TEACHERS have become impatient with the Gates Foundation, which some of them realise is taking over their system only in order to experiment with it and break it. One Web site in particular, Seattleducation2010, is protesting against the foundation and uses the power of teachers to resist the uninvited takeover by Gates. As one writer put it a few weeks ago:
We will not sell out our profession or our students for failed and an unproven education policy driven by the Gates and Broad Foundations hidden agenda.
TV Networks Gear Up for Education Initiatives
[..]
Among the “partners” identified for the initiative are the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, which are two leading philanthropies in the education sphere, as well as Scholastic Inc. and American Airlines.
Over here in Seattle, however, the American Federation of Teachers had Bill Gates as their keynote speaker. Gates, who heavily supports non-union, privately run charter schools, is on a rampage against teachers, declaring that many aren’t “effective,” based solely on standardized student test scores, and wants to tie their pay to high-stakes test results (even though this is proven not to improve teacher or student performance), force them to compete against each other for money, spy on/videotape them, and dissect their teaching methods, maybe even replace teachers and schools altogether with online lectures.
In other words, he’s not an obvious or uplifting choice for keynote speaker to a conference of teaching professionals.
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It’s true that Gates spends millions of dollars on education, but he has zero background in the field, and all his grants have heavy strings attached. He has pet projects and the weight of his wealth and his connection to the Obama administration (former Gates Foundation staffers now staff the Obama administration and vice versa – also see p. 5 of the recent Businessweek article about “Bill Gates’ School Crusade” and the attempted move by Brad Jupp from the Obama administration to the Gates Foundation) gives him a disproportionate and unchecked influence on the direction of public education in this nation right now.
Some have jokingly referred to Gates – not Arne Duncan — as the true Education Secretary. This has a number of sound-minded people worried – including Ravitch, who was recently interviewed on KUOW, and had this to say about Gates: “I’m just concerned about the unaccountable power of the Gates Foundation. They are now virtually managing education policy in the United States.”
So why did AFT invite ‘Bill the teacher-basher’ to address a national conference of its teachers?
Perhaps this has something to do with it: That same month, the Gates Foundation gave the AFT $3.4 million to push for “teacher quality initiatives,” and another “$217,200” in June for “conference support.”
From the Gates Foundation web site:
American Federation Of Teachers Educational Foundation
Date: July 2010
Purpose: to continue the American Federation Of Teachers Innovation Fund’s efforts to support local affiliates that engage in research-based, union-developed teacher quality initiatives and to work with a consortium of local and state affiliates—the Teacher Excellence Collaborative—to create and implement a comprehensive development and evaluation system based upon the American Federation Of Teachers framework
Amount: $3,421,725
Term: 2 years and 1 month
Topic: High Schools
Region Served: North America, Global
Program: United States
Grantee Location: Washington, District of Columbia
Grantee Web site: http://www.aft.org
In some places on the chart we note certain amounts of money. The reason for that is that some of the sums that we discovered were finite and some were not. For instance, the Gates Foundation is basically the Alliance for Education’s bank. Whatever the Alliance needs, it seems that the Gates’ Foundation just cuts another check by providing a grant for a specific purpose. I suppose that it helps that the Gates’ Foundation’s headquarters are located in Seattle and not far from the Alliance for Education offices, just a stone’s throw away.
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Another example is the AFT, the American Federation of Teachers, where Bill Gates gave AFT $3.4M for “teacher quality initiatives” and $217, 200 for AFT conference expenses. See: Did Bill Gates Buy His Podium at the AFT Convention? Sometimes a breakdown of the numbers provides a more clear picture of the power and influence of money.
Then there is money “with stipulations” that the Gates Foundation provided to NPR. The purpose of that money is “to support coverage of education issues on NPR programs, including the Morning Edition and All Things Considered”. The amount provided was $750,000. I don’t feel comfortable with that on many levels.
There was also $301,768 given to Minnesota Public Radio. The purpose stated was to “strengthen the quality and quantity of reporting on issues related to the nation’s low college completion rates” which plays into the Gates’ agenda. The sad part is that NPR felt the need to take the money and potentially provide a skewed viewpoint on issues in education or report on some aspects of ed reform and not others.
