back to their community in some way for the world class education they were receiving. They volunteered in the community or worked on fundraisers to raise money for non-profit organizations in the community.

Each small school had a separate wing of the building within the high school. That way, the hallway traffic was cut down which led to less problems of fights or violence happening between classes. Classes were close together in a wing, so students needed less time to get to class. We were able to cut the pass time from class to class from five to three minutes. We were able to keep a closer eye on our students which cut down on students' cutting classes and being truant from school. Our graduation rate from high school raised substantially with the small schools within a large high school concept. Over a three to five year period our graduation rate raised from 49% graduating from high school to 79% graduating from high school.

You are probably wondering what about the 31% that didn't graduate. We also set up two alternative schools, one called Connections and one called Passages that allowed drop-out students to re-enter school and work toward graduating from high school. These were two separate schools in their own school buildings. These two schools were becoming very successsful at graduating these hardened drop-outs when I retired.

There are always critics, right? I'm sure you know that and have experience that in your daily life. And, so, there are those that have criticized the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the education section of their grants. Many, by that I mean, education professors, parents, and researchers, criticized the foundation for promoting reforms they see as underming public education. I have to disagree with these critics as I saw great strides reached by our students which made them thriving students rather than drug addicted, dead beat students.

They have also criticized the foundation for closing neighborhood schools. Yes, this did happen in Canton City Schools, but the closed schools were then re-opened and used to house the alternative schools we were funded to open up to help our most hard core at risk students. Nothing went to waste and all class sizes remained no larger than thirty students, which was not the case before the grants.

The Gates' are in favor of privately run charter schools which they also fund. I am not a charter school advocate. I advocate for public schools because that is what keeps our democracy strong. But, like it or not, charter schools are here to stay, so we mush compete with them and we can compete with them with this foundation's grants. They also believe in using standardized test scores extensively to evaluate students, teachers and schools. And. they believe in merit pay for teachers based on test scores.

But here is what is interesting about the Gates' foundation. Once a week there was always a representative from the foundation that was in our classrooms observing to make sure we were doing what we were suppose to be doing as far as the grant requirements. I always admired Bill and Melinda Gates for having representatives check on us and the schools to see that the funding was being used properly. There was no chance for a school system to divert Gates' foundation funds to some other area or school in the school system. The foundation kept a tight watch on all of us so the proper money and education went to where it was suppose to be: with our students. I have never heard of other grants we have had in the past doing that. So I commend the Gates' for making sure the reforms they believed in did take root and hold. Of course, the Gates' have been criticized for exerting too much influence over public education policy without being accountable to voters or tax payers. I believe that it is the Gates' money that went into the endowment and they should have the say in how it is used. As for merit pay, I say -- bring it on! Any teacher worth his/her salt will see their test scores rise if they are effectively teaching in the classroom. I have never been afraid of the merit pay issue.

I just want to say Thank you Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for your Knowledge Works Grants granted to the Canton City Schools and other public high schools across our nation. It has been a pleasure to work with you in reforming and revitalizing our high schools with your input and knowledge in this area and with your money which has been put to good use in bettering the education process in our country.

Instead of living a lavish, glamorous lifestyle, you have chosen to use your wealth to lead us in helping to solve today's world problems globally in the area's of poverty, health and education.

BRAVO!!!