Bonum Certa Men Certa

Gates Monitor: January 2011 on Education

Glasses



Summary: A look at the Gates Foundation's involvement in education systems (roundup)

Techrights is far from a lone sceptic of the Gates Foundation. Groklaw, for example, has just shared this piece of news:

Behind Grass-Roots School Advocacy, Bill Gates (teachers' unions crushed by plutocrats and lobbyists like Gates, who are also bribing a lot of the relevant press to sing praises and fund front groups like TFA)

They described themselves simply as local teachers who favored school reform — one sympathetic state representative, Mary Ann Sullivan, said, “They seemed like genuine, real people versus the teachers’ union lobbyists.” They were, but they were also recruits in a national organization, Teach Plus, financed significantly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

[...]

The foundation paid a New York philanthropic advisory firm $3.5 million “to mount and support public education and advocacy campaigns.” It also paid a string of universities to support pieces of the Gates agenda. Harvard, for instance, got $3.5 million to place “strategic data fellows” who could act as “entrepreneurial change agents” in school districts in Boston, Los Angeles and elsewhere. The foundation has given to the two national teachers’ unions — as well to groups whose mission seems to be to criticize them.

“It’s easier to name which groups Gates doesn’t support than to list all of those they do, because it’s just so overwhelming,” noted Ken Libby, a graduate student who has pored over the foundation’s tax filings as part of his academic work.


The article above is new, but it led us to the realisation that we must carry on tracking Gates' continued harm to society, which he disguises by buying the press and pressuring journalists to become his PR agents (more on that later this week). So without further ado, we start by presenting articles from around January of this year (more to come soon). Given more time, we would have produced lengthy articles, but a lot of self-explanatory.

Seattle School Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson’s ongoing conflicts of interest

It’s true, as Dora as amply reported, there are some in Seattle who support this same privatizing, standardizing, commodifying agenda of Eli Broad, but they are businesspeople like Don Nielson, politicians with ambitions and organizations that are funded by privatizing ed reform foundations like the Gates Foundation. Though they may be powerful and wealthy, they do not represent us or our kids. The parents, teachers and children of Seattle’s Public Schools have not asked for this agenda and did not vote for it.


The Battle for Seattle, Part 4 (battle over half a trillion dollars per year)

She then made friends, if she hadn’t already, with Don Nielson who hosted her, Patrick D’Amelio, Executive Director for the Alliance for Education (see Lines of Influence for that connection with Broad and Gates) and Kimberly Mitchell of the Gates Foundation who was the Senior Program Officer for the Gates’ Foundation’s “Education for Washington State” division, at a luncheon given by Harvard Business School Club of the Puget Sound. The topic for the day was The State of Public Education in Seattle: A dialogue with key leaders.

[...]

Mr. Neilson was also on the Board of Trustees for the Seattle Foundation, an organization that received $1M last year from the Gates Foundation and whose president, Norman Rice, wrote an op-ed piece that same year during the teachers’ contract negotiations, siding with the superintendent on demanding the acceptance of merit pay and the devaluation of seniority. He was part of a chorus of voices representing Gates funded and Broad backed organizations in Seattle at that time.

[...]

That same year, the NCTQ came to town hosted by the Alliance for Education. All you need to do is Google NCTQ to see that their arrival in towns and cities around the US is the first shot across the bow in terms of the introduction of ed reform to that school district or state. The NCTQ is about teacher evaluations and their reports become the basis for the introduction of evaluating teachers based on student performance also termed merit pay or performance pay. NCTQ receives money from Gates by way of TR3. That year NCTQ also received money from the Alliance for Education. NCTQ and TR3 refer to teachers as “Human Capitol”. That pretty much sums up how they, including Gates and Broad for that matter, view education and educators in general.


That Was the Year That Was

A lot of money was poured into the coffers of a few non-profits in Seattle by Gates and Broad to further their agenda. Our schools have now successfully been resegregated by our Broad-trained Superintendent and are now ripe for charter schools. Ed reform legislation was passed in the form of Bill 6696 that was pushed by none other than our own PTA among other organizations. Teach for America was railroaded through by the superintendent and the School Board Broad-trained President, Michael DeBell . We had pro-ed reform op-ed’s coming out of our ears from the same Broad backed, Gates funded organizations in the Seattle Times and a lot of press releases from the supe passed on as “reporting” by so-called “journalists” at the Seattle Times which as of now is our only major newspaper in Seattle.

[...]

1. That Community Values Statement that was used by the Broad backed, Gates funded Alliance for Education organization to co-opt well-meaning members of the community and organizations into unwittingly backing negotiations with the superintendent who wanted merit pay based on test scores. She won and the community lost on that one.

