One of the genuine, stand-up heroes of American education is Anthony Cody. I am happy to place his name on the honor roll of this blog.

As a veteran teacher, he worked constantly to improve his craft. He became a National Board Certified Teacher. Now, he is an advocate for teachers and public education, for equity and children. As a blogger, he has been fearless in defending the right of every child to a good education. He has deferred to no one in his passion for justice. Please order his new book “The Educator and the Oligarch.”

Please read this interview of Anthony conducted by Valerie Strauss. He explains why he challenged the strategies of the Gates Foundation.

He says:

“One of the problems with the Gates Foundation is that they have had an almost unlimited source of funding over the past decade. And they are conducting a large-scale experiment with the children of the nation. Nobody voted for them to do this. They use the power of their money to pay for research, to pay organizations to support their agenda, and this undermines democratic decision-making, especially in communities that, due to poverty, lack effective political power.

“I have no great wealth, no real access to political power. I am a retired science teacher with a blog. I saw the effects their agenda had on the schools in Oakland and across the country, and I challenge them to take a closer look and see what is happening. See what happens when you increase class sizes, as Bill Gates suggested. See what happens when you tie teacher evaluations to test scores. See what happens when your policies ignore the very real effects of poverty. See what happens when you attempt to “personalize” instruction by the use of computers instead of human beings. I am one teacher, but as more and more people realize the experiment we have all become unwilling subjects of, more will join me in challenging this oligarch. Because money may give you the power to do all this, but might does not make right.”