Never Forget Rigoberto Ruelas

The Los Angeles Times has a lot of blood on its hands for having for years peddled the billionaire agenda of pilfering public schools for private gain. However, it was still shocking to read an editorial which nailed Bill Gates to the cross for his wrongheaded crusade to privatize public education when he didn't know or care what in the fuck he was doing.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration was all too willing to peddle the Gates-Broad bullshit to the detriment of public education.

For his education policies alone, I consider Obama a flop as president. His exit from public life can't come soon enough for me.

The editorial is still something, though:

Then the foundation set its sights on improving teaching, specifically through evaluating and rewarding good teaching. But it was not always successful. In 2009, it pledged a gift of up to $100 million to the Hillsborough County, Fla., schools to fund bonuses for high-performing teachers, to revamp teacher evaluations and to fire the lowest-performing 5%. In return, the school district promised to match the funds. But, according to reports in the Tampa Bay Times, the Gates Foundation changed its mind about the value of bonuses and stopped short of giving the last $20 million; costs ballooned beyond expectations, the schools were left with too big a tab and the least-experienced teachers still ended up at low-income schools. The program, evaluation system and all, was dumped.

The Gates Foundation strongly supported the proposed Common Core curriculum standards, helping to bankroll not just their development, but the political effort to have them quickly adopted and implemented by states. Here, Desmond-Hellmann wrote in her May letter, the foundation also stumbled. The too-quick introduction of Common Core, and attempts in many states to hold schools and teachers immediately accountable for a very different form of teaching, led to a public backlash.

That is putting it mildly. Obama administration directives were a serious overreach and in fact were and are impeachable offenses. Obama was simply lucky he had a GOP congress who believed just as he did about education.

Oh, and the billionaire foundations need to stay the fuck out of education. Charter schools, which the editorial seems to think are okay, are a colossal failure, a ripoff.


A few observers out there felt the need to remind readers of the paper's own culpability in promoting neoliberal bullshit education ideas.

An Article That is Long Overdue

Money talks and bullshit walks. That's how Bill Gates "did it" to public education in this country.

He doesn't give a shit about education or kids. This is a cash cow to make even more money.

The notion that public assets are there for billionaires and corporations to plunder is little more than justifying a wholesale bank heist from taxpayers.

The article should win the Pulitzer prize; it is that good. It is worthy of Woodward and Bernstein. Impeachment hearings of Obama and Duncan really should be on the table. Unfortunately, both political parties are so fucking corrupt with billionaire/corporate cash, the chances of those happening are virtually nil.

Snip:

While the Gates Foundation created the burst of momentum behind the Common Core, the Obama administration picked up the cause and helped push states to act quickly.

There was so much cross-pollination between the foundation and the administration, it is difficult to determine the degree to which one may have influenced the other.

Several top players in Obama’s Education Department who shaped the administration’s policies came either straight from the Gates Foundation in 2009 or from organizations that received heavy funding from the foundation.


Before becoming education secretary in 2009, Arne Duncan was chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools, which received $20 million from Gates to break up several large high schools and create smaller versions, a move aimed at stemming the dropout rate.

As secretary, Duncan named as his chief of staff Margot Rogers, a top Gates official he got to know through that grant. He also hired James Shelton, a program officer at the foundation, to serve first as his head of innovation and most recently as the deputy secretary, responsible for a wide array of federal policy decisions.

Duncan and his team leveraged stimulus money to reward states that adopted common standards.

This is the stereotypical Chicago-style corruption writ large on a national level.


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I agree there should be congressional hearings on Gates' undue influence on national education policy, but fat chance it is ever going to happen.
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Bill Gates Is One Dangerous S.O.B.

People always take a look at the Koch brothers as examples of dangerous rich people at work to undermine our democracy, but I argue people like Bill Gates and Peter J. Peterson are vastly more dangerous because they both have the attention and support of a so-called “Democratic” administration.

I always knew Gates was the mastermind behind this Common Core nonsense, but now the proof is there for all to see.

This is the opening salvo in the attempt to turn ALL public school systems into online academies and abolishing teaching as a profession–indeed, abolition of needing teachers at all for the masses.

Those Not-So-Pearly Gates

If Bill and Melinda Gates and their "foundation" aren't evil, I don't know who or what is.

Their cancer is infiltrating higher education.