[...]

My last question to everyone this year is, if the Broads and Gates of this country thought that their ideas of ed reform were the perfect fit to the needs of our communities, why didn’t they just come out and present their ideas to a wide audience? They, instead, spent millions to create faux-roots organizations to carry their ideas to different communities, making it seem that it was a neighbor or another parent’s idea. They hired PR companies and think tanks to come up with reports and data to support their agenda and they created a need that is not really there as many corporations do to sell a product.


No Oscar Nomination for “Waiting for Superman” (Gates-backed propaganda film)

Apparently the controversies about the accuracy and motivations of Davis Guggenheim’s pro-charter, teacher-bashing “documentary” caught up with it, resulting in no Oscar nomination.


Big Brother Bill Will Now be Watching the Media

It’s not enough to issue so many press releases that they could cover all of the airport bathroom walls from Seattle to Singapore, or is it Finland (?), now Gates needs to ensure that the press gets the story “right”.

The billionaire bullies are at it again, this time Gates and the Waltons, will have their eyes on the press in the form of the The Bull Pen more accurately described as the “bully pen”.


Tweet from Richard Horton, Editor of The Lancet, on Gates Foundation communication methods

Richard Horton loves Bill and Melinda Gates but is not enamoured with the Foundation's communication methods. Hm? What on earth did Kate write to him?

++++++++++++++++++

"So, I love Bill and Melinda. But their communications methods leave something to be desired. Kate James, BMGF chief comms officer, writes..."


Yet another report that measuring teachers by student test scores leads to errors

Hopefully the New York Times will heed its own reporters and not follow the shameful lead of the L.A. Times, which published the names of thousands of Los Angeles Public Schools teachers it had ranked using an algorithm it had created (with $15,000 in backing from the Gates-funded Hechinger Report).


Ben Austin’s Antics, Continued

During the attempted takeover of McKinley Elementary School by Ben Austin using the Parent Trigger law recently approved in California to create a charter school, Gabe Rose and Ben Austin, both of the Gates backed Parents’ Revolution, according to Daily Censored, “created a fake group called “McKinley Parents for Change” created a flyer full of falsehoods… and then placed a paid Parent Revolution organizer’s phone number on the bottom of the flyer”!


Kate Walsh, the NCTQ and US World and World Report



The report was waved around in front of the press and community leaders by the faux roots ed reform organizations that were spawned by Gates and Broad causing many community organizations to sign onto a Community Values Statement.

[...]

It is also enlightening to see who is on the NCTQ Advisory Board, people who will benefit from cheap labor in the form of Teach for America recruits who are staffing charter schools throughout the country. The people on the board include Michael Feinberg, Founder of The KIPP Foundation , a charter franchise, Michael Goldstein, CEO and Founder of The Match (Charter) School in Massachusetts, Paul T. Hill, Director, Center for Reinventing Public Education which supports charter schools and is a recipient of Gates’ money, Wendy Kopp, CEO and Founder of Teach For America, Michelle Rhee, Board of Directors for the Broad Foundation, a proponent of charter schools, Stefanie Sanford, Senior Policy Officer with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, another major proponent of charter schools, Laura Schwedes, KIPP charter schools and Deborah McGriff, Partner, the New Schools Venture Fund.



Education is Not a Business

Gates Foundation report on teacher evaluations seriously flawed, leading economist finds

A report on teacher evaluations recently released by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been refuted by one of the nation's leading economists, who found the widely published report to be seriously flawed.

The Gates Foundation last month released the first report of its "Measures of Effective Teaching" (MET) project, which aims to develop a reliable method for evaluating teachers. The report was thoroughly reviewed for the Think Twice think tank review project by University of California at Berkeley economist Jesse Rothstein, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor. Rothstein, who is also former senior economist for the Council of Economic Advisers, found the Gates Foundation's MET report to be based on flawed research and predetermined conclusions.

The review was produced by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), housed at the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Education, with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.


New analysis challenges Gates study on value-added measures



Last month, a Gates Foundation study was released and said to be evidence of the validity of “value-added” measures to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers by using students’ standardized test scores. But a new analysis of that report concludes that the substance of the report doesn’t support its conclusions.

The report released last month was called “Learning About Teaching: Initial Findings from the Measures of Effective Teaching Project,” by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation officials Thomas J. Kane and Steven Cantrell.

[...]

The MET report considered this exact issue and concluded that “Teachers with high value-added on state tests tend to promote deeper conceptual understanding as well.” But what does “tend to” really mean?

