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[News] [Rival] Hijack of the Education System Leads to "Boycott Microsoft" Call

  • Subject: [News] [Rival] Hijack of the Education System Leads to "Boycott Microsoft" Call
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2010 08:31:30 +0100
  • Followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • User-agent: KNode/4.3.1
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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&section=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.
`----

http://optolog.com/3640.html
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