Mercedes Schneider came across a speech
that Bill Gates gave to state legislators in 2009. It
lays out the blueprint for everything that has happened in
education since then. Forget what you learned in civics class.
Gates gave legislators their marching orders. Duncan already had
his marching orders. Gates laid out $2.3 billion to create and
promote the Common Core standards. His buddy Arne handed out $350
million to test Bill’s standards. All the other pieces are there:
Charter schools should replace failure factories. He is a true
believer in charter magic. (We now know that charters get the same
results when they have the same students.) Longitudinal data
systems should be created to track students. (A parent rebellion
seems to have put this on the back burner for now, although
everyone seems to be mining student data, from Pearson to the SAT
to the ACT.) The teacher is the key to achievement (although real
research says the family and family income dwarfs teacher effects).
Here is the man behind the curtain, the man who loves data and
measurement, not children. Lock the doors, townspeople. Bill Gates
wants to measure everything about your children! Ask yourself, if
this guy made $60,000 a year, would anyone listen to him?
UPDATE:
After this blog was posted, two privacy activists–Allison White
and Leonie Haimson advised me that the collection of confidential
data about children is going forward, thanks to Arne Duncan’s
loosening of privacy rights under FERPA, the legislation designed
to prevent data mining. They write: “Actually at least 44 states
including NY are going forward with their internal P20 Longitudinal
data systems – as required by federal law – which will track kids
from cradle to the grave and collect their personal data from a
variety of state agencies.” Leonie Haimson is leader of Class Size
Matters and Prvacy Matters Allison Breidbart White is Co-author,
Protect NY State School Children Petition Please sign and share the
petition http://bit.ly/18VBvX2
ALSO: I transposed the numbers describing what the Gates Foundation spent on Common Core: it was $2.3 billion, not $3.2 billion. A billion here, a billion there, soon you are talking real money (I think I am paraphrasing long-gone Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, but who knows?)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Ask yourself, if this guy made $60,000 a year, would anyone listen to him?”
With his lack of credentials, we wouldn’t even know his name. It’s time for a little self reflection on his part. There seem to be a fair number of people who think they know how to teach because they went to school. Without his money, Bill falls in the same class. By all accounts Bill did his own thing in school; it is interesting that he advocates such a rigid system.
“When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching. For the first time, there will be a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better. …”
Or, lawmakers who don’t want to pay for or run public schools will replace teachers with ed tech product and tutors who make 15 dollars an hour in poor and middle class areas, as one charter chain is already doing. That could happen too.
This may be why it’s important to actually elect people to run the country.
Ed reformers are leading us to all kinds of exciting discoveries, like how we probably don’t want 15 unelected billionaires running a public system like public schools. They could have read FDR or Teddy Roosevelt in those private schools they attended and saved us all a lot of time 🙂
Standardization at a national level will unleash powerful market forces, in the form of economies of scale, to monopolize, further, the markets for educational materials. Gates knows that. That was the plan for “THE 21st-century investment opportunity,” education.
Bob, TOO TRUE! AWFUL actually. This is about control of the masses. Horrid.
Chiara Duggan:
Gates has used this “powerful market forces” idea in other fields, too. There was a great article in Harper’s several years ago titled “Let Them Eat Cash,” subtitled “Can Bill Gates turn hunger into profit?” It’s worth reading if you have the time:
http://harpers.org/archive/2009/06/let-them-eat-cash/
Good to have this evidence publicized. I hope it helps people who thought the description of this global project sounded too much like a “conspiracy” to understand that it’s not at all been secret, which is how a conspiracy is defined. They were just looking in the wrong places for evidence – or perhaps didn’t want to see it.
Yes, calling it “conspiracy” is a way to smear and trivialize the identification of what is in fact a ruling class consensus that is widely broadcast.
I agree. Mercedes is doing a great job on this. It is part of a timeline that I had missed in my own research of the history of the CCSS spin machine.