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Then there is the pocket-money for the Alliance for Education under the heading “general operating support” for $3,000 and the junket to Denver for $6,000 “to support a delegation of Seattle Public School district officials to meet with Brad Jupp and the administration in Denver for “best practices” on teacher labor agreements”. Denver, by the way, is being converted to all things ed-reform. Gates is financing much of that effort.
The list goes on but by now you’re probably starting to get the big picture. Broad and Gates have decided what is best for our children based on no experience in education and none of their own children or grand children in public schools. There has been no dialogue between parents and teachers.
THIS JUST IN! –
Courtesy of LEV (League of Education Voters–FUNDED BY THEs GATES FOUNDATION) an onslaught of ed reform profiteers are coming to Seattle this October to speak as part of LEV’s imaginary “revolution.”
“Voices from the Education Revolution Speakers Series“
featuring:
Richard Barth, CEO – KIPP Foundation (and the BROAD FOUNDATION; FUNDED BY THE GATES FOUNDATION) Timothy Daly, President – The New Teacher Project (FUNDED BY THE GATES FOUNDATION) Steve Barr, Founder & Emeritus Chair – Green Dot Public Schools (FUNDED BY THE GATES FOUNDATION) Moderated by Don Shalvey (Ed Director of the GATES FOUNDATION, former CEO and founder of ASPIRE CHARTER SCHOOLS, Board member of GREEN DOT — ALL FUNDED BY THE GATES FOUNDATION)
Also coming to town, Kevin Johnson, Sacramento mayor and fiance of Michelle Rhee, Broad Foundation board member & chancellor of Washington DC School District (FUNDED BY THE GATES FOUNDATION).
And coming soon — a new motto for Seattle Public Schools:
Seattle Public Schools — bought from you by THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION!
(in partnership with the Broad Foundation — because all these billionaires can’t be wrong!)
Also, the school board president, Michael DeBell, is on the Alliance for Education Board of Directors. The Alliance for Education receives the majority of its’ money from the Gates Foundation.
We want board members who represent us, not the Broad Foundation or the Gates Foundation. See Lines Of Influence of Education Reform for the larger picture.
She began her career as a high school teacher in Eugene, Oregon.
Hunter R. Boylan (LES/NCDE) presented a session titled “What We Know About Professional Development” at the State Higher Education Policy Meeting sponsored by the Lumina Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
With the recent investment of $90 million by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the Teacher Effectiveness Initiative and Tennessee being one of two initial winners in the Race to the Top federal grant program, Memphis is showing the nation that it is committed to addressing the needs of education. Though views differ on how we ensure that our students avoid the pitfalls that prevent them from reaching their educational goals, we all agree that all of them must be afforded the best opportunity to do so.
At its convention this summer, the 3.2 million-member NEA welcomed as keynote speaker one of the fiercest critics of the Gates Foundation and its education agenda, New York University education historian Diane Ravitch.
The smaller American Federation of Teachers union, meanwhile, invited Bill Gates himself. Most Florida teachers unions are allied with both groups.
The program is funded by the $100 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help develop more effective teachers. Veteran teachers will be evaluated by their peers.
Last spring, Public Agenda, a nonprofit research organization, released a report on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
In July and June alone, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded 25 high school-related program grants worth a combined $18.6 million, according to the Gates Foundation web site.
European Schoolnet and Microsoft announced a new eLearning Award to reward outstanding teachers in Europe for their work with ICT in education. As part of their work with innovative teachers, Microsoft is supporting the eLearning Awards 2010 and invites all teachers to apply to the special category for outstanding teachers. "Focusing on 21st Century skills, project based learning and interdisciplinary teaching is crucial in order to meet the demands of today's society. And ICT is an important tool in this process. In Microsoft we find it a privilege to be able to contribute to celebration of innovative teachers that are frontrunners in the new way of teaching and learning," said Kirsten Panton, regional leader for Learning in Western Europe.
