Bonum Certa Men Certa

Bill Gates' God Complex: Common Core a One-Man Campaign of Greed and Control

Summary: The push for Common Core is overwhelmingly dominated by Bill Gates, who intimidates and even resorts to retribution against critics while bribing those who help him accomplish the goal of privatised (for his private profit) indoctrination in US schools

In the previous post we covered the Gates Foundation's serious harms to society, of which there are many. We have given examples for almost a decade now.



"The crusade of Bill Gates against public education (for the public, from the public) is all about self interest and profit."There is one area where Gates' systematic interference gets him a lot of flak and leads to more backlash than in others. The backlash shouldn't be exclusive to it for reasons that we highlighted before, but it's a step in the right direction when even in one single area people defeat Gates, making him realise that he is not invincible and not everything he wants he will get. Gates bamboozles taxpayers and politicians in many areas (looting them by passing public funds to his pocket through corporations), but in one area the professionals, who are teachers and pedagogues, are not dumb enough to fool. Gates is losing a battle right now. The battle has many children at stake. It's public education.

The crusade of Bill Gates against public education (for the public, from the public) is all about self interest and profit. By privatising this massive system (worth trillions) Gates hopes to enrich himself and enrich greedy Microsoft, in which he is an active executive and top investor.

Looking at the press, journalists are gradually waking up and covering this without approaching Gates-funded lobby and PR groups. We are going to give examples from new articles (collected over the past month). The Christian Post says: "Common Core's way of trying to overcome inequality is by dumbing down all U.S. students and pretending, like the Lake Wobegon kids, that all children are above average."

The article mentions that "Gates Foundation [is] the biggest money bag for Common Core" (bribe is a better word than money bag).

Here is an article that states: "Truth be told, Common Core wasn't "state led," it was "Gates led.""

Another new article states: "Because the state standards were developed by three private Washington, D.C.-based organizations — the National Governors Association, The Council of Chief State School Officers and Achieve Inc.— and all funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Stotsky said she finds herself “in the position of constantly contradicting one of the major talking points,” which are that the standards are state-led."

We have already shown how this helps Microsoft's corporate profit. Time is critical here.

As one site put it a month ago: "Armed with $10.3 million in fresh grant money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Common Core proponents now have plans for a PR blitz that supporters hope will promote similar “emotional” fervor for the standards initiative."

Nice bribe he got there. Punishment and consequences for standing up to Bill Gates and his lobbying money? Of course. From the same publisher: "As Breitbart News reported August 18, a new non-profit organization, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and with connections to the Fordham Institute, is being launched with the task of reviewing textbooks and other instructional materials to ensure they are aligned with the Common Core standards."

The headline of this article is "Obama Administration Punishes Oklahoma for Repealing Common Core Standards"

Another new article says: "Felton did not identify any of these nefarious groups. Strangely, he also did not mention the fact that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has used up over $200 million in an effort to push Common Core on America."

Then there's is this: "Collaborative for Student Success, which is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other charities, published a memo Friday criticizing Jindal's position on the education standards as motivated by a desire to win the Republican presidential nomination."

Just discrediting one's opposition by proxy. Sure, money talks. Watch the aggression from Gates' minions and notice this part in particular: "The Common Core standards were developed through the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a joint initiative of the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governors Association with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and others."

Here we have "non-profits" subsidised by Bill Gates to privatise a public system for Gates and Microsoft profit. So much for good doers...

"Behind the scenes," says this report, "as state after state was considering Common Core, the Gates Foundation (funded by Microsoft’s Bill Gates) was spending well more than $200 million to promote the Common Core idea. Gates gave grants to liberal and conservative education groups, teachers unions, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Then the Obama administration tied the standards to massive federal aid. The result has been an overwhelming financial push for Common Core.

"The Gates money also gave Common Core a smooth sail through the checks and balances that usually apply to educational innovation. Sarah Reckhow, an education policy researcher at Michigan State, said, “Usually there’s a pilot test—something is tried on a small scale, outside researchers see if it works, and then it’s promoted on a broader scale. That didn’t happen with Common Core.”"

For those who think that Gates has moved on from crimes at Microsoft to some kind of charity or good acts of philanthropy the above should be relevant. Not much has changed. It's opportunism and greed. It's systemic corruption. Gates is still a businessman who studied law and did not graduate; he was never a scientist and it shows.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Register MS Takes More Money to Boost Slop Hype, This Time From Snyk, a Notorious FUD Source
At some stage or at some point they might even decide to stop doing so
"AI" Hype or LLM Slop is Not About Efficiency, It's About Lowering Standards
It does not seem like IBM is genuinely committed to the same goals (or commitments) as the original Red Hat
If Free/Libre Software is Adding Trillions in Value to the European Economy, Then the European Commission Must Crush Software Patents
Further to what we wrote yesterday
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
 
