Reader Michael Fiorillo writes in response to Carol Burris’s post about Gwen Ifill’s interview of Bill and Melinda Gates:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made.”
-F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Three cheers for (actual) “close reading” of text, even if the text happens to be fiction!
LikeLike
Exactly right, Mike Fiorillo–the 99% are all janitors and cleaning people for the billionaires like the Gates. They never taught in school, never studied education, never sent their own kids to public schools, never went to public schools themselves, but they are so vastly rich they must know how to educate everyone else’s kids. The arrogance ids worthy of 17thC kings and queens, which is where the vast looting of the American economy in past 40 years has brought us, great wealth captured by few, treading water or sinking for the many.
LikeLike
Great passage and so appropriate. Now everything makes sense.
LikeLike
This quote exemplifies the value of literature as a way of understanding reality.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Precisely, Diane, which is one reason why the so-called reformers seek to efface it.
LikeLike
“I think fiction is the truest thing there ever was.” — Arundhati Roy (http://tmblr.co/Z3Gyvn1FPaXMW)
LikeLike
Reblogged this on StrangeLander2015 and commented:
Literature holds the mirror up to the truth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
LikeLike
Diane, I was unable to find my original post to you asking if you could/would accept an appointment from President Obama to help steer education for the next 14 months. What follows is the petition I have sent out through care2petitions. Thank you for all you do. Judy Fay
Tell President Obama to stop spending federal money on charter schools and stop high stakes testing in our public schools.
In the past two decades, 3.3 billion dollars has been spent by the federal government to support the privatization of education in the form of charter schools; even though charter schools have been unable to perform better than conventional public schools overall. Inadequate oversight of how that money has been spent has led to squandered waste. That money has been taken away from public schools resulting in less resources for our school children: higher class sizes, school buildings in need of repair, less resources for the classroom.
With Arne Duncan stepping down as Secretary of Education, President Obama has an opportunity to appoint Diane Ravitch to guide education toward equitable funding for all public schools during this interim period before a new President appoints a new Sec. of Ed.
We need responsible testing generated by school districts and their teachers that does not tie teacher performance to student test scores. The Common Core standards and tests were designed to create a profit driven, education market for the promotion of tests, curriculum and consultants.
The Federal Govt. has recently authorized an additional 350 million dollars more in 2016 for charter schools. Tell President Obama High stakes testing and charter schools do not support the learning, health and well-being of all children, and families. We need well re-sourced schools where creativity, project-based learning, environmental stewardship and imagination are fostered.
Please call the White House hotline at 202-456-1414 or 202-456-1111 to add your comments on this issue. The White House takes written comments at http://www.whitehouse.gov; click on contact us. Please spread this message through your social media contacts.
LikeLike
That is very kind of you, Judy, but the President has already chosen John King as his next Secretary of Education.
LikeLike
If Bernie came out and said he would make Diane his Sec of Education, it would be about the only way I could support his candidacy more.
LikeLike
i wish someone in the media…..who are willing to ask anything meaningful about what is actually happening with public education….that simple question moose mentioned…..who will you name as your secretary of education? If you can get anyone to answer….and it might take a dozen attempts by a dozen people…..that might open some dialogue.
LikeLike
media are unwilling to ask
LikeLike
Actually, John King is the “Acting Secretary of Education.” That little word “Acting” negates the need for a contentious Senate confirmation hearing. The permanent “Secretary of Education” has yet to be named, so there is still hope! (The next presidential election will determine how much hope is appropriate.)
LikeLike
There are only 14 months left of Obama’s presidency. He won’t nominate a new secretary.
LikeLike
I had the exact same quote run thought my head the other day, when I read their interview….ahhhhhh fiction comes to life.
LikeLike
Great quote by Mike Fiorillo.
LikeLike
“The Great Gates, B.”
He lies with his lips
And lies with his money
He lies to the Libs
And even his Honey
He tells all these fibs
Which makes him a cad
But lying to kids
Is really quite sad
LikeLike
SomeDAM Poet,
Love your poem. So right on.
LikeLike
Melinda and Bill (Daisy and Tom) have an insurmountable deficit in self insight and, they lack the foundation for a moral compass.
LikeLike
True!
LikeLike
“Moral Compasses”
The compass of the Gates
Points always at True Bill
And never hesitates
On any run of mill
LikeLike
Yes, all about Bill, all of the time. He even had to make the ALS bucket challenge about himself.
LikeLike
This is one of my favorite quotations, especially when students read it and have an epiphany about the true nature of the greedy and self-absorbed, who make messes of other people’s lives then walk away. I’m looking at you Bill and Melinda.
LikeLike
I’m glad to hear that this great novel is part of the curriculum, somewhere. I’m sure it’s not considered important to the ‘common core’.
LikeLike
Saw both Gates interviews linked here recently. I cannot get the sights and sounds of Bill Gates self-claiming his role as technocrat who doesn’t have to listen to anyone, and whose opinions supersede those of democracy. Makes my skin crawl.
LikeLike
Years ago, I read that Gatsby was Gates’ favorite book. I think he missed the point, misinterpreted the theme. Greed is NOT good, Bill.
LikeLike
Perhaps he looked upon the book as a career guidance manual.
People too easily forget that, before starting his foundation in order to rehabilitate his public reputation, Gates was widely seen as the robber baron he always has been and remains to this day.
There’s a very revealing quote in Fred Moody’s biography of Gates (“I Sing the Body Electronic”), in which he dismisses competitors in the publishing field by saying, “So, they have finite greed.”
There you have it: education in the US is being transformed to suit the personal interests and will to power of a man who is proud of his infinite greed.
LikeLike
He “believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.”
LikeLike
I think Gatesby might even outdo Gatsby.
LikeLike
That is really funny! Gave me a good laugh.
LikeLike
Today the schools, tomorrow the world. Wait till you see what Bill has spent on Global
Development.
LikeLike
needed: new support group: Asgi’s (Adult Survivors of Gates Interventions)
LikeLike
Kippdawson, that’s a good one, or as they say on this blog: TAGO. Is that a disorder on the spectrum?
LikeLike
Maybe two or three years ago I re-read “Gatsby’. I liked it when I read it over 40 years ago, but at my age and in these times, it resonates with so much more richness. Hemingway’s style was direct. His sentence structure was simple. And, he was great. But Fitzgerald was almost the polar opposite, and he was greater.
‘Gatsby’ is a book to be read. Like ‘Crime and Punishment’, so much action takes place in the thoughts of the main character that it is almost impossible to translate into any other medium. The written words reflecting the thoughts of the character elicit thoughts in your mind that mimic them, and draw you in. It is a work of genius.
If you ‘saw the movie’ and think you know Gatsby, you aren’t even close.
And, this from me, a ‘STEM guy’ with degrees in astronomy and physics. (Actually, I resent “S” being included in the same category as “T,E and M”. They aren’t even remotely similar. Science explores inductive logic, Math involves deductive, and T and E are like car mechanics). But, of course, TFA English majors know far more than I do about everything, and they say that ‘fiction’ is useless.
LikeLike
A wise man (Fred Hechinger) once wrote that you read great books, but more important is that they read you. He meant that as you grow older, you derive greater and deeper meaning from books that you were required to read for school but didn’t really understand.
LikeLike