Anthony Cody is steamed that Bill Gates was invited to be a keynote speaker for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. He knows that Gates will praise them and make them feel good.
But, beware, he says.
No one has done more to damage the profession of teaching than Bill Gates. Cody cites word-for-word the insulting and vacuous comments Gates has made in print and in lectures that undermine teacher professionalism.
No one has done more to foist an obsession with standardized testing on the nation’s children than Bill Gates.
As Cody observes,
“I know that the level of saturation that Gates and his money has achieved make his influence almost like the air that we breath. For that reason, it is all the more important to have a sober assessment of this reality. Scientist Carl Sagan wrote some years ago,
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
“Bill Gates is a charlatan as far as education is concerned. He has discarded the expertise of educators as if it were trash, because it did not align with his concept of how learning ought to be measured and improved. In its place, he has fostered a worship of almighty data. He will come to the National Board singing the praises of accomplished teachers, because he wants to bring leading educators to his side, even as he devalues their expertise and autonomy.”
Now, if he agrees to subject his own children to the same data-driven regime he is imposing on the nation’s children, we might take him seriously. But we won’t hold our breath for that to happen.
And this is why as a NBCT that I will not be renewing my license. Something that at one time had such hope for the profession has gone to the greedy hands of corporate reformers. As a newer teacher to the profession in the mid-90s, I sought my certification to help prove to myself that I was a true professional and knew what I was talking about. To be judged by my peers as an accomplished teacher was for me the place where I proved to myself that I had a professional voice to help speak with and on behalf of my students. It helped me to have the will and perseverance to fight morally and ethically on behalf of what, as a professional, I knew was right for kids. To even imagine that this forum has been corrupted by those that are trying to de-professionalize education is a moral outrage!
The Gate’s bamboozle is losing its grip on those who fell for it initially. And as this blog attests to, there are countless thousands of serious educators who never fell for it to begin with. This is one charlatan (snake oil salesman) who will fail to retain any power in field that has already exposed him for the neoliberal that he is.
Hmmm I was not going to go to the conference, but now I am tempted to go and proselytize the truth about Gates..
I don’t think he’s going to find a friendly audience. A group of NBCTs booed Arne Duncan a few years back when he started talking about how good teachers should make $150,000 and they realized a what an insincere snow job it was. I don’t think they will treat Gates any better.
I am a NBCT, and, like, I’m really going to believe anything Mr. No-Social Skills Gates is going to tell me about education?
I will listen to him about computer sciences and computer company business models. I have much to learn in that realm.
I will laugh at him . . . or maybe throw up on him . . . if he wants to tell me how to do my job or design education systems.
The hubris of this man and his wife is bigger than their 66 billion dollar fortune, paid for, to too large an extent, by taxbreaks from our elected officials . . . . .
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And if you have so much money that you are un-corruptible, then it must be true that an untold fortune completely and utterly deludes.
Yes, and power breeds narcissism, and a nation of sheep breeds a government of narcisstic wolves and cronies . . . .
TAGO!, Robert
Actually, GATES doesn’t know much about anything. He is JUST A MARKETER. Thus, he knows how to use PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUES to get his way and he is trying to re-do his image…a tarnished one.
To his credit, Bill Gates has done a lot to begin to put a dent into crippling diseases and hunger world wide. But his visions largely do NOT belong in public education or the policies governing it.
He is not interested at all in income distribution, tax policy, and the middle class. He is a billionaire in a bubble, and that’s the most dangerous kind . . . .
Robert,
Gates’ efforts to end hunger are inseparably tied in with Monsanto and other purveyors of genetically modified agriculture. His foundation owns a substantial amount of Monsanto stock, and geneticaly modified seeds, and the pesticides and herbicides that they function with.
As with education, so too with agriculture, except that instead of privatizing the schools and the policies that govern them, he is working to privatize the agricultural gene pool.
However, it’s fitting Gates should attempt to do that, since he is not an inventor or innovator, but a monopolist, which is where his true talents and interests lie.
Given his history of greed and power grabbing, he is one of the last people on earth who should have any influence whatsoever on global food policy.
I don’t disagree with you at all, Michael.
But if you are living in a corroded, corrupt country where your child is listless wihta swollen belly and is dying of hyp-nutrition, then GMO and non-organic crops that can be raised quickly and cheaply is a ladder out of the hole you are in.
But I would have to say at the same time that there are much better, healthier, and more ehtical ways of addressing hunger also.
Preventing the spread of polio, measles, etc. is also valuable, despite the controversies – which are real and have merit – about vaccines.
Bill Gates is the quintessential villainthropists in many ways.
He does not just want to control machines and money.
He wants to control and program people.
Sad and dangerous mistake for him . . . .
Correction:
“But if you are living in a corroded, corrupt country where your child is listless with a swollen belly and is dying of hypo-nutrition, then GMO and non-organic . . . . “
TAX BREAKS!
Diane,
My name is Caitlin Clark, and I am an undergraduate student at the University of Cincinnati, in Cincinnati, Ohio. As one of your biggest fans, I have a challenge for you: start an education reform mission with the FUTURE teachers of America. Not current teachers, but the young, budding future of teachers in America. I am extremely inspired by your books, blogs, and statements on the betterment of education in America. I actually analyzed your writing for six weeks in one of my courses, Save Our Schools! But, I want you to inspire all the future teachers of America to start thinking about how they will impact education policy in the future, and that they can!