All they see is education is for job training, not for making people well-rounded, informed citizens.

It is a recipe for disaster.

The goal really is to limit higher education access.

The roots of the Gates foundation's higher-education reform effort go back to 2006, when a $31-billion pledge from Warren Buffett doubled the size of the foundation and allowed it to expand its programs. The foundation hired Hilary Pennington, who had co-founded Jobs for the Future, to identify the most effective lever for increasing social mobility. She was struck by research that showed two things: (1) the upward mobility of children is affected by their parents' level of education; and (2) if a poor person fails to get a college degree by his mid-20s, his chance of ever getting one plummets.

Gates came up with a strategy to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty by doubling the number of low-income students who earn degrees or credentials with labor-market value by the age of 26. Ms. Pennington would lead it. Success would require an annual increase of some 250,000 graduates.

Anthony P. Carnevale, a Georgetown University scholar whose research on the work force has informed the foundation, says education posed one major advantage over other ways to fight poverty, such as strengthening the social safety net: Increasing college completion was politically feasible.

The son of a bitch should be forced to channel that money back into the U.S. Treasury to help get this country back on track economically.

I want billionaires to stay the FUCK OUT of policy making.

Ain't It the Truth?

Etc.

Obituary: Claude King, best remembered for his country hit "Wolverton Mountain," was old as the hills when he died. King was 90 and had just celebrated his 67th wedding anniversary last month:

King was one of the original members of the Louisiana Hayride, the Saturday night show where Elvis Presley got his start and Hank Williams Sr. frequently performed. The show transformed country and western music from 1948 to 1960 - the Hayride's heyday - with music genres including hillbilly, western swing, jazz, blues and gospel. Duane King recalls meeting Presley and Hank Williams Sr. backstage with his dad at the Hayride.

King's hit, "Wolverton Mountain," co-written with Merle Kilgore, was about an Arkansas mountain man, Clifton Clowers, who guarded his daughter from suitors.

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Bill Gates should have been ignored for having opinions on anything other than Microsoft products. Because he is fawned over by the media for being one of the richest people in the world, anything he says is taken as gospel truth, despite the fact he doesn't know what in the hell he is talking about.

Not only that, but this idolizing a know-nothing has caused him to create a lot of mischief.

I shouldn't even call it "mischief," because what he is doing to this country is catastrophic.

"Common Core" is a Bill Gates Scam

It should be thrown into the garbage can like all other "reformer" ideas. I can just see kids being denied the right to read and study novels in literature classes, although reading novels is critical for students to use their creativy and imagination and also helps them write better.

Reading novels, especially the classics, is important in understanding the cultural foundations of this country and helps students become well-rounded adults.

For the record, Catcher in the Rye was NEVER required reading in public schools around the country. Because the novel used obscenities and had a scene of the protagonist with a prostitute (even though nothing happened between them, and Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, was very moral in his dealings with her), it would often be on a suggested reading list. Students had to get parental consent to read it for class. Furthermore, the book was banned in many school libraries around the country.

Gates, of course, doesn't give a shit public school students are "well-rounded" adults. That's only for private school students, anyway. Public school students are good only as drones in the future workplace of lousy-paid jobs with few or no benefits.

"Common Core" needs to be fought tooth and nail everywhere it is being implemented.

Supporters of the directive argue that it will help pupils to develop the ability to write concisely and factually, which will be more useful in the workplace than a knowledge of Shakespeare.

It misses the point. Public education is not a tool for businesses but a way to create informed citizens.

You CANNOT Reason With a Software Billionaire

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS question anything Bill Gates does in the name of education. He doesn't care at all about kids, about learning, about anything other than finding another way to make even more obscene money through software and "virtual schools." He is a nightmare for democracy, for public education.

And fuck that bastard Arne Duncan. He is on right now in a film at the convention about education "reform."

He is the single worst cabinet appointee in the history of the United States. Bill Gates and his ilk OWN him lock, stock, and barrel.

Like Hitting One's Head Against a Brick Wall

Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation couldn't care less about "engaging" in dialogue with teachers. He's got a scam going, and he is going to continue to peddle it, as long as states and school districts are hurting financially and need to look to funding elsewhere.

Gates knows it all even if he knows nothing. His foundation needs to be gotten rid of because it is a tax-exempt scam which is actually political in practice.

