--Albert Camus
MR. Gates claims to have retired from Microsoft (he is still active over there, mostly as an über-lobbyist) and as de facto minister of education [1, 2, 3, 4] he continues to bother people, even in Portland schools. Here is an interesting and very detailed post from a month ago. Gates is being called a "philanthro-capitalist", which is a good title for businessmen who disguise their for-profit operations as "charity" (Gates is not alone in this).
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, there’s 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 Allan’s contention that it’s 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 “small schools” 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 “academies.” These academies forced students to choose a narrow field of study as freshmen, and didn’t allow students to take electives offered in other academies in the same building.
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Gates’ 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 Gates’ biggest private-sector education policy ally: Eli Broad’s education foundation.
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“Student performance,” entirely measured by standardized test scores, correlates highly to poverty. Broad’s 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 Broad’s (and Gates’) stated mission of closing that gap.
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“Student performance,” entirely measured by standardized test scores, correlates highly to poverty. Broad’s 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 Broad’s (and Gates’) stated mission of closing that gap.
Now, they're wondering whether the company that paid $27.1 million for the very large farm is owned by Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and the world's wealthiest man.
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Local officials say the rumor is rampant, but they don't know whether it's true. Public records lend support to the theory but aren't conclusive.
"For us to take on WHO is like David taking on Goliath. We’re not ‘big tobacco’ and our mom-and-pop retail members are just small businesses selling legal products that adults enjoy like fine wine or top-shelf Scotch whiskey," McCalla said, "but we cannot stand by while WHO makes outlandish and outrageous claims that are an affront to the intelligence of all thinking people," he said.
McCalla chose not to repeat the controversial WHO claims so as not to give them further coverage. However, he explained that they had to do with alleged health issues related to smoking and secondhand smoke.
"They say there are no safe levels of secondhand smoke, but the Occupational Safety and Health Administration says otherwise," McCalla explained. "OSHA has, indeed, set safe levels for secondhand smoke and those levels are 25,000 times higher than are found in bars and restaurants."
Among contributors to WHO is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which, despite its support for WHO’s work with preventing and treating malaria, has been criticized by top WHO staffers for not allowing its funding to be more broadly spent.
O2 is #1 in bid to acquire Jajah
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Now it seems the company has caught the attention of O2 who has made an offer to buy Jajah for $200 million according to TheMarker financial website, as reported by Reuters. O2 beat Cisco and Microsoft who were also in the running to acquire the company.
Telefonica Europe, better known as O2, already has a user-base of more than 48 million as a part of its communication business, and the addition of Jajah to its stable would presumably help the company beef up its offerings to attract more customers.
