This is an odd story
Bill Gates is “loaning” $10 million to Central Falls, Rhode Island, to expand and repair “high-performing” public and charter schools.
If you recall, Central Falls is the tiny district where the district superintendent announced her intention to fire the entire staff of the high school. The state superintendent said it was a terrific idea. Arne Duncan praised the plan, as did President Obama. Eventually, a compromise was reached, but most of the staff left in short order. This happened in 2010, right before the release of “Waiting for Superman,” and helped to popularize the insane notion that firing teachers, firing everyone, was an admirable reform plan.
Central Falls is also the hometown of actress Viola Davis, who was until recently a proud graduate of Central Falls High School, the town’s only high school. Davis hailed her school when she received an Academy Award in 2010. Then in 2012, she was one of the stars of “Won’t Back Down.” And she announced her plan to start a charter school in Central Falls.
So which Central Falls school will qualify for Gates’ $10 million?
What is the plan?
Why not help low-performing schools improve?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It seems so logical to me. Save our schools. Support the school that’s there!
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If it’s philanthropy, why is it a loan (or loans) and not a gift? Oh, because it’s not philanthropy when the “giver” tells the recipient exactly how each dollar should be spent.
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Yes, when the giver demands how it should be spent, inservice of their financial interests, it should be called “malanthropy.”
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Soooo true!
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The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (according to their website) do not offer unsolicited grants for education. They do accept other requests, but not for education. Forgive the old cliché’ …..but I guess when it comes to helping public schools, it is their way or the highway. I use to be a Viola Davis fan. How sad to sell out the teachers who helped you get where you are.
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It is a strange story. Earlier Central Falls had received $100,000 to promote collaboration between district & charter public schools. This is happening in a number of places.
It’s a bit like colleges, which sometimes compete for students, and sometimes collaborate to create programs to expand what they can offer to students (I participated in such a collaborative program while in college. A number of colleges worked together to create an Urban Studies program in Chicago.
But it’s now clear from the story why this is a loan, who will be using it or how it will be used.
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Could it be that the money will be used primarily to buy technology from Gates, and then paid back to Gates? If I loan you $50 to buy $50 worth of my product, that isn’t philanthropy.
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Right! This is called marketing by the Gates way. Gates has not invented anything. He markets and uses his wealth to befriend other greedy folks.
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New slogan: Beware of bloviating billionaires bearing gifts.
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The story says the money will be used for physical building infrastructure.
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Not STRUCTURE… INFRAstructure. Could mean computer bays, eh?
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Ha! What a clever, PC term for his “philanthropy”…I doubt it has anything to do with bricks and cement!
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Their definitions and ours are not necessarily the same. Remember the term non profit? Teaching and learning? Child development?
Who knows what Bill thinks infrastructure means? He can make up anything he wants to and it doesn’t matter. When you make the rules and we all live in your world, who gives a $hit?
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Potemkin Falls, RI ???
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Two true things I know about Gates:
1- the money always has strings
2- it is never about the education itself
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Old Bill is at again! His “philanthropy” has hit Denver Public Schools many years in a row, each time to the tune of 25 million dollars…results? Can’t say he is to blame for the continuing deterioration of the system, but since his “gifts” come with strings, it sure hasn’t helped! When a billionaire, who obviously loves money, comes to a system and like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, wants to help, BEWARE! Pushing charter schools and advocating mass firings ought to show just what he’s up to! His conniving ways are a mirror image of Michele Rhee, and that cackling crone surely is no friend to either teachers OR public education! Their records stand for themselves! Hope folks saw Michele on Bill Mahr’s HBO show last night…he actually held her feet to the fire about tenure, parental lack of caring being a major contributor to poor student performance, etc. She looked surprised that he wasn’t lathering on the accolades for her record, and at the end, let her know that HIS sister was a teacher! It was priceless!
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Can you link it? I would love to watch her get rheejected!
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I don’t know about linking it, but his show is replayed during the week on HBO, channel
550 here in Denver on comcast. Just check out the HBO website and it should show
other times you can see it…I may watch it again just to see her smug smile melt as Bill asked her some super questions!
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Loved it I couldn’t agree more
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Interesting, as Central Falls is the sole district run by the state of RI. So is Gates “loaning” the district the money? And will we, the taxpayers of RI be footing the bill to repay the loan? And where are our commissioner, Deborah Gist’s thoughts on this?
Something else is rotten in The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
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Be assured, Gist is i the back room with Gates and the rest, toasting each other and laughing until they wet their pants.
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This is doping, not phianthopy. Gates wants to boost the performance of charters so his horse will win the race—and then credit the victory to his training program (privitization) that he wants replicated nationally. At least Lance Armstrong came clean on how he was gaming the system.
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See here and linked by Ron P….will only charters who select the highest performers qualify? The system is all set up to make it look like public schools are included, but they are not. Gates isn’t know for his honestly and altruism…don’t be fooled:
“We set a bar that this capital would be available to only those schools that met certain academic benchmarks,” said Noah Wepman of the Gates Foundation.
As noted in a previous post, there are always strings attached to Bill’s “donations”:
http://www.turnto10.com/story/21526608/money-watchers-central-falls-schools-get-10m-from-gates
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