Good point, but initiatives like these are discussed in private and in closely held venues before they really see the light of day. By the time the average person hears about them, they’re done deals. The people behind “school reform” took advantage of the credit collapse of 2009 to convince government officials to push their agenda.
This morning’s Providence Journal headlined a story about how the RI Speaker of the House had the State Police confiscate documents from his office and home believing he was involved in underhanded dealings.
This story was followed by another that detailed the wrong doings of politicians including former State Governors who were found guilty of crimes:
http://www.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/content/20140321-in-r.i.-a-history-of-law-politics-at-odds.ece
These are the same individuals who decry the sorry state of education. These are the same individuals who the population gives less than a 15% approval rating. And they are offering advice on how to improve education.
PLEASE.
If he made $600,000 a year or $6,000,000 a year no one would pay attention. But billions of dollars give him “credibility.” Big money talks.
Chiara, they have read the Roosevelts, that is exactly what they fear. They want us to forget and to make sure our children will never read about any reference to equity. They see themselves as the anointed few that should own everything. Their goal is to make sure there is a permanent underclass to fuel their greed.
I don’t think Gates is mean-spirited. I think he believes what he says.
I’m not surprised the founder of Microsoft believes ed tech products will revolutionize public schools. What I’d like is some countervailing force to push back against that. That would be where lawmakers would step in.
I resent how my elected lawmakers treat him as some oracle of all that is true, and I resent how I’m constantly ordered to be grateful for his donations.
I’m not grateful. I’m not his charitable cause, nor is my fifth grader, nor my local public school.
They’re acting as if this is some sort of partnership, but I’m not at the table at any of these meetings and the people who are at the table, elected representatives, are acting like star-struck 15 year olds and pretending that taking big wads of his money has no role in policy. Of course it does. He INTENDS to drive policy. That’s what he’s buying.
I don’t see any reason to get so sentimental and misty-eyed about this. These aren’t “gifts”. Gifts are free. This isn’t free. We’re trading something valuable here. The one and only question is “is it worth it”?
Gates is ARROGANT outside and WEAK inside.
As I have been arguing on this blog for a couple years now, from Day 1, the current round of education deform, Son of NCLB, or NCLB Fright Night II: The Nightmare Is Nationalized, was a BUSINESS PLAN. The tech blueprint published by Arne Duncan at the beginning of his disastrous tenure as Secretary of Miseducation was basically that plan.
Gates as long believed in the power of computer-adaptive ed tech to revolutionize education, to track students’ learning and feed them precisely the lessons they need and to dramatically reduce the cost of education by replacing teachers with technology (that’s behind the “class size doesn’t matter mantra–the idea is to have a hundred kids in a room, all doing worksheets on a screen under a supervisor).
In order to create that adaptive ed tech, they needed a single bullet list of national standards. That’s why Gates and Pearson paid to have these “standards” created.
There are a number of educrats and union leaders who have bought into these standards without understanding their purpose and how, by doing that, they are collaborating with those with a completely Orwellian vision of the future of education.
You can have computer adaptivity without having national programs that treat diverse students as identical. And ed tech has enormous promise to make available to schools everywhere unique alternatives that would not otherwise be available to them, to give all students access to the universal library that is the internet, to create spaces for collaboration and publishing, and to do demonstration of a kind that would otherwise be undoable.
But it also creates some dark possibilities–the impersonalization and standardization of thinking, teaching, and learning. This philistine, totalitarian technocratic vision must be resisted.
cx: to reduce, dramatically, not to dramatically reduce
Right after Gates’ March speech to the legislatures, in April 2009 this document came out from Eli Broad. It was entitled grotesquely–if not appropriately–enough: “Smart Options: Investing the Recovery Funds for Student Success”
Click to access 429-arrasmartoptions.pdf
Look at this Who’s Who of Education Destructors who participated in formulating this document. They are the All-Stars of TFA, various venture funds, the Broad Academy and the Gates’ Foundation. There is Not a SINGLE teacher in the bunch.
