NCLB was just the beginning. Now, Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, has helped fund a report from the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce that calls for completely transforming public education. Gates is one of the new-style philanthro-preneurs. His education foundation disperses more than $1 billion a year to programs he supports. The US Department of Education has only about $20 million that it is free to allocate. Many people thus call Gates the country's real public school superintendant!
The commission calls for replacing public K12 schools with "contract schools". Contract schools are charter schools on steroids. NCLB requires high school students pass 8th grade level tests by the time they graduate. Contract schools will require students to pass 12th grade standards by the 10th grade or be kicked out of school.
Of course such students will be able to use their proposed government-financed (a mere $500 a year!) "Personal Competitiveness Accounts" to buy whatever education they need! Riiiiiight!
One thing is certain. The very richest Americans, all based in hugely powerful and influential corporations, are proposing that the United States, the first country to develop free, universal public education, now abandon it.
Let's see: A spoiled brat educated in private schools is going to tell public schools how they need to be "reformed."
These people just lie through their damned teeth about their motives, and they invariably fail. Contract schools, empowerment schools, all of this shit are attempts to cram a business model on something that is NOT a business.
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