Rothstein’s reanalysis of the MET report’s results found that over 40 percent of those whose state exam scores place them in the bottom quarter of effectiveness are in the top half on the alternative assessment.


Gates Foundation Grants 5 Years Later



Give the entire article a read as it gives some more specific examples of what was learned. Sounds like Gates is willing to admit what has gone wrong and where they have improved. Think we can convince Bill to write a failure report? Could he host TEDxFail next year?


One of the cochairs of the Gates Foundation sends a message about failure

"Live and learn" is a familiar saying, but its importance stems largely from what goes unmentioned: failure.'

[...]

William H. Gates Sr. Co-Chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation United States of America


Recent Techrights' Posts

Lovers and Haters
Always beware hate preachers and demagogues (or how they frame issues or whose fault they distract from)
Punching People Doesn't Work
It makes nobody any safer
This is How Microsoft's XBox and Entire Consoles (If Not Gaming) Ventures Will Ultimately Die
Ensure you can blame "Tariffs" (politics)? If not "hey hi", the fashionable go-to excuse when businesses fail?
 
Links 25/09/2025: French Unions Want Another Strike, Super Typhoon Ragasa Kills Many
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Secure Boot' and Shim as Barrier or Obstacle to New GNU/Linux Users Trying to Escape Microsoft
Just as intended all along
Focusing on What People Have in Common Instead of Killing and Cancelling One Another
Men and women of both "wings" stand to gain a lot by working together on common interests
'Cancel Culture' Isn't About Enforcing Ethics (and It's Done by People on the Right, Not "The Leftists")
Smarter folks would leave social control media
Russia's Attack on Europe (and NATO) Will Worsen Censorship and Corruption in Europe
Can we still debate issues that predate the invasion of Crimea?
Lawyers Should Permanently Lose Their Licence (and Worse) for Using Chatbots in Legal Work
They not only waste people's money and time. They pollute the literature with falsehoods. They commit perjury. [...] Brett Wilson LLP sent the Judge nearly 1,000 pages of material (mostly mine, copied without proper permission) shortly before a short Hearing, which lasted less than an hour
GAFAM and MATA (Mythical, Metaphor) as Explained by analognowhere.com
They're instruments of suppression that sponsor the oppressor
We've Already Mentioned Who Nowadays Funds Garrett's SLAPP Against Us (Not Garrett), Let's Examine Who Sponsored His Litigation Partner (Other Than Microsoft Salaries There's a Buddy of Bill Gates)
it's alleged that the Serial Strangler from Microsoft got money from him
Florian Müller: Using Software Patents to Attack Software Developers, Agitate Against Patent Reform
He also promotes attacks on the German Constitution and laws
Reliance on Typepad Seems to Have Doomed the Voice of Software Patents and Patent Maximalists in PatentDocs
Follow the money
UEFI 'Secure Boot' is Potential Mayhem to the Environment (Older and Leaner Distros Stop Working)
creating new problems, disguised as "solutions" to problems that do not exist
Sometimes 'Cancel Culture' Backfires Badly
There's no such thing as "too much" coverage
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: Jimmy Kimmel Returns to Air (With Limitations) and London Stansted Airport Latest to Have Incident (Fire)
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, SPAM With Slop, and Google News Directs People to Read Slopfarms
why does Google News insist on still linking to prolific slopfarms?
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: New Game for Gemini Protocol, Eleven, and Network Solutions Woes
Links for the day
Look Ma, No "Cloud"
So far this year we've had an almost perfect uptime
Links 24/09/2025: Autism Blame-Shifting and Typhoon Ragasa Enters China
Links for the day
Buying From Oneself is Not Business Success
This isn't at all a joking matter even if you already laugh at the whole thing because your pension, savings etc. are tied to this scam at some level
What They Really Hate David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) for
Nothing to do with code
Smart People Won't Buy 'Smart' Cars
Imagine trying to sell someone a house (proper home) while insisting that it'll need to be demolished 5 or 10 years later, then rebuilt again from scratch on the same vacant lot
The Relationship Between IBM Red Hat and Microsoft, Visualised
This metaphor goes a long way (projects, collaborations, and outsourcing
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part III - Spying on Reporters' Families, Chaining Cases for Microsoft Employees Who Demand Censorship of Facts (Even Politely Expressed)
the time seems right to wrap up this introductory series
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
Links 24/09/2025: "NASA Moving Out of Entire Buildings as It's Gutted" and Purge of Online Critics (Opposing Fascism Becomes Unlawful)
Links for the day
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights