Anthony Cody entered into a dialogue with the Gates Foundation about its goals and programs.
Please read it and share it.
Cody describes many of the ways that Gates has supported privatization, despite the lack of any evidence for its strategies.
He reviews the poor results of value-added assessment, pushed hard by the Gates Foundation.
He shows how Gates favors programs where someone will make a profit.
Cody raises significant questions at the end of his part of the dialogue:
In the process by which decisions are being made about our schools, private companies with a vested interest in advancing profitable solutions have become ever more influential. The Gates Foundation has tied the future of American education to the capacity of the marketplace to raise all boats, but the poor are being left in leaky dinghies.
Neither the scourge of high stakes tests nor the false choices offered by charter schools, real or virtual, will serve to improve our schools. Solutions are to be found in rebuilding our local schools, recommitting to the social compact that says, in this community we care for all our children, and we do not leave their fate to chance, to a lottery for scarce slots. We have the wealth in this nation to give every child a high quality education, if that is what we decide to do. With the money we spent on the Bush tax cuts for millionaires in one month we could hire 72,000 more teachers for a year. It is all about our priorities.
So as we bring this dialogue to a close, we come up against some of the hardest questions.
Can we recommit to the democratic ideal of an excellent public school for every child?
Can the Gates Foundation reconsider and reexamine its own underlying assumptions, and change its agenda in response to the consequences we are seeing?
Given the undesirable results that we are seeing from the use of VAM in teacher pay and evaluations, is the Gates Foundation willing to put its influence to work on reversing these policies?
Does the Gates Foundation intend to continue to support the expansion of charter schools and “virtual” schools at the expense of regular public schools?
Must every solution to educational problems be driven by opportunities for profit? Or could the Gates Foundation consider supporting a greater investment in programs that directly respond to the conditions our children find themselves in due to poverty? Things like smaller class size, libraries, health care centers, nutrition programs, (none of which may be profitable ventures.)
How will the Gates Foundation answer? Will they dodge his direct questions in this post as they did his powerful column about the Foundation’s silence on the issue of poverty?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think it is naive to believe that Bill Gates and any of the privatizers will accept an appeal to reason. As Anthony Cody says, the drive for profit is the guiding force in the privatization movement. Trying to persuade them to think of the common good and democracy is, in my opinion, futile. We must organize to stop them. Appeals to basic decency will not work where profit is the overriding objective. History shows power does not cede any of its control without organized opposition.
Bill Gates shows by his own actions that funding public schools is not part of his program. See this article from Seattle Eduction which clearly shows this. Actions speak louder than words!
Why Washington state schools are #42 in education funding: Let’s start with Bill Gates
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You KNOW why Gates is involved. He wants all students to be at virtual schools, with virtual teachers from India and China making pennies a day, and never mind child development or common sense. Always remember HOW Gates got his billions. THAT is what is driving him.
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Gates also promoted and continues to promote online learning such as Khan Academy as the future of education–the flipped classroom. This must not happen as our kids will become more passive learners with limited social interaction which is perhaps more important than how much you know.
Gates is trying to find other innovative ideas outside Microsoft, because they are falling behind others like Apple. He is riding a horse with blinders–only seeing things from one perspective (His own). Competition is the root of all evil, when one sees no option except winning.
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His billions protect his ignorance. He is not willing to learn or engage in a dialogue.
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It is going to take a long time to spin a response to Anthony Cody’s superb piece. I suspect any response will be a ode to the power of the “American Way.”
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Among other problems with Gates, it was their impatience for results that led them and others to abandon the arduous, time-consuming process of trying to expand the innovative networks that existed before they entered the field. Rather than learn from them, they absorbed only the shallowest of the lessons they could have been taught. I know, I remember, I was there at the time. Our shared central “dogma” was and is: democracy isn’t doomed but it requires endless patience and endless respect for those most intimately involved–teachers, kids, families, neighbors. Those are the only “changes” that last, and the only ones that build democracy rather than undermine it. But the Gates Foundation wanted to show quick results–scale-up, reproduce more. Faster. They tempted us with money… They wanted some easy way to measure success, so they settled for test scores. We resisted, but… We’re till around, but holding on by a fingernail. Easy and fast–is partly what’s wrong with the schools most young people now attend. It’s the one thing Gates and they seem to have learned from each other. What works? We need schools that are improve because we love them, and we love the work that gets accomplished in them.
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“We need schools that are improve because we love them, and we love the work that gets accomplished in them.”
No amount do marketing will accomplish this. You have described the essence of a great school which cannot be bought and sold.
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Gates also tempted us with his “donation” of computers about 10 years ago. We fell for that, thinking he was this fabulous philanthropist. Currently that led him to profit from tax payers today.
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Mr Cody’s last section, about the ideal of public education, is particularly phenomenal. As parents, teachers, administrators and concerned citizens respond to things like new “reform” efforts and movies like “Won’t Back Down,” I hope they (we) pick up some of his passion. My problem with charter school prevalence and reform in general goes far beyond the notion that these are unproven. I think that innovation and progress is vital, and at times I am willing to take a risk on unproven concepts. I am not willing to abandon the ideal of true public education though – it is the cornerstone of our democracy. Turning this critical function over to profiteers will be devastating. Thank you Mr. Cody for expressing so powerfully just how critical this ideal is. I will not give up. (and yes I will post this on the Gates blog too!)
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Do you believe all comments will be posted? I don’t….see the section on Gates funding Media Bullpen. In light of the recent banning of PAA members in Charlotte to Won’t Back Down and CNN deleting comments in reference to Diane, I am not sure all comments will be posted.
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Would you give more info about the “banning of PAA members in Charlotte to Won’t Back Down?”
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Just saw it on Parents Across America:
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/2012/09/pam-and-carols-excellent-students-first-adventure/
Pam and Carol’s Excellent “Students First” Adventure
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you can be sure that they will all be posted here!
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Nice Blog sir .
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