Hopping From One Set of Buzzwords to the Next
Rotating hype and vapourware
Currys PCWorld Hates GNU/Linux Even Though It Runs the World
If more and more people choose to remove Windows, then Currys PCWorld will feel the financial impact of its dumb policies
Internet Relay Chat and Gemini Protocol Help Us Relive the Net of the Dial-Up Era
The kids were alright
"GPT-5" is Another Microsoft Dead Cat Trying to Bounce
The hype, the momentum (or the inertia) is wearing off
Microsoft Windows Losing Its Grip Near Turkey and Russia
The 'corridor' nations connecting Iran to Europe
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Google News, and Serial Slopper (SS)
The slop, the bad, and the ugly
Links 13/08/2025: The “Incriminating Video” Scam and Corruption in South Korea
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/08/2025: Movie Memories and Mystery Machine Bus
Links for the day
Links 13/08/2025: GitHub Trouble and Openwashing by Microsoft OSI With the Typical Buzzwords
Links for the day
Microsoft Swallows GitHub Losses
Only Microsoft knows how much money it has already lost on GitHub
Gemini Links 13/08/2025: Climate, Coffee, and Deploying Troops in Washington DC After Pardoning 1,000+ Insurrectionists in Washington DC
Links for the day
The Register MS Lowered MS Focus This Week
We hope The Register recognises its errors and tries to make up for them
Learning Ethics From Jeffrey Epstein's Enabler/Client/Ally, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft Accenture
Whatever merits vocabulary changes initially had are being tainted or obscured by later iterations, which tell us to avoid word like "normal", which apparently offend some people (so they argue)
Personal Attacks From Rust People Serve to Confirm They Have Lost the Argument
"The discussion I find around the net so far has no technical merit and centers around ad hominem"
Physical Meters and Purely Mechanical Meters Aren't Dumb; It's Dumb to Mock or Dismiss Them as Antiquated
I've learned a lot this week, both online and over the telephone
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 12, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 12, 2025
GitHub Will End Up like XBox and Skype
It is not likely that the XBox franchise will survive the next 5 years
Stones Thrown in Glass Houses
Projecting? You bet!
As Europe Gets Increasingly Serious About Software Freedom and Digital Sovereignty It Needs to Enforce a Ban on Software Patents ASAP
many councils in Europe move to Free software and US policy/companies cannot be trusted
Windows 12 in Bahrain (Microsoft "Market Share" Down to 12%, an All-Time Low)
They really ought to get away from Windows even faster
The Web Needs 'Pest Control' When It Comes to LLM Slopfarms
The goal is to discourage more sites becoming slopfarms
Microsoft Can Now Stop Reporting the GitHub Layoffs (Even When They Happen)
GitHub's original staff will see the true cost of becoming "b0rged" - something that Microsoft earned a bad reputation for
How to Get Very Bad or Even Malicious Code Into Linux? Write it in a Language That Linus Torvalds and Most Other Linux Developers Don't Understand.
One point nobody brings up is, what if code gets committed while evading audits and scrutiny?
Links 12/08/2025: Wikipedia Fails at UK High Court, Perlmutter Still Fights to Squash the Slop Lobby
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/08/2025: Field Recording and Digital Legacy
Links for the day
Links 12/08/2025: WinRAR Zero-Day, SonicWall Does More Harm Than Good
Links for the day
Links 12/08/2025: More Sabotage of Underwater Cable Ahead of Russian Alaska Summit
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Will Not Miss Microsoft GitHub, It Was Only Good at Harvesting a Lot of Code for Plagiarism-as-a-Service
investors are apparently willing to lose money for buzzwords
Slopfarms Slopping Away at "Linux" and Spreading Microsoft Misinformation
Slopfarms don't comprehend this as they lack actual comprehension, they're just parrots
Links 12/08/2025: Science, Hardware, and Ukraine Excluded From Negotiations About Its Future
Links for the day
GitHub the Company Has, in Effect, Just Died (Time to Look for Alternatives)
To Microsoft, what's left of GitHub after dismantling/folding it is some "training set" (people's code, without permission to "train" i.e. misuse under the guise of "GenAI" plagiarism)
Linux Foundation Says "Housekeeping", "Hung", "Normal", "Native Feature/Support" and "Girl/Girls" Are Offensive Words
Bombing people is OK, just use the right "terms"
It Looks More Like Microsoft GitHub Layoffs
GitHub is just losing loads of money
Gemini Links 12/08/2025: Meditation, OpenStreetMap, Smolweb, and More
Links for the day
Google News is Dying: Most of Its Top Stories Now Are LLM Slop With Slop Images (i.e. 100% Fake 'Content')
Google News has been drowning in this sort of stuff for quite some time
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 11, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 11, 2025
Our Predictions Were Right: GitHub Dying as Losses Pile Up (as a Company It Cannot Continue to Exist, It's Not 'Free Hosting')
GitHub always lost money
Links 11/08/2025: Meritless Twitter Suspensions and Disney Scraps Deepfake Dwayne Johnson
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/08/2025: Upgrading Debian Bookworm and Better Quality PDFs From Gemini Pages
Links for the day
Currys PCWorld Lied a Decade Ago, 10 Years Later It Still Effectively Voids Your Warranty for Installing GNU/Linux Despite It Being Increasingly Mainstream
Microsoft gatekeepers
Team GNOME Has Libeled Me for Nearly 20 Years
we are not dealing with sane people
Experience With Airlines in 'Web Sites' and in 'Apps'
In a lot of ways, Stallman Was Right about what JavaScript would turn out to be
Open Does Not Mean Free
wiser to ask if some program is freedom-respecting
The Register MS Takes Money From Companies Banned by the Biden and Trump Administrations (National Security Risk)
today's sponsor
Sabotaging GNU/Linux PCs (and Users) is Not a 'Joke'
maybe cruelty is the very objective
How We Process Screenshots of Slop to Suitably Tag Them as Slop
everything is a single command
Links 11/08/2025: Data Breaches, Politics, and Climate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 10, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 10, 2025
Gemini Links 11/08/2025: Tea Caffeine Hot and Super ZZ Zero
Links for the day