Joel Klien, Michelle Rhee, Ted Mitchell, John Deasy, David Coleman, Kevin Huffman, Steve Barr, William Hite and Kate Walsh.
These warriors of a world far removed from those of my students created in their hedge fund laboratory the model of everything that came after. This document along with Gates’ speech are important archaeological history for reconstructing how the movement was created at the highest financial, secretive echelons of society to destroy public education as we know it today.
The Final Solution indeed.
They have used all their considerable resources and might as bulldozer to wreck school system after school system across the country. Their PR operation is the best in the world and when the directive comes from this Wall Street Olympus, politicians soon followed their lead.
The challenge for all of us who despise their efforts is to launch a counter narrative to the one they peddle with their glossy portfolios to both the public and financial investors.
Bill Gates will ALWAYS get invited to National Board Teachers Conference.
He will ALWAYS have the ability to get 80 Senators to meet him for dinner.
He will ALWAYS have the clout to address anyone in the world about his ideas and have an army of paid workers to implement his plans.
Their movement has the political leaders of both parties who DO NOT offer up their children to their recommendations they INSIST on for us. It is only the parents and the kids of the “Other America” who can say no.
Opt out.
Demand more for public schools.
Support your teachers.
Insist on equality for all kids in class size, electives, field trips, funding and opportunities.
Understand that your neighbor’s kids are your kids too. Rural and Urban have an equal stake in the future of public education. Those rich suburban schools where school reform has the hardest time gaining traction are fortunate ONLY BECAUSE they do not suffer the same societal injustice that their brethren in less fortunate schools deal with.
Look out for them.
Champion them.
Eli Broad and Bill Gates and the Reformers are NOT your friends. They are NOT your champions.
Their ends will create a less just, more unfair, more stratified society.
Not only do they walk away enriched, THEIR OWN kids stay above their fray. That is their version of America. Not ours.
Thanks so much.
It really gives one a feel for how narrow the debate was right at the outset and how completely the Obama Admin were captured by one narrow range of prescriptions for how to invest that money.
It’s a closed circle. Nothing gets in there.
Michelle Rhee tells Eli Broad he’s RIGHT and then Eli Broad turns and congratulates Arne Duncan and they all go on Morning Joe and sing in chorus. It’s the opposite of “rigor” and it surely not fertile ground for “innovation”.
The EAA in Michigan just blows the whole spiel out of the water.
The expansion of that ed reformer entity was purely political. There is no other explanation for why they would expand it. They know it’s in trouble.
But Snyder can’t admit that (even for the good of The Children!”) because he’s up for re-election and he oversold it at the outset, and Broad can’t admit it because his treasured beliefs are on the line.
They’ve simply stopped talking about it nationally, yet it was a HUGE national sales job. Give me a break. We’re not idiots.
Nice job, Geronimo.
Here are some other Broad Foundation groupies:
Chester Finn, of the conservative Fordham Foundation…Finn couldn’t teach, so he became an education “expert.” Uh-huh.
Andrew Rotherham, of Education Sector and Bellwether Education Partners, and an education “reform” blatherer. Rotherham, too, has never taught, but he’s an “expert” in education policy issues as well (wink).
Stefanie Sandford, of the Gates Foundation and College Board. Chester Finn calls her “smart,” “imaginative,” and “relentless.”
Michael Barber, of McKinsey and Pearson. Barber still insists that invading Iraq was “the right thing to do,” and his response to those who call him a “bean counter” is “What’s wrong with counting beans?”
These are some of the Broad Foundation’s “partners.”
Not to be nit picky even though that’s what I’m doing, but the first number I heard was 2.3 billion. In any case, Gates blew a huge chunk of change on this. The original figure of 2.3 billion was a back of the envelope calculation done by one man who, unlike the deformers, had a real job and life to deal with. His problem was that there was just too much data to efficiently vet and enter into a spread sheet, so that leaves us open to the figure being called into question, though I doubt that it will be significantly different form the estimate. And yes, Mercedes is THE BOMB!