Really Dumb Idea Allowing Gates and His Foundation

to even have a "dialogue" with those who care about public education. Gates is only for Gates and doesn't give a SHIT about teachers, teaching, or the well-being of children.

This is all about converting all public schools into online "academies" regardless of how ineffective and harmful they are to K-12 children as those who peddle them haven't a clue about child development. This is all about making even more obscene money with software.

Why is Gates even allowed to have these "non-profit" foundations that are presumably tax-exempt when in fact they are POLITICAL outfits first and foremost?

Don't Give Gates a Legitimacy He Doesn't Deserve

by trying to have "dialogue" with somebody who is out to destroy the public education in this country for profit as he is.

Bill Gates is not qualified to talk about anything other than software issues. That's where he made his outrageous fortune, and that is his sole area of knowledge that deserves any attention.

What his ultimate aim is, of course, is online K-12 "education" using his own patented software. It's just that Gates is completely dishonest as to his intent.

A G.D. College Dropout,

worshipped by the media simply because he is obscenely rich, has the NERVE to go around and dictate to school districts what should be taught and by whom.

He is also colluding with the right-wing ALEC in "reforming" public education.

ALEC, the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit that is probably trying, if it has not already, to influence your state legislature by providing “model bills” of a distinctly anti-immigration, anti-union and anti-federal health-care reform sort, is also seeking to make inroads on education reform. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has given ALEC $376,635 in grant money with these goals:

“to educate and engage its membership on more efficient state budget approaches to drive greater student outcomes, as well as educate them on beneficial ways to recruit, retain, evaluate and compensate effective teaching based upon merit and achievement.:

ALEC is the American Legislative Exchange Council and its membership is a select group of a not exactly educational sort. ALEC counts over 2,000 mostly Republican lawmakers among its membership as well as some 300 corporations including BP, Amazon, Walmart, Visa, eBay and the like. The funds from the Gates Foundation are to go to teaching ALEC’s members about, as noted above, “more efficient state budget approaches to drive greater student outcomes.” Considering that ALEC’s activities are directed at getting bills representing its interests introduced into state legislatures, one should wonder what sort of “efficiency” ALEC-initiated reforms would lead to.

Outside of this blog and a few other places, where in the HELL is the outrage?

Why is Anybody Giving Bill Gates

a forum to speak about things he knows absolutely NOTHING about? Of course I am talking about his attempts to scam the public education system including his attempts to deprofessionalize teaching (I am sure ultimately so that kids are taught through "distance learning" which will make them more maladjusted than they already are).

Gates is a con man, always was, always will be.

News, Etc.

Too bad one has to go clear to NYC to find a principal who actually gives a shit about teachers and education.
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It's time to take a look at a couple of Obama's failed foreign policy attempts.
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A federal judge doesn't like Obama's health care reform law.
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We should know from his educational "reforms" billionaire celebrity Bill Gates is dumber than a box of rocks outside of his tiny area of expertise, and his attempts to buy polio's extinction fall into the same category of ignorance.

Jonas Salk or Albert Sabin he is not.
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Under "no kidding" is this article showing what few jobs were created were largely shitty jobs paying shitty wages.
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The Minute Bill Gates Gives Away His Vast Fortune

is the day I will take seriously his suggestion retired teachers should have their pensions cut.

This guy really is completely out of his depth in an area not in his area of knowledge (technology).

Bill Gates' Involvement in Education

proves one thing, and that is just because somebody is spectacularly rich, it doesn't mean the person is an expert on everything or even anything other than having knowledge in a very narrow field and knowing how to game the system. Unfortunately, the Obama administration is full of Gates flunkies who are equally ignorant about schools and teaching.

I suspect the real reason Gates got into education in the first place is because he gets great big tax writeoffs for his "foundations."

Another Reason Teachers Should Protest

this billionaire asshole everywhere he goes: Now Gates wants to gut teacher pensions. After all, since public school teachers have "unions," when there are layoffs the last hired are the first to go under the despised "seniority" system.

Make sure older people have their pensions reduced, as mine was when I was wrongfully thrown out of Washoe County School District, and make sure the inexperienced bimbos get to keep their jobs, especially the ones willing to kiss ass to the principals, most of the latter having no business being in those jobs in the first place.

Corrupt administrators always find a way to get rid of teachers they don't like.

