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Bill Gatesâs risky adventure
,----[ Quote ]
| But in âThe Death and Life of the Great
| American School Systemââ Ravitch writes
| that Gates and other so-called venture
| philanthropists, including Eli Broad, are
| experimenting thoughtlessly. There is no
| proof, she writes, that Gates is on the
| right track now any more than he was from
| 2000-2008, when he pumped about $2 billion
| into a campaign to restructure large
| American high schools into smaller
| schools. That effort, writes Ravitch, was
| marginal at best.
|
| Ravitch argues that high-flying,
| unaccountable philanthropists are
| dictating the countryâs public school
| agenda through their grant-making instead
| of listening to the field. The âcurrent
| obsession with making our schools work
| like a business,ââ writes Ravitch,
| âthreatens to destroy public education.ââ
|
| Gates may be innovation-happy, but he is
| hardly laying waste to the nationâs public
| education system. If anything, he is
| seeding it for future success in ways
| similar to his funding of biotechnology
| research to improve the yields of crops in
| developing nations. Of course, his
| agricultural effort has its share of
| critics, too.
|
| As for his limitless power, Gates says his
| charter school work is possible only in
| states where the public and lawmakers are
| willing to support experimentation. His
| home state of Washington, he adds, has
| blocked the creation of charter schools.
|
| âThe education system is always decided
| politically,ââ said Gates. âIf she
| (Ravitch) thinks foundations are
| dictating, I donât see it.ââ
|
| Itâs not quite so simple. The pressure is
| mounting on school systems to conform to
| the foundationsâ visions, especially when
| the current trend is to fund projects with
| measurable outcomes, not discretionary
| grants. And pushing back against the big
| foundations, or modifying their
| requirements based on local knowledge, was
| a lot easier a decade ago when the
| foundations were smaller and less
| bureaucratic.
`----
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/04/27/bill_gatess_risky_adventure/
Ravitch on Obama's scary ed reform agenda
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/charter-schools/ravitch-on-obamas-scary-ed-ref.html
Recent:
Neo-liberalism: The Leveraging of Charter Schools with Public and Private Funds
,----[ Quote ]
| Unquestionably, the huge increase in charters
| has included a massive growth in private and
| philanthropic start-up monies to support them,
| as well as the growth of a burgeoning
| educational industry to distribute the grants
| and sell âeducational products and servicesâ
| while receiving tax dollars for their efforts.
| Yet for those wondering aabout âneo-
| liberalismâ and what it means in this context
| the answer is clear. None of this could have
| been done without the deregulation, favorable
| legal legislation and govern,ment intervention
| in the market. What we are seeing is the
| transfer of public funds into the private
| troughs of the handwringing elite who clothe
| their true agendas in the name of âchildrenâ.
| Unfortunately, this is true all over the
| nation now, and is being fueled by Arne Duncan
| and the billions of stimulus monies he uses to
| extort cities and states. All of this is now
| wrapped up in the noble lie and pious fraud of
| providing charter school innovation as
| competitive model that can raise the standards
| and levels of education. Is it true? Of course
| not, that is all sophistic rubbish and the
| alchemists that coin it know it, as do those
| of us who oppose it.
|
| [...]
|
| Charter benefactors have a vested economic and
| social interest in seeing the charter
| experiment work for it is profitable, and for
| this they will donate tremendous amounts of
| capital to help establish new charters in
| their attempt to dismantle traditional public
| schools. It is called priming the pump and
| with the government on its knees it is
| working. Itâs a great business opportunity as
| well as acts as good public personae for the
| pirates of Wall Street. They understand that
| charters provide a unique business opportunity
| for many financial players in the educational
| entrepreneurial industry, their buddies and
| cronies, and they also know that left by
| itself the charter movement would not be able
| to come up with the seed money, the start-up
| costs needed due to the way public funding for
| schools is presently confabulated. Yet
| ironically, much of the âsuccessâ of the
| charter movement is economic success and comes
| from both a toxic mixture of government as
| well as the private sector funds. For this is
| part and parcel of the new neo-liberal
| educational disorder that is now pillaging and
| prevailing over the wholesale dismantlement of
| public education in the United States. All in
| the name of the âkidsâ.
`----
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/neo-liberalism-the-leveraging-of-charter-schools-with-public-and-private-funds/
PTA grant by the Gates Foundation
,----[ Quote ]
| Amerika needs national learning objectives and
| this grant will allow the PTA to oppose
| teachers who don't like it.
`----
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2009/12/30/4415987.html
National PTA gets $1 million from Gates Foundation
,----[ Quote ]
| The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is giving
| the National PTA $1 million to teach parents
| about education reform.
|
| The three-year outreach program would focus
| first on an effort to create national learning
| objectives. Right now, most states have their
| own set of education standards. But the states
| are working together to create a new list of
| learning objectives they can all agree on.
