Dive Brief:

• While speaking at the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards’ Teaching and Learning Conference Friday, Bill Gates defended the Common Core saying it is the key to creativity for teachers.  
• Gates maintained that the United State’s current education system does not adequately prepare students for college because it’s not asking enough of them. He argued the Common Core is a remedy to this failure, and asked teachers to get behind the national curriculum.  
• Critiques of the Common Core are typically centered on the implications of an inflexible national curriculum and what the federal takeover will mean for innovation in the classroom. Gates addressed these concerns by saying these claims were false and distract from teaching.  

Dive Insight:

Bill Gates is a brilliant man whose influence in the tech-sphere is deserved and far-reaching. Bill Gates is not, however, a teacher. This fact brings to question Gates' assumed qualifications for making endorsements in education arena.    

While Gates argues criticism of the Common Core detracts attention from teaching, perhaps it is actually the Common Core that diverts focus. The Common Core is scripted curriculum’s cousin – its pedantic format reads like a safety net if teachers can’t figure out how to, well, teach. Perhaps instead of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donating $75 million to the Common Core, money, and energy could be spent creating more rigorous standards for becoming a teacher. Raising the threshold to enter the profession would make initiatives like the Common Core redundant.