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How Bill Gates Won the Race to the Top, and Why Every Parent Should Boycott Microsoft
,----[ Quote ]
| Every so often we glimpse small stories
| stuck into the back pages of the corporate
| press on the continuing payouts by
| Microsoft for settlements to years-old
| State claims that Gates "had stifled
| competition and broken state antitrust laws
| by overcharging consumers for software and
| computers." California settled for $1.1
| billion, and this story last week shows
| more payouts continuing today, with
| Wisconsin figuring out how it will use $80
| million that Gates promised years ago while
| continuing to deny any wrongdoing.
|
| So bare-knuckled tactics are nothing new to
| the Gates team, as Bill's cadre of crooks
| continue to demonstrate in the big all-in
| bet to help Arne stifle any competition in
| the rigged RTTT, corporate ed reform's
| blueprint for the dismantling of public
| schools and the destruction of the teaching
| profession. Eerily, this is the same
| pattern of philanthro-capitalist bullying
| that Gates has used in other venues to
| restrict any diversity of views within the
| World Health Organization in the fight
| against malaria, as documented by Diane
| Ravitch in her new book:
|
| The chief of malaria research for the World
| Health Organization, Dr. Arata Kochi,
| complained in 2008 that the Gates
| Foundation was stifling a diversity of
| views among scientists, because so many of
| the world's leading scientist in the field
| were "locked up in a 'cartel' with their
| own research funding being linked to those
| of others within the group," making it
| difficult to get independent reviews of
| research. The foundation's decision-making
| process, he charged, was "a closed internal
| process, and as far as can be seen,
| accountable to none other than itself" (p.
| 204).
`----
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1291§ion=Article
Book review: 'The Death and Life of the Great American School System,' by Diane Ravitch
,----[ Quote ]
| The damage, she says, has been compounded
| by the well-meaning but ultimately
| misguided efforts of a new group of
| powerful private foundations, of which the
| Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates
| Foundation is the most prominent.
|
| "Never in the history of the United States
| was there a foundation as rich and powerful
| as the Gates Foundation," Ravitch writes.
| "Never was there one that sought to steer
| state and national policy in education. And
| never before was there a foundation that
| gave grants to almost every major think
| tank and advocacy group in the field of
| education, leaving almost no one willing to
| criticize its vast power and unchecked
| influence."
`----
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-bk_school_0425gd.ART.State.Bulldog.4d370b8.html
Updates to the Science Shelf plus a new review - edited with addition
,----[ Quote ]
| NCLB has not been the only factor
| undermining our schools, Ravitch writes. A
| new group of powerful private foundations,
| of which the Seattle-based Bill and Melinda
| Gates Foundation is the most prominent,
| have embraced education reform. The
| contributions of this "Billionaire Boys'
| Club" have also come with heavy doses of
| advocacy.
|
| "Never in the history of the United States
| was there a foundation as rich and powerful
| as the Gates Foundation," Ravitch writes.
| "Never was there one that sought to steer
| state and national policy in education. And
| never before was there a foundation that
| gave grants to almost every major think
| tank and advocacy group in the field of
| education, leaving almost no one willing to
| criticize its vast power and unchecked
| influence."
|
| To its credit, the Foundation has been
| diligent in analyzing the impact of its
| grant money. "In late 2008," Ravitch notes,
| "the Gates Foundation announced that it was
| changing course. Its $2 billion investment
| in new small high schools had not been
| especially successful."
`----
http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/blog/2040-updates-science-shelf-plus-new-review-edited-addition.html
Diane Ravitch: Charter Schools Won't Save the School System
http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/best-leaders/2010/04/19/diane-ravitch-charter-schools-wont-save-the-school-system.html
Recent:
Mandriva.Ru has released Linux for schools and universities
,----[ Quote ]
| Mandriva.Ru together with the project
| EduMandriva and âGNU/Linukstsentrom announced
| the release of Linux distributions for the
| Russian educational institutions. Line of
| software solutions company added to the
| operating system, Mandriva Academie and
| EduMandriva, presented in two versions.
|
| EduMandriva kit includes single-disk
| distribution EduMandriva One LXDE for low-
| productivity computers, which works with both
| disk and lets you install on your PC or flash
| drive and a DVD with additional educational
| software EduMandriva Addon, which can be
| installed on all the official build Mandriva
| 2010. Among the products included in
| EduMandriva â programming environments,
| mathematical packages, CAD/CAM-system, bitmap
| and vector graphics editors, tools for the
| layout of the text, the system of testing and
| distance learning applications to work with
| sound, music and videos, and other software
| designed for use in the educational process.
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http://optolog.com/3640.html
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