It’s not that when Bill Gates talks, politicians listen.
It’s just that when Bill Gates pays, politicians go ahead and perform accordingly . . . .
Let’s use the right language.
precisely
YES! Robert, you are right.
http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-fixing-cartel-involved-dozens-more-companies-over-one-million-employees/
This is a piece on how tech companies (allegedly) worked together to limit competition between companies and control a labor market.
It’s all coming out as a result of a class action lawsuit.
I’m not posting it as an indictment of the industry. It’s deeply unethical and probably illegal, but that’s not my point. It’s not like there’s no precedent in US history of one or another industry creating labor cartels. Nearly all of them did this at one point or another.
I’m simply asking that the adults in government stop following along blindly behind everything these companies say or do, PARTICULARLY regarding a public entity like public schools and ESPECIALLY regarding children. They have a duty to maintain an arm’s length relationship with this industry, no matter how seductive the “gifts” are and no matter how impressed they are with the CEO’s and “public/private partnerships”. The tech industry will take good care of itself. I’m confident of that. It doesn’t need public sector cheerleaders.
Don’t ever even begin to think that this takeover has anything AT ALL to do with education or what’s best for kids. It’s all about profit. All, and only about profit. Whole populations have been swindled throughout human history because of lack-of-love, hatred and greed. All kinds of glorious rhetoric has been, and still is, attached to savagery of all sorts. This is a perfect example of a deadly wolf dressed in the veneer of what is “right” and what is “natural” and “inevitable.” We have to stop arguing that this or that practice or test isn’t useful, good for kids, etc. We must see the monster for what it is… We need to teach others about this effective large-scale propaganda and simply fight power with power. That’s it. We need to stop being so congenial and gather our forces asap. If not, I feel that our children will pay the severe price of existing in a society which is rapidly moving toward totalitarianism. What’s left of our democracy must not ever afford this price.
Here’s the core piece of what Bill Gates told those state legislators in 2009:
“We need to hold teachers and schools accountable…If your state doesn’t join the common standards, your kids will be left behind;and if too many states opt out—the country will be left behind. Remember—this is not a debate that China, Korea, and Japan are having. Either our schools will get better—or our economic position will get worse.”
In other words, the “economic competitiveness” of the United States relies wholly on the performance of schools.
I’ve noted many, many times here (and elsewhere) that this particular line of illogic IS the rationale for corporate-style “reform, and it’s the core purpose of the Common Core standards (though recently the CCSI scrubbed any mention of it from its website).
It’s also patently untrue. False. Nonsense. And easily disproved.
As I’ve noted, the World Economic Forum competitiveness rankings usually place the U.S. in the top five. When it drops in the rankings it’s not because of 15-year-olds. It’s because of weak corporate auditing and reporting standards, suspect corporate ethics, and big budget deficits and high levels of public debt. It’s because stupid economic policy choices led to “a lack of macroeconomic stability” that “are likely to weigh heavily on the country’s future growth.”
As I’ve pointed out, some of the most ardent supporters of Common Core –– the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable for example –– were also the strongest supporters of the economic policies that caused all the deficits, debt and the Great Recession. They not only refuse to be held accountable, but also they are lobbying very, very hard for more of those same disastrous policies.
Meanwhile, they point the finger of blame at public schools.
Honestly, a person almost has to be an idiot (as opposed to an imbecile or a moron) to believe this stuff.
By the way, here’s Arne Duncan’s 2010 speech to UNESCO making the case (eye roll) that the United States “must improve its stagnant educational” system if it has any hopes of restoring its “economic performance.”
Sigh.
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/vision-education-reform-united-states-secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-united-nations-ed
If Gates stuck to what he knows and set up a series of schools to teach the young to be inventors or millionaires or at least financially independent by the time they’re 40, then I would be impressed.
Reblogged this on Saint Simon Common Core Information and commented:
Connecting Bill Gates to state legislators to Common Core, back in 2009.