For Those Who Are Masochistic Enough

to want to know what zillionaire and education know-nothing Bill Gates had to say at the AFT convention in Seattle, here is a blow-by-blow account.

Again, why should anybody even care what this guy says, and why should anybody connected with public education take money from him and his wife?

There were some protests of the Gates appearance, however.

Video:



Anybody who would applaud this asshole is contributing to his or her career demise.

And still more about this debacle is here.

Money Talks and Bullshit Walks

when it comes to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Naturally I am talking about the Gates scheme to destroy public education in this country.

Gates is on education like a moth to a flame or a fly to shit and with disastrous consequences.

This is what happens when people idolize the filthy rich, who haven't a fucking clue about anything other than knowing how to game the system for their benefit. Why should anybody even listen to Bill Gates? He doesn't know ANYTHING about public education. But he is willing to bribe school districts and states all over the country to further his ignorant goals.

A snip:

In the past 2 1/2 years, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged more than $650 million to schools, public agencies and other groups that buy into its main education priorities.

The largest awards are powering experiments in teacher evaluation and performance pay. The Pittsburgh school district landed $40 million, Los Angeles charter schools $60 million and the Memphis schools $90 million. The Hillsborough County district, which includes Tampa, won the biggest grant: $100 million. That has set the nation's eighth-largest school system on a quest to reshape its 15,000-member teaching corps by rewarding student achievement instead of seniority.

The focus on teaching marks a significant shift for the foundation. In the past decade, it spent $2 billion to improve high schools, with a major emphasis on creating smaller schools. But Bill Gates said Saturday that new approaches are needed because the pace of improvement has been too slow. In many cities, a third or more of students fail to graduate from high school on time. Those who earn a diploma are often ill equipped for college.

How Did Dirtbag Bill Gates

insinuate himself into the Race to the Top mess? Easy:

Every so often we glimpse small stories stuck into the back pages of the corporate press on the continuing payouts by Microsoft for settlements to years-old State claims that Gates "had stifled competition and broken state antitrust laws by overcharging consumers for software and computers." California settled for $1.1 billion, and this story last week shows more payouts continuing today, with Wisconsin figuring out how it will use $80 million that Gates promised years ago while continuing to deny any wrongdoing.


So bare-knuckled tactics are nothing new to the Gates team, as Bill's cadre of crooks continue to demonstrate in the big all-in bet to help Arne stifle any competition in the rigged RTTT, corporate ed reform's blueprint for the dismantling of public schools and the destruction of the teaching profession. Eerily, this is the same pattern of philanthro-capitalist bullying that Gates has used in other venues to restrict any diversity of views, as within the World Health Organization in the fight against malaria, as documented by Diane Ravitch in her new book:




The chief of malaria research for the World Health Organization, Dr. Arata Kochi, complained in 2008 that the Gates Foundation was stifling a diversity of views among scientists, because so many of the world's leading scientist in the field were "locked up in a 'cartel' with their own research funding being linked to those of others within the group," making it difficult to get independent reviews of research. The foundation's decision-making process, he charged, was "a closed internal process, and as far as can be seen, accountable to none other than itself" (p. 204).




This pattern is at work, of course, in the RTTT, which awarded its first grants last week to Tennessee and Delaware. Not only does Gates have the house keys at the Department of Ed where the Gates and Broad Foundations have set up shop, but the Foundation has also tutored each state in how to write grants to fit the criteria of judging that the Foundation "helped" to develop. In addition, the Foundation is actively funding pilots at the state level, such as the 90 million dollar one in Memphis, which served as Exhibit A in Tennessee's winning proposal. And let's not forget the lobbying and lunching that Gates's goons did in Nashville in the months leading up Governor Bredesen's presentation of the Foundation's plan to clear the way for teacher evaluation by test score and uncapped corporate charter schools. The easiest part was then to buy the cheap and cowardly prostisuits who run the Tennessee Education Association.

Schools Matter

Read the part of what Tennessee proposed for RTTT. Note they would yank teachers out of the classroom if they are deemed "inefficient" or "incompetent" even if it is in the middle of the year.

The kids aren't told what happens to their teachers; to hell with the kids. What constitutes those grounds, anyway, and WHO does? The principals, of course. And who is going to judge the principals? Nobody, because their bosses are typically clear across town.