Over the weekend, Nina Rees, CEO of the Natuonal Alliance for Public Charter Schools, expressed her gratitude to the billionaires who fund charter schools and wondered why anyone could question their kindness and generosity.
Mercedes Schneider explains to Nina Rees why she feels no gratitude to the billionaires. They are harming public education and hurting millions of children, whose public schools are losing resources and programs and teachers as the billionaires build their charter empire to compete with underfunded public schools.
Rees wrote:
“If you heard that a group of philanthropists came together to donate millions of dollars to schools, you would probably consider it good news.”
Schneider responded:
“Anyone who has spent even five minutes on this blog would know that I would not consider the above to be “good news.” I am aware that millions donated “to schools” in this day and age likely means the corporate reform billionaire attempt to convert traditional public education into an under-regulated, market-driven model.”
And it gets better from there on.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
They’re all passing around this piece that anticipates total privatization:
“Maybe much of the work of education can be contracted out, but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be oversight of finances, governance and results. Every school that’s publicly funded should not only strive to do well, but use comparable data for measuring success, Barone suggests.”
I don’t mind that the goal is total privatization. I mind that ed reform politicians never run on it.
I think they have a duty tell voters that this is their position. Then we could have an actual public debate instead of this private conversation between insiders and policy people and lobbyists.
It’s a profound change to privatize US public schools. There should be a real public debate.
http://www.governing.com/topics/education/gov-school-choice-vouchers.html
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In modern days, it is often no longer “philanthropy” which offers money to aid those in need, but Philantrho Capitalists — as many of our biggest and most invasive ” benevolent” financial doners often identify themselves. Some have also self-identified as Venture Philanthropists. The key to understanding why their interventions will always cause more harm than good is right there, easy to recognize in their preferred titles.
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Any movement that seeks to remove local citizens from determining what is best for their children should be suspect. Any movement that tries to manipulate the will and voice of the people from the equation is very suspect. The “investments” in education from billionaires should be scrutinized for what they are. This is villainthropy! The wealthy are purchasing control for either ideological or financial gain. Citizens must stand up to retain local control of their schools, or, as we see, they will be hard-pressed to get them back.
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You wrote:
“This is villainthropy!”
A sober and realistic label.
😎
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“The “investments” in education from billionaires should be scrutinized for what they are. ”
I’d take one step back, and say: refuse grants and investments from billionaires without inspection. The grant wants to advance something by bypassing the public.
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In general, it doesn’t matter, if a philanthropic donation is for something I like. All philanthropic donation is wrong simply because they all bypass democracy.
Tax 90% of the money used by philanthropists, and let the people decide how the money is used.
Yes, things won’t change as quickly and efficiently as in case of a Gates’ Foundation work, but actually, that’s a good thing: time will be given to think over and make decisions about how the money is spent, evidence will be collected, and if evidence is not yet available, research will be requested and evaluated.
We cannot have powerful, ignorant people alter science. Instead of getting teary eyed hearing
“My ex president husband has Alzheimers, so I’ll push for medical research to spend a much higher percentage on Alzheimer research.”
or
“With my wife I decided that eradicating polio would be a cool thing, so we strategically invest our money to achieve that an enormous number of scientists will work on this.”
we should get mad.
Let’s remind people that this trickle-down capitalism was already identified as horse-sparrow capitalism over a century ago by sensible people.
The only change from the times of Carnegie, Mellon and Rockefeller to our time of Gates and Walton is that the modern philanthropists openly seek to financially benefit from their “charity”, openly push for political favors.
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“Let us Praise the billionaires”
Let us praise the billionaires
For all we have that’s good
Cuz billionaires have saintly cares,
Like Noah in the flood
Let us praise their every act
And follow each suggestion
Their every claim is purely fact
That none should ever question
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Noah and his good flood reminds me of Katrina, the best thing that happened to New Orleans.
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Diane .
Diane please Mercedes shuld knows what means Charters Schools .
Is not only about money ,
To Mercedes . She should speake Spanish or Germany . I’m from an island , ironic . Rusians and now , bad news era .
¿Se ha preguntado alguna vez por qué se trata mal a la gente de otra raza o nacionalidad o que habla otro idioma?
To : Mercedes .Have you ever wondered why people are mistreated because they are of a different race or nationality or because they speak a different language?
Where she is from ? I’m pretty sure she is not from Miami dade County hialeah .
Hialeah Educaton Academy
She should know . The true of my nightmare . Here no matter where you front , Spanish languages predominantly , the freedom ?
She better think about it tuice before visit this city .
Mayors won’t like English speakers , I’m not fear , because God is not protected the justice .
I wish , she need to know .
Hialeah Education Academic . Inc is the
The corruption is not a big deal ..
My family are like Germany’s under persecution .
I’m the most wanted why ?
