It has to annoy Bill Gates that he has not yet been able to buy the schools of Seattle, where he lives. But the stars are aligning for him. He is pushing behind the scenes for a mayoral takeover–which is a sure path to charters and corporate reform. Nothing like killing off democratic control of public education to clear the way for corporate reform.
Next on the docket is a rushed process to make the interim superintendent, Larry Nyland, the permanent superintendent. He seems like a pliable sort, and he is surrounded by Broadies left over from an earlier superintendent who was Broad-trained.
The school board announced hearings just a few days ago, while everyone was thinking about Thanksgiving, that the future of Nyland will be decided Wednesday. Forget about the national search the board promised.
Citizens should turn out, ask questions, and insist that the public schools belong to the public, not to Bill Gates, Eli Broad, or their billionaire friends.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Oh, Diane, don’t be a conspiracy theorist. Only “fringe” people believe that politicians and public policy are influenced by really powerful private sector actors and giant wads of cash.
That’s crazy talk.
The only time it ISN’T crazy talk is when labor unions are lobbying politicians. Then it’s “political” and …icky.
Ed reformers are intrinsically pure and noble. They operate somewhere above politics, even when they’re blatantly and obviously lobbying to direct public policy.
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Well said. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (initial funding of the foundation is by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) is not managed by Bill Gates. The foundation board funds all causes, pro and anti based on proposals submitted to it. It is well known that the foundation funded both NEA and AFT to the tune of well over 8 million dollars to support the formulation of Common Core (2009). The 4 million teachers were represented by their Unions and it is sad to keep saying that the teachers were never consulted. It is also impossible to consult all the teachers.
The Common Core concept/idea was floated by a National committee formed by an Education Secretary in Washington. The committee represented all types of people.
Please check the causes and organizations funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Besides the foundation does not own Microsoft exclusively, they have diversified and own a verity of stocks of other companies. It is a shame that all anti establishment people always think and spout that Bill Gates is after making more money, when all he has done is give away the most money in history for great causes to help the poor and the needy everywhere in the world. Besides what will Bill Gates do after buying the school systems, make more money to give away?
You can also check the money spent by Labor Unions on fighting the causes they do or do not support. It is in the multi millions. CTA/NEA/AFT spent an enormous sum of money to reelect Torlakson in California. His position has no power but the unions spent their money anyway. In the rest of the country, the Unions took a beating. When will they learn?
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Somebody’s sarcas-o-meter malfunctioned.
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Methinks Raj is paid for his comment.
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You thinks wrong
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You misunderstood my comment. I think it’s nuts to exempt ed reform billionaires from any due diligence.
I wish public schools would stop taking the money. I’m not even clear that it makes financial sense. The orgs pay the start up costs and then stick the public with the continuing cost. Is that a good value? Does anyone ask?
I wish we had lawmakers that weren’t so deferential to wealthy people.
I don’t even think the (alleged!) representatives of the public are doing their job AT ALL, let alone a good job.
I also wish the revolving door between these foundations and government were analyzed. They’re the same 150 people! It’s like an exclusive little club.
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Why feed the trolls?
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Raj, do you work directly for the Gates Foundation, or does your spouse or another family member or close friend?
Or do you, or someone else who is close to you, work for one of the many organizations that wouldn’t even exist without suckling at the teat of the Gates Foundation and its Privatization Agenda?
Whether you or a family member work directly or indirectly for Gates is almost irrelevant however, since the “cut & paste” job you’ve done here of their PR Talking Points is predictable and tired.
Tell them they aren’t getting their money’s worth, although I will concede it’s hard not to sound obsequious and obtuse when you do this type of “work.”
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It is unfortunate that so many groups eat at the gilded trough of the billionaires. I read an interesting article today by Walter E. Williams, who unfortunately is an economist. He points out increased distain among oligarchs for the “inefficiency” of democracy. I am sure Gates is of this opinion as well.
ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/peg_faq.html
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Sorry! Here’s the correct link http://www.dentonrc.com/opinion/columns-headlines/20141127-walter-e.-williams-elite-show-contempt-for-ordinary-americans.ece .
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“The Billionaire’s Beef”
Democracy’s inefficient
It takes so gol-darned long
I really am impatient
To sing my favorite song
So buy me politicians
And buy me think-tank wonks
To consummate my positions
And give me endless thanks
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I’m gong to re-post this from another thread, as it is on point—the removal of democratic control of schoos
– – – – – – – – –
The evidence shows that there is a deliberate and systematic defunding of traditional schools in order to facilitate the total privatization of public schools.
Before (also during and after) the first step described above even happens, the forces of privatization have been deliberately rigging the game against the traditional public schools succeeding and in favor of the charters outdoing them (even with these and other advantages, the charters are NOT outdoing them, but that’s another story.)
They accomplish that rigging by systematically starving the traditional public schools—the ones with a unionized force of teachers staffing them, naturally—of funding, so as to cause failure that results from this underfunding:
— jacking up of class sizes sky-high,
— cutting salaries so quality teachers leave for better paying jobs outside of education,
— no supplies for students teachers,
… and on on and.
Privatizers then use that “failure”—the one that THEY actually and knowingly caused—to close public schools. Without mentioning that they are the actual cause via their deliberate underfunding, privatizers then instead attribute the failure to the general idea that well… public schools controlled by elected school boards are just inherently doomed to failure because of evil unions and other innate deficiencies—no stable governance—that goes along with a system of publicly controlled schools via democratically-elected school boards..
Witness this video:
… where Netflix CEO and arch privatizer Reed Hastings is giving a keynote address to the California Charter School Association. Reed says that the biggest current problem in education is that the public simply loves democracy and democratically-elected school boards so much, as they’ve been “an iconic American institution they’ve known for 200 years.”
(During which the U.S. has become the most dominant economic giant in the history of the human race, and created the economic opportunity and system that allowed Reed to become a billionaire, but Reed, of course, does not go there.)
Reed says that the challenge for privatizers like the California Charter School Association and others is to propagandize the public into hating democracy (when it comes to school governance) and school boards—Reed calls this process “evolv(ing) America”—so that Reed and his allies can wipe those democratic bodies off the face of the earth.
——————————–
REED HASTINGS:
“If we go to the general public and we say, ‘Here’s an argument why we should get rid of school boards, no one’s going to go for it, because school boards have been an iconic part of America for 200 years.”
———————————-
Reed says that democratically-elected school board members are the problem with education, and they must “be replaced by privately-held corporations in the next 20-30 years.”
He talks about how inefficient democracy is… how the bosses aren’t free to do any “long-term planning” (what is he, Stalin, with multiple “Five-Year Plans”?) because school boards are actually accountable to private citizens in such actions. This is so unlike those private boards that Reed so loves, unaccountable bodies that are free to do whatever they want whenever they want whether the public actually wants it or not.
Again, they use the alleged traditional public schools’ “failure”—again, for which they, the privatizers, are truly culpable—as the pretext for then closing traditional public schools, and replacing them with privatized charters. Reed even brags about how New Orleans is 90% privatized with charters… and how California, at a mere 8%, has “a lot of catch up to do.”
If anyone ever tries to sell you the lie that “charters don’t want to replace public schools. They merely want to provide parents more choice of schools and options. They want to work side-by-side with traditional public schools, sharing best practices… There will be a family of schools—public, charter, private—walking hand-in-hand through the meadow of education… blah-blah-blah… ”
When you hear them blather this, and about how noble the charter movement is, play them this video. The privatizers, as Reed blathers here, WANT TO CONTROL ALL SCHOOLS AND ELIMINATE PUBLIC EDUCATION, AND DON’T YOU FORGET IT!!! He’s giving the keynote address to the Charter School association… listen to them cheer Reed on when he blatantly calls for this. They can’t deny it. It’s on freakin’ video.