`----
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010396512_apwaptaeducationreform.html
PPS and the philanthro-capitalists
,----[ Quote ]
| The free market approach to enrollment and
| funding is a demonstrable failure in
| Portland, when measured by access to
| educational opportunity. Unless the
| district is willing to significantly reduce
| opportunity for the white middle class,
| thereâs no way they can pay for equity of
| opportunity without balancing enrollment,
| that is, by curtailing school choice. This
| is a significant element of the high school
| plan. With it, the district appears to be
| forging a path independent of current
| trends pushed by Gates, at least for high
| schools.
|
| But the district appears unwilling to apply
| the same lesson to middle grades.
|
| Sara Allanâs contention that itâs not the
| structure of the school that matters, but
| what goes on in the classroom, also closely
| parrots the current line being sold by
| Phillips, now head of education for the
| Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
|
| Phillips was the keynote speaker at the
| Council of The Great City Schools
| conference held in Portland last month,
| attended by Allan and quite a few of her
| administrative colleagues. In her speech,
| Phillips promoted merit pay for teachers,
| the latest policy thrust of Gates.
|
| While superintendent in Portland, Philips
| was responsible for both the transition to
| K-8 schools and the âsmall schoolsâ
| initiative, funded largely by the Gates
| foundation, which dismantled every
| comprehensive high school in Portland
| serving majority non-white students, and
| split them into rigid âacademies.â These
| academies forced students to choose a
| narrow field of study as freshmen, and
| didnât allow students to take electives
| offered in other academies in the same
| building.
|
| [...]
|
| Gatesâ quiet partner
|
| The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has
| grown to be the dominant voice in the
| national education dialogue, heavily
| influencing the federal education policy of
| both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. But
| even as PPS appears to be taking a non-
| Gates path on high schools, the district
| continues to be enamored with Gatesâ
| biggest private-sector education policy
| ally: Eli Broadâs education foundation.
|
| [...]
|
| âStudent performance,â entirely measured by
| standardized test scores, correlates highly
| to poverty. Broadâs scheme would almost
| certainly assure that teachers in poor and
| minority communities would make less than
| their colleagues in wealthier schools, only
| worsening the achievement gap. This puts
| the lie to Broadâs (and Gatesâ) stated
| mission of closing that gap.
|
| [...]
|
| âStudent performance,â entirely measured by
| standardized test scores, correlates highly
| to poverty. Broadâs scheme would almost
| certainly assure that teachers in poor and
| minority communities would make less than
| their colleagues in wealthier schools, only
| worsening the achievement gap. This puts
| the lie to Broadâs (and Gatesâ) stated
| mission of closing that gap.
`----
http://ppsequity.org/2009/11/30/pps-and-the-philanthro-capitalists/
Related:
Dark cloud over good works of Gates Found
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Gates Foundation Revokes Pledge to Review Portfolio
,----[ Quote ]
| ...the Gates Foundation took down their public statement on this
| and replaced it with a significantly altered version which seems to
| say that investing responsibly would just be too complex for them
| and that they need to focus on their core mission: 'There are
| dozens of factors that could be considered, almost all of which
| are outside the foundation's areas of expertise. The issues
| involved are quite complex...
`----
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/12/1756212&from=rss
Gates Foundationâs Influence Criticized
,----[ Quote ]
| The chief of malaria for the World Health Organization has complained that
| the growing dominance of malaria research by the Bill and Melinda Gates
| Foundation risks stifling a diversity of views among scientists and wiping
| out the world health agencyâs policy-making function.
`----
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/science/16malaria.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation- Truth Revealed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttq0IdULfjg
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation- Truth Revealed Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVlnqnMHQ1c
Gates in charge of education?
,----[ Quote ]
| Since when was this country's educational system run by Bill
| Gates and his foundation? When exactly did he and those he's
| hired become the top educational experts in the country?
|
| As far as I can tell this (like much else) has to do with who
| has enough money to boss other people around. There are
| supposed to be other values in a democracy.
|
| And the irony of the man who was sued by the federal
| government for a monopoly now endorsing competition in public
| education hasn't escaped me, either.
`----
http://who-cester.blogspot.com/2009/12/gates-in-charge-of-education.html
Gates Foundation cash wields influence
,----[ Quote ]
| The Gates Foundation is offering up to
| $250,000 apiece to states that want to apply
| for $5 billion in federal grants to help
| reform our nation's school systems.
|
| [...]
|
| The Associated Press story noted that there is
| a joke going around that says the real
| secretary of education is Bill Gates. To us,
| that's no joke.
`----
http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20091028/OPINION/910280304/Gates-Foundation-cash-wields-influence
Editorial: School reform the Gates way
,----[ Quote ]
| The Gates approach may be radical, but in
| Memphis and beyond the circumstances call for
| a non-traditional approach and as much
| innovation as the system can muster.
`----
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/oct/27/editorial-school-reform-the-gates-way/
Gates in charge of education?
,----[ Quote ]
| Since when was this country's educational system run by Bill
| Gates and his foundation? When exactly did he and those he's
| hired become the top educational experts in the country?
|
| As far as I can tell this (like much else) has to do with who
| has enough money to boss other people around. There are
| supposed to be other values in a democracy.
|
| And the irony of the man who was sued by the federal
| government for a monopoly now endorsing competition in public
| education hasn't escaped me, either.
`----
http://who-cester.blogspot.com/2009/12/gates-in-charge-of-education.html
Gates Foundation cash wields influence
,----[ Quote ]
| The Gates Foundation is offering up to
| $250,000 apiece to states that want to apply
| for $5 billion in federal grants to help
| reform our nation's school systems.
|
| [...]
|
| The Associated Press story noted that there is
| a joke going around that says the real
| secretary of education is Bill Gates. To us,
| that's no joke.
`----
http://www.jacksonsun.com/article/20091028/OPINION/910280304/Gates-Foundation-cash-wields-influence
Editorial: School reform the Gates way
,----[ Quote ]
| The Gates approach may be radical, but in
| Memphis and beyond the circumstances call for
| a non-traditional approach and as much
| innovation as the system can muster.
`----
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/oct/27/editorial-school-reform-the-gates-way/
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