America has a very negative teacher culture. We’re stupid, underpaid, untrusted, and undereducated. How does America expect to get better teachers in the future if they are raising our generation in this negative environment? When I tell people I am going into education as a career I usually get snide remarks about being in debt for life, having an unfulfilling future, and being overworked. How will this environment effect America’s future generation of teachers? Little do they know that I would teach for free- that’s how much I love my future profession. Not only am I a University Honors student at UC, but I also carry a 3.8 GPA and am involved in the Ohio Student Education Policy Institute, fighting for education reform in Ohio Congress. I don’t consider myself stupid.
Stand up as a mentor, an expert, and an advocate. Inspire us to be better teachers, to beat this Reign of Error, and to avoid racing to the top. Gather your friends and your colleagues too, get them to help fight this negative teacher culture America has. Welcome our generation of teachers into the classroom, show us how to be better and how to fight the stereotypes, policies, and laws we will have to face. Show us how we can avoid staying in the 50 year rut education has been stuck in.
Change doesn’t only start in Congress or in education committees, it starts in the culture of America. It starts in the hearts of America’s driven undergraduates majoring in education. Help us make the change…we need some help.
Caitlin,
It is wide open if your eyes are open. You can be that start.
What ways could you be that start????
As an NBCT living in WA I am unable to attend, but when I found out last week that Gates would be the keynote speaker, I couldn’t believe it. My hope is that all who do attend voice their outrage at the keynote address being given by a person who pushes snake oil on most Americans that he won’t use on his own children. The sad thing is in all the noise about reform, I have heard zero voices about the hard data that shows what a difference an NBCT teacher can make in a classroom. Irony: when I became nat’l board certified, I watched a video from Arne Duncan praising my efforts & encouraging me to support other teachers in the journey, yet we have heard nothing from him recently about nat’l boards, just the demeaning of the teaching profession.
March 14th and 15th, in Washington D.C.
the NBPTS was a member of ALEC until the spotlight was shined on them, they’re another
sellout organization to the likes of Gates et. al.
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/911658/national_board_for_professional_teaching_standards_leaves_alec's_educational_task_force
A few weeks ago, our daughter, who is in her last year at Stanford (she graduates this year), was excited to e-mail us with the news that Bill Gates and his wife would be giving the commencement speech at Stanford this year.
I e-mailed her back with what I think about Bill Gates and there was no response from her—only silence.
I broke the silence by telling her in an e-mail that I would be there for her graduation and would wear earplugs so I wouldn’t have to hear the lies of this Judas.
She replied by pointing out all the good that Bill Gates has done but not once agreed with any of my criticism because she has never heard anyone ever criticize Bill Gates. His PR machine and his billionaire allies are that powerful.
It seems that Bill Gates may be the Anti Christ that the world has been warned about.
My wife, who agrees with me, said that she would loan me her iPod to plug my ears and drowned out the speech of the Anti Christ Bill Gates so my head would be filled with music instead of of his deceptive words.
I promised our daughter I would do nothing to embarrass her at her graduation. It will not be easy to keep my opinion of this Judas to myself.
If you can, turn your seats around with your back to him while he talks a la Ray McGovern: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ray-McGovern-Assaulted-Bl-by-Rob-Kall-110217-781.html
I’ll wear a pair of mirrored sun glasses and listen to my wife’s iPod. Maybe security will drag me out for just doing that. It’s possible that Gates expects adulation and everyone to jump to respectfully as the esteemed Micro-god enters the room.
Or better yet, one of their NSA spies will be alerted by the NSA super computer, human eyes will read my comments and the thought police will make sure to deny me tickets to our daughter’s Stanford graduation using the excuse that I might be dangerous because I’m a Vietnam veteran with PTSD.
“It seems that Bill Gates may be the Anti Christ that the world has been warned about.”
I’m an atheist, but I’ll gladly defer to religion for the sake of labeling this sob Gates as the anti-Christ.
For an atheist, we could call Gates an Archfiend, ogre, rogue, scoundrel, scamp, fiend, brute, dastardly person, degenerate, serpent, monster, troll or villain.
Received this in my inbox yesterday for my state SOS, and thought others might be interested:
Legislators need to see this U tube of Charlotte Danielson, guru of teacher evaluation, and hear what she says about standardized tests used to evaluate teachers
Charlotte Danielson on Teacher Evaluation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo8EyEdubkA
(Danielson also mentions this would result in full employment for lawyers….).
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I am a NBCT and in response to Bill Gates giving the keynote address I am returning my certificate and asking for all of my information to be pulled from their database. I don’t care to be associated with a group that supports Gates and his ideas. If I didn’t teach at a school where I had to join the union I would not be a member of the National Education Association either.
I don’t understand why attendees to this conference tolerate this slap in the face. Why would any teacher show any respect to this man by attendings his speech. I think a large part of why it has been so very easy for the so-called ed reformers is because we are so passive. What an “up yours” to the teaching profession to have Gates speak.
“National Board for Professional Teaching Standards”
Are you sure this fancy name isn’t a front for one of the Wolves of Sesame Street? These marauders often mask their activities behind names that sound patriotic and supportive of education—names designed to mislead.