I’ll send a link
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People really have to read what the billionaire foundations are planning for schools.
They’re really quite far along on planning our schools:
https://twitter.com/JoeatMSDF
The ’21st century model” is a completely privatized system where parents and children are “customers” and schools are contract service providers.
The schools can be closed at any time if they don’t achieve “market share” or don’t meet test score goals.
I’m still not clear on what elected lawmaker’s role is in all this- sort of lower level employees who take direction or no role at all?
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Now a Dell portfolio director should know what 21st century education will look like.
As joke, we should ask people from all kinds of professions how they vision 21st century education. Once they give their opinion, we should give them our opinion about how their profession should be adjusted to the 21st century.
Let’s interview car dealers, electric engineers, waitresses, lawyers, truck drivers, preachers, bank managers, football coaches, nurses, doctors, actors, pilots.
People with big egos will be particularly interesting to see how they react.
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PLEASE FOLLOW ME PLEASE AND YOU WON’T REGRET IT .
DIANE IS VERY WELL KNOWS IN HIALEAH AS MANY OTHERS .
SAY NOT TO THE GOOD ONES AND SAY YES TO THE BEST .
AS LONG THERE IS SOMEONE IN THE SKY TO PROTECT ME .
THERE IS NO ONE ON EART WHO CULD BREACK ME .
I’m a father who loss his kid , shark tanks , HIALEAH EDUCATION ACADEMY . Inc .
WHERE AND HOW THE COMITE CRIMENS ?
I WILL MORE THAN HAPPY TO TELL YOU THE REAL TRUE . I PROMISE YOU YOU WANT REGRET .
SUBERSTIMATE NON- ENGLISH SPEAKER .
Is facing a huge problem as I do ,
Nothing by problems quote . They hurt my family , they stolen my kids and them want to stop me .
I’m sorry is not a time to dialogue . Rich people can’t be friends . Do you think dialogue is a waist of time .
Scholls need to do what ? Same as NBA , if there is not pain is not game , nation wide , there is millions of people ready to fight , 3% of this nation can’t control everything is impossible , think it about , an small island with only 12 millions people , those Cubans have their owne weapons , stay and fight or leave and died .
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America is a colony. All of the sacrifices made for the nation are moot. Its people are unable to protect their children from the richest 0.1% and, unable to stop the confiscation of their local taxes, by the richest 0.1%.
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Mercedes is not going to liseten .
Time is priceess . Do you want exchange messages with a person that is not going to help you out ? Is up to you . Exchange messages with parents who knows a lot more . Do you want to exchange messages with me ?
If you disere , them you can shut her mouth or make her think it . You may not even not what you need to .
Hasta la vista
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A great example for philanthropy going completely against the public: I just learnt today that Race to the Top money doesn’t support the Achievement School District—a virtual school district that takes over public schools in Memphis and Nashville, and gives them either to charter operators or directly manages them.
Well, now the vast majority of ASD’s support will come from philanthropy. This means that private donors’ money directly supports public school takeovers.
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Here is the source http://asdinsider.com/happeningnow/goodbye-rttt-hello-philanthropy
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How great is it that they’ve turned public school funding into an optional charitable donation.
Gosh, I hope the next generation meet investment expectations.
What a rip-off. They’ve gone from members of the community who were worthy of public support to charity cases who are dependent on staying in good graces with donors. They were robbed.
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Philanthropist do not support traditional public schools.
What happens is that these philanthropists are funding reformist agendas, like school takeovers by ASD or IZone in Memphis, and the state cuts public school budgets—we can easily guess, who convinces them to do so. The Shelby County School system in Memphis just had a $90 million cut to their budget, so they are closing schools.
Combine school closings and takeovers with the push for standardization, and it’s clear where we are heading: online education in both K12 and higher ed. From Linsey McGoey’s very readable book, “No such thing as a free gift”.
Among policy-makers and education experts, NCLB has very few supporters, but Bill Gates is one of the few. In a 2012 interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, Gates referred to NCLB as a ‘gold standard’ that should be replicated at the level of higher education in order to ensure more consistency in college and university teaching and outcomes.
[…]
Through its support of virtual schooling, the Gates Foundation has helped position online technology giants such as Pearson and Microsoft to profit from the for-profit schooling bonanza.
[…]
The Gates Foundation played a central role in bringing the [CC] standards to fruition. Spending over $233 million to back the standards, the foundation dispersed money liberally to both conservative and progressive interest groups. The two major teachers’ unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, each received large donations, as did the US Chamber of Commerce. Gates himself suggested that a benefit of the standards is that they open avenues towards increasing digital learning. In 2014, Microsoft announced it was partnering with Pearson to load Pearson’s Common Core classroom material onto Microsoft’s Surface tablet.
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If the billionaires are “doing good”, why did Media Matters protect their identities?
Vanity Fair, AARP and AP publish puff pieces about the Gates but, never document Bill’s money “creating different school brands” nor, Bill’s money channeling our kids into “human capital pipelines”, which are greased with the Microsoft/Pearson product development deal.
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The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Conference later this month lists mayors who will be participating. If I was one of them, I would want a member of the community to send me relevant information. I would want to read (1) PR Watch’s recent article about KIPP’s spending and its request for redactions (since a KIPP official is presenting at the conference). (2) The Deutsch 29 blog post about conference speaker, Roland Fryer, whose interview transcript talks about what suburban children need as education vs. the needs of urban children (Shakespeare vs. testing everyday). (3) Huffpo’s article about Media Matters’ exclusion of the identities of the oligarchs who are driving privatization (4) A list of the funders of Campbell Brown’s organization, “74”.
The mayors are, Joseph Curtatone, Somerville, Mass., Kim Driscoll, Salem, Mass., Jorge Elorza, Providence, R.I., Greg Fischer, Louisville, Ky., Libby Schaaf, Oakland, Calf. and Setti Warren, Newton, Mass.
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Diane please .
I know nothing 😉
” 21 Century Socrates ” Spanish is simple .
I have to go to sleep , I’m tired
Republicans are going no where .
I’m tired ( It’s possible convert make it a diamond from Gry ( Gris ) bottle of glass ?
Lady’s and gentlemans .
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Diane please help me.
I know nothing 😉
” 21 Century Socrates ” Spanish is simple .
Who can make an “expensive 🙂
Diamond from a peace a glass ?
Americans are smater than this doom
Republicans have only a piece of glass
( Litles kids never lied , charter schools copied Castros Regimen ) I was told by kids from here . I’m sorry hialeah Fl
Charters roof are mad it from glass
Publics schools are castles
Sander or hilary are real diamonds
Sanders is very smart respect over prominence .
Hilary is not polite like sander , but trumps jokes is destruction of republicans .
Tromps will try thoses bars joukes , result putting the money on the wrong horse .
Last but not least . Hialeah Education Academy . Inc
Is very well know for kid Abuse , Sex -arasment , city mayor is a very corrupt person .
Who don’t believe it . I’ll ready to take a plane and bring it a full lawyers bag of prove , from detectives , parents are mad , kid almost kill him self .
My kid left my house as the result of fisical abuse , mentaly . I’m ready to bring the media , my son left town he is disapiar and hialeah police are criminals, arrasment my daughter a little girl after the principal kick me out from a city park .
The mayor is in triouble , crime organization and him ? Privatization of Pubkic paark no happen in a regimen like the Cuban .
Polices arasment my family , 2 detectives invade my house with another police and what a a coincide that detective is buying ilegal steroids , as he saw me , hide his bached and was recited by a very well knows ex-Fed agents with a great heart Bill Clinton is very well knows by . Coral Gables , where Jeb bush has a house a mantion ( Bill Clintos era , a huge mantion cost less tan $ 200 , 000
Lady’s and gentilmans ( real mean don’t abuse of 12 years old gils and polices can’t violed poor people rifts , resolt the told me treat stop or died .
Everything knows if I get kill was planes for thoses who are making ilegal Busines with the mayor of hialeah Carlos Hernandez . Polices knows that Reinald Rodriguez / is very well knows for molesting . Yes sex – arasment a bunch of gilrls
Names .
1- PEREZ 2- CASTILLO
PLUS . A bunch of girls and my kid who has mental problem , left kew boune almost the evil antiny nalepa destroyed his fragil leg .
November 24/2015
I bring the news to the city hall and Antony was fired but not arrested , the principal told me he is really bad boy and arrasnent my doubter , treat me sending me a picture of my 11 years old daugter melanie and told me the abuse of my son was real but the police will take care of me . True , the polices of hialeah pulling over my wife intimidate her and my kids . God is watching , he will close Hialeah Education Academy and My God true God is injustice Hater , those polices change reports but deferal detective a good friend of a nice presidente get the real ones , from where the state and the mayoir can’t play , FBI knows everything . Who wasnt to stand up ?
I don’t need to much help , but the more parents as posible is my responsibility as a person honor , loyalty , respect those quality are my power and God bless America does mean God bless Bad people , God bless people who respect the dignity of thoses who died for everyone and everywhere , God is impartial , is better get in trouble with any evil people than Force the kindness but no . This messages is from a parent than no one want help . Why ?
I’m from Cuban , we’ll God love people from the whole world but don’t like Bad people’s .
Ignoring a child abuse is same as the point of view of human law is guilty and is guilty from heavens . Devels are in pain , always in panic . I need suport , who suporting and stand up , is defending and protecting abuse kids abusers are like terror , traumas for the rest of poor kids abusec .
I want , but you any one who run are Runer , quitters are doing nothing . Wines never quiet !
Thanks
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