Comments
gnufreex
2010-09-09 08:43:22
http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome
Yeah, I am talking about Scott McNealy.
twitter
2010-09-09 13:45:10
We can assume that the same kinds of software deals are going along with Gate's school reform as have been imposed on other recipients. From chatting with a librarian about a "donnation" from the Gates Foundation that software made up a large portion of the supposed value and that one of the strings was exclusive use of Microsoft on the hardware that came with it. For a few thousand dollars worth of hardware, Gates got exclusivity, format lock in, and orders of magnitude more money in tax write offs. What's more disturbing is that the librarian did not understand software freedom and though of the software exclusivity as a minor detail.
It may seem absurd that Gates would go through all of this trouble with schools just for the sake of Microsoft, but US schools are indispensable for them. They provide revenue, brand familiarization, lock in and brag power. Gates knows that universities can be kept as customers as long as students all come in knowing Windows. The ruthless crushing of the One Laptop Per Child project shows us just how terrified they are of alternatives. If US schools stop using and advocating Windows, the rest of the world will quickly dump it and everything else follows what people learn in school. Microsoft is already folding up, but the Microsoft people must have seen the school threat long ago. Because Microsoft can no longer afford the effort, Gates is stepping in with his own tax shelter and is recruiting textbook publishers and other profiteers to help out. Like a zombie, Microsoft carries on down the path laid out in the late 90s and will do so until they are bankrupt.
The Massachusetts example for this kind of institutional take over is the ouster of Peter Quinn and subsequent reorganization of the state IT department structure. Peter Quinn modestly proposed that the state could save lots of money by using Open Office instead of Microsoft Office. Microsoft sent in a storm of lobbyists who smeared Quinn in the local press, forced him out and then managed to change state law to give IT trump power to the governor and reorganize the IT department so that it would not dare try again.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz
2010-09-09 15:41:12
Gates is creating a self-serving (to himself) system which is funding itself. That's genius businessmanship.
twitter
2010-09-10 17:12:22
Microsoft is only special in taking school based indoctrination to its logical conclusion. As the power of broadcast and print publications fail, Gates is building up alternate methods of manipulation. Other big companies and special interests have been cramming their viewpoints into textbooks and classrooms for a long time. Microsoft's efforts are particularly crass and obvious. Not many special interests would have the nerve to charge money for textbooks when there are excellent free alternatives available. Microsoft would be the textbook provider and charge all the others access to children's minds. Giving school programs over to Microsoft is the 21st century equivalent of giving classrooms over to cable TV operators in the last century or to newspaper publishers previously, all complete with the ability and special focus on selling advertisement space. It is better to keep big publishers out of classrooms and give preference to free textbook efforts like Wikipedia's.
twitter
2010-09-11 01:27:23
A year after Hurricane Katrina, locals like the Mayor got all sorts of VIP treatment:
There's something very sad in the gee-wizz talk. They brag about table PCs being good for running away from hurricanes in front of people with ruined libraries. How nice would it have been if Intel, Microsoft and friends supplied all the students with one laptop per child computers? Had the world been allowed to digitize their print collections, or simply share libraries like Google books, the hardware would matter a lot less. Microsoft partners treated the schools like they might have treated a cube farm.
So, what kind of 21st century classroom did Algiers charter schools get? Just what you would expect from the average Microsoft addicted institution. According to the 2008 Tech plan, they have a fleet of aging P4s running XP, 25% of which would be "retired" in 2009, the rest with "Security" from Norton. Classrooms had one or two PCs, perhaps a whiteboard. It was tied together with 100 mbps LANS which they were trying to tie together with some kind of Microsoft server. Basically, they created a captive, state funded customer. Hopefully, some of the local penguins can help them break free.
It is a miracle that these schools did not end up in complete failure like the Philadelphia School of the Future they so resemble. Because they are using all the second rate software Microsoft could dump on them, we can assume they had all of the problems most people do - out of control viruses, broken equipment and networks that barely function for business purposes and do even less for education. If students learned at these schools is had nothing to do with the computers and everything to do with the staff and parents sharing to make ends meet and encourage each other. The cynic in me worries that the miracle reported is more PR than reality but that would make the remarkable achievements cited all the greater.
Seattle Ed2010
2010-09-23 06:15:04