Also, look at how they loudly this charterizer-privatizer crowd cheers when Reed references the show “HOUSE OF CARDS”, a drama about sociopathic D.C. political hucksters and insiders. Indeed, the catchphrase of Kevin Spacey’s slimy leader character:
“Democracy is so over-rated.”
Disgusting.
The problem the privatizers run into is in school districts with a strongly progressive (liberal… there, I said it 😉 ) tradition, such as the case with Los Angeles’ LAUSD. Unlike other major cities where the mayor used political maneuvering and power to replace school boards with a rubber stamp kangaroo school board appointed by the a pro-privatization mayor (New York, Chicago, etc.), Los Angeles remains a city where schools are controlled by the citizen-taxpayers / voters… because that’s the way the voters (and school parents, of course) want it.
In 2006, school privatizer Mayor Villaraigosa successfully got the state legislature to pass a law to give him and the Mayor’s office control of the schools similar that of mayors in New York and Chicago—a rubber stamp board appointed by him—but this was challenged and thankfully thrown out by a judge.
That’s when the privatizers then go to Plan B (as Villaraigosa did):
work within and use the democratic school board system that they so despise and so want to eliminate… with the ultimate goal being to gradually destroy and eliminate that same system down the road. It’s privatization in slow, stealth steps, if you will.
The cynicism is breathtaking. Here’s how read describes it,
—————–
REED HASTINGS:
“Now, if we go to the general public and say, ‘Here’s an argument why we should get rid of school boards,’ no one’s going to go for it. School boards have been an iconic part of America for 200 years.”
—————-
So what’s a corrupt privatization movement to do in the face of this?
Why… just approach that same public that dead-set is against privatization… tell them a bunch of lies and trick them into voting in a bunch of politicians that will then do exactly what the public doesn’t want…. privatize education and eliminate public schools.
In the video, Reed euphemistically calls this tactic “work(ing) within the district to grow (i.e. privatize via charters) steadily.”
So how do they do that?
Reed and his allies (Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Walton family, et al) run corporate/privatizer puppet candidates—trojan horses, if you will. As with trojan horses, these candidates present themselves to the public by proclaiming benign intentions and backgrounds—failed candidate Kate Anderson comes to mind… she was “the plucky mom who just cares about kids and their schools”… and who also got $3 million from the privatizers to run her campaign.
However, once they are in power, these trojan horses then defund and sabotage the pre-existing public schools, and ramp up privatization—replacing tho traditional public (and yeah unionized) schools with privatized charters. The most recent and most prominent of these “trojan horses” is Marshall Tuck, the failed candidate for California State Superintendent of Public Instruction. Tuck—and his campaign in general—is a virtual epitome and prototype of the privatization trojan horse politician. (He got over $30 millilon dollars just from out-of-state billionaires pushing for privatization.)
Here are some of the things that trojan horse privatizers do once elected:
—approve whatever cockamamie “Ted Morris”-like charter proposal that is presented to them, as every charter opened (no matter how inept or corrupt and damaging to that charter’s students/parents/attendance area) drains children and funding away from public schools, and removes a brick from the wall of public education… eventually the whole wall collapses;
— close “failing” (as defined by the privatizers, of course) traditional public schools and replace with charters;
— gut funding for the traditional public schools, which, in turn, raises the class-size sky-high… and triggering “failure”; also, since fewer classrooms are needed, this also facilitates charter expansion, in the form of invasions of the campus, otherwise known as “co-locations” (SEE BELOW);
— gut the pay of teachers, lowering the quality of education… great teachers will quit, become disgruntled—causing dissension within the teachers union, and influencing other potentially great teachers considering teaching as a career—who would otherwise end up at a traditional public school—not to do so;
— in general, bring about the de-professionalization of teaching, devaluing it from a highly-skilled, highly-educated, respected, decades-long career and profession—such as doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc.—and dragging it down to a low-level, short-term service job such as office temping, fast food, or retail, with low-pay—2 years or 5 max and you’re out… rinse and repeat; indeed, how can the privatizing profiteers make a profit if they have to pay professional wages?
— eliminate or gut tenure… all the while claiming it’s all for the kids, so that they’ll be great teacher in ever classroom… when that’s clearly not their goal… de-professionalization and privatization is;
— appoint a “Broad Academy-trained” Superintendent who terrorizes the teaching force, and targets teacher union activists and older, veteran teachers… replacing them with mostly anti-union Teach for America… who have a scant five weeks training, and will be gone after two years, three tops;
— force co-location of charters on public school campus, facilitating the expansion of charters, and chaos, leading to the destruction of public schools.
All of the above (and so much more) is EXACTLY what happened in LAUSD when the board dominated by corporate privatization puppets Yolie Flores, Monica Garcia, and Tamar Galatzan took over in 2009.
Thankfully, this disaster has been stopped and rolled back, thanks to a informed voting public that has woken up to the privatization crisis at hand. In the last four elections, the good guys all won (despite being outspent anywhere from 5-to-1 to 100-to-1).
— career educator Bennett Kayser defeated privatization shill / non-educator Luis Sanchez (taking over privatizer Yolie Flores’ seat on the Board);
— career educator Steve Zimmer defeated privatization shill / non-educator Kate Anderson (keeping his seat);
— career educator Monica Ratliff defeated privatization shill / non-educator Antonio Sanchez;(taking over privatizer Nury Martinez’ seat)
— career educator George McKenna defeated privatization shill / non-educator Alex Johnson; (taking over the seat of the late Marguerite LaMotte, a true public school champion)
(privatization puppet Monica Garcia came to within 4 percentage points of facing a run-off with education activist Robert D. Skeels… while spending $3 million dollars to Robert’s $30,000…. but we’ll get her next time 😉 )
In the case of the Yolie Flores and Monica Garcia, the level of cynicism of the privatizers was quite stunning. They ran candidates proclaiming themselves to be poor Chicanas from the barrio, who would fight for the rights of other poor Chicanas from the barrio… blah-blah-blah… and then once they got in, the acted like total corporate reform-bots and execute everything and anything their corporate masters want them to do… even reading speeches that were emailed or faxed into them from their masters in the middle of LAUSD Board meetings
Yolie was so despised by her community once they caught on to what she was all about, that—and after Yolie saw in the polls that she’d lose badly if she tried to run again—she didn’t even try to run for re-election. Instead, privatizer Bill Gates created an educational foundation just for the purpose of giving Yolie a six-figure position… an after-the-fact bribe for services rendered.
As for Monica Garcia, check out this disgraceful performance—during the same event as the Reed Hastings speech above—where the privatizing California Charter Schools Association anointed her the organization’s “Elected Official of the Year”:
Hey, Ms. Garcia, you poor Chicana from the barrio!
NEWSFLASH !!!! — You were elected to IMPROVE the public schools, NOT CLOSE AND/OR ELIMINATE THEM through replacing them with privatized charters!!! As an LAUSD Board Member, you’re supposed to represent the interests of the parents, citizen-taxpayers, and voters in your district, NOT THE INTERESTS OF THE BILLIONAIRES AND VULTURES WHO WANT TO PRIVATIZE AND STEAL AWAY THE PUBLIC EDUCATION THAT BELONGS TO THEM!!!
So why are at one of their events, sucking up to them and getting an award from them???!!!
Also, unlike your optimistic prediction in this video—and that got such a rousing roar from the audience—the CCSA’s privatization candidate, non-educator Alex Johnson LOST to career educator and public school advocate George McKenna. You and your privatization masters didn’t get to place another corporate trojan horse puppet like you—or to use your words… “a change agent”… yuck!—to the LAUSD Board to carry out the bidding of the privatizers.
Four of the seven seats on the LAUSD Board are up for election in the Spring. Between then and now, we need to raise the citizen’s consciousness about the political reality and issues that are being discussed here.
That’s all for now.
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Allie, is that you Jack?
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Kudos! Well stated. Thanks for posting!
Can you give us the link to the original posting and author? Thanks!
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This is the “lessons learned” dispatch from one of the Common Core testing companies.
Their “customer satisfaction” numbers are just awful. It’s on p. 22. Fewer than half of the test subjects (public schools) said the thing “worked well”. On the portal it’s 28%.
Gates should maybe step back from privatizing for a moment and fix his Common Core project. 45% customer service approval is a horrible number. Pearson is getting a 45% and they’re testing third graders? That’s an “F”, right? 🙂
Click to access field-test-lessons-learned.pdf
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Sad, but true.
It started nearly two months ago. Board policy requires grants in excess of $250K to receive board approval. Nyland violated board policy and signed the contract for $750K with Gates nearly two months before receiving board approval. Neither Nyland or district officials told the board about this action. We are being told that $250K were taken into the district, but are being held in an account. Nyland says he is sorry.
Language in the Gates grant connects the city to Seattle Public Schools. Again, the district and Nyland claim the district will need to sign a Partnership Agreement. The contract states differently.
With the exception of Sue Peters and Betty Patu, the board is asleep at the wheel.
The board president violated the district’s Strategic Plan and multiple board policies regarding community input. The hiring of Nyland was placed on the agenda on the eve of Thanksgiving, when no one was watching. The community barely had 8 days notice and there is only 20 slots available for public testimony. Each person is allowed to speak for 2 minutes. I’m sure the Nyland supporters have already been lined-up to speak.
Here is the Gates Narrative that connects the city to Seattle Public Schools:
Click to access 20141015_PreK_Proposal%20Narrative.pdf
The keys to Seattle Public Schools are being handed over to the city and Gates. Transparency is a problem within district offices and a former Gates employee is Assistant Deputy Superintendent.
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The City of Seattle has decided to change the Office of Education to a Department of Education and they already have enough staff to run Seattle Public Schools. The mayor claims he is only trying to put Health and Human Services/ Education under one roof.
http://kplu.org/post/how-seattles-involvement-education-unique-among-cities
Kenneth Wong weighs in.
It should also be noted that Mayor Ed Murray was a legislator and he attempted to pass legislation for appointed school boards.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2003538712_murray240.html
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It sounds like the mayor of Seattle is gearing up to take control of the schools. That is usually the prelude to introducing more charter schools, since the major result of mayoral control is to disempower parents and make them irrelevant when the mayor closes the neighborhood public school and replaces it with a charter school. Kenneth Wong has written extensively on the virtues and benefits of mayoral control.
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I agree. It is interesting to note that the district’s Department of Early learning, was originally to support prek. Now, the Department of Early Learning has morphed into Prek-5th grade (!) alignment and the state defines Early Learning as pre=3.
The city wants to begin looping prek teachers into K. A perfect opportunity to influence the districts hiring practices. Teach for America- anyone?
Thank you, Diane.
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Timing here is not accidental. Public distracted by holidays and press likely bought and paid for, filled with ads and hype to boost sales.
Planned distractions, including timing of major political actions, are underestimated as a “driver” of decisions that narrow public attention to ssues they might well care about. Apathy and self-centeredness also create wide open spaces for policies that Gates et al forward. Gates wants to expand his portfolio of districts that will do what he wants.
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Below you will find the link to the Horse and Pony show put before the Seattle School Board. The Gates Grant had already been signed. Neither Nyland or district staff tell the board.
Director Patu expresses concerns regarding language within the Gates grant at minute 39. Nyland’s comments are seen after Director Patu expresses concerns. Nyland calls language within the Gates contract “unfortunate”.
http://www.seattlechannel.org/videos/video.asp?ID=6588
A community member told the board that the Gates grant had already been signed. Kudos to citizen watchdogs.
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Ohio is still busily opening more charter schools.
Meanwhile, the unfashionable public schools in this state are either scolded and threatened with economic sanctions or ignored.
I wish our ed reformers would all go work for Gates and get off the public payroll. I’m sick of paying people who are opposed to public schools.
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I think the public trough should be only for the teachers, because they are more equal than others.
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I think you’re a troll. Go away Michelle–no one wants to buy your garbage.
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I don’t get it. You don’t want to pay teachers? Teachers should spread their salaries around to various ed reform theorists?
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Bad mouthing does not get you anywhere. Besides I am tired of the crap here.
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How can you be “tired of the crap here” if I haven’t responded to you yet? If you want some shit thrown your way, I’ll oblige, I’m not as polite as the vast majority of posters here.
Do the initials TE mean anything to you?
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“Nothing like killing off democratic control of public education to clear the way for corporate reform.”
Those “corporate reformers” may think they are pulling a fast one, but they didn’t
“think” it through. The “ace” in the hole, is the democratic control of the text book
publishers, as well as the democratic control of the DOE, Supreme Court, Fed Reserve,
NSA, on and on.
They don’t stand a chance of counteracting the critical thinking established to date.
The idiots must be blind to the historical number of graduates and the threat to power
of critical thinking and analysis. When students become adults, with the intellectual
capacity formed through education, they will challenge official dogmas and propaganda.
It shall be called “democratic control”…
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I always wondered why the Gates Foundation leisureplex was built in Seattle and not Redmond. Future Seattle school district office headquarters……………….
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“Bill and the Beanstalk”
Deep within the garden Gates
He planted seeds, for common fates
For beanstalks that would reach the cloud
A Common Core for teaching crowd
The beanstalks grew with public money
Grew in the Land of Milken honey
Put down roots in public schools
Teaching standards, teaching rules
Beanstalks to which teachers bowed
Channels to the data cloud
Where techies harvest student fruit
The more they eat, the more we toot
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TAGO!!
U R the best (especially the tooting)!
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Reblogged this on CWC – Berkeley Marketing and commented:
Bill Gates is at it again—subverting democracy in Seattle to take over or destroy their public schools.
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The Seattle Council PTSA claims they supported an interim contract extension, but did not believe that Nyland was being put=in place for a permanent position:
Dear Seattle School Board Directors,
As strong advocates for family engagement, we are concerned about the timing and rushed nature to appoint Dr. Nyland permanently through 2017.
Our council board feels that a search for a Superintendent could provide other qualified candidates, however we also believe that providing consistent leadership and stability for staff and families also has value for our district at this time. When asked to provide support for a contract extension for Dr. Nyland as interim Superintendent, we agreed. Dr. Nyland’s commitment to stewardship and accountability of SPS resources, closing the opportunity gap, providing better customer service, and responding to parent concerns is encouraging. However, when appointing a permanent Superintendent these criteria and commitments should be fully assessed through a formal process.
SCPTSA did not realize the School Board would be voting on this action so quickly without providing time for families to engage. The specifics of the contract extension, specifically to make this a permanent appointment, and the process for hiring the Superintendent, were unknown even to us. Families have been led to believe that there would be a full and transparent search process for the appointment of a new Superintendent. Five days’ notice over a holiday weekend is simply not enough time.
The School Board should move at a more deliberate pace. This rushed action will likely perpetuate distrust of the School Board and the District. Rushed decisions continue to force parents to react instead of being able to engage effectively in their children’s education.
We ask the School Board to delay this vote to explain the decision process to parents and school communities and allow sufficient time for response. It is vital the School Board takes the proper time to confirm the right person is being hired as the permanent Superintendent of our schools.
Sincerely,
Seattle Council PTSA Board
Katherine Schomer, President
Cassandra Johnston, Vice President
Dianne Casper, Secretary
Jenny Young, Treasurer
Eden Mack, Advocacy/Legislative chair
Julie van Arcken, Central Area Director
Cecilia McCormick, Special Education Director
Annabel Quintero, South West Area Director
CC: PTA Board Leadership for all 82 PTA Local Units in Seattle
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Thank you, Diane.
We have gained a week on this shameful episode before the vote. That happened by voices all around Seattle asking, “What’s going on here?”
We are going to fight for the right to have a superintendent search for the right person for our great district.
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