EduShyster interviewed author Megan Tompkins-Stange about her new book “Policy Patrons,” which reports on the five years she spent working inside the big foundations that fund corporate-style reform: Gates and Broad, who pursue top-down reforms, and Ford and Kellogg, which are likelier to be “field-oriented.”
EduShyster says at the outset that the book shows the foundations to be “heavy with hubris,” certain that they have all the right answers. The Gates Foundation was giddy with joy to see how closely their goals meshed with those of the Obama administration.
EduShyster says, “We overhear the Broad folks reveling in their success in New Orleans and the failure of the opt out movement, and Team Gates crowing over, well, everything. But both have ended up getting some comeuppance of late—Gates over the Common Core and Broad over Eli Broad’s charter expansion plan in Los Angeles.
Tompkins-Stange responds:
I think what we’re seeing, with Gates and Broad in particular, is that they started from the point of view that *If you apply capital to X problem then Y solution will happen.* For example, if you make a vaccine available, disease will be eradicated. But that worldview hasn’t translated well to education, and the challenge for them now is how do they change their culture and their values in order to better operate within this context? Because what they’ve done up to this point is based on a very strategic, very technical way of looking at the world. You’re starting to see a real normative concern emerging in the field about not including people in public education reform, and not having the voices of these underrepresented groups that are going to be affected. Maybe now that we’re having this national conversation about power, race and oppression, that’s coming to the fore more as a topic of discussion within foundations.
One point that comes through loud and clear is that Gates and Broad find democracy to be a “hindrance,” an obstacle to the strategic plans that they have concocted with minimal interaction with those who will be affected.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Gates and Broad–and their minions–have always applied a business mindset (“If you apply capital to X problem then Y solution will happen”) to their foundation work–and that may be ok when trying to eradicate malaria, or HIV/AIDS…but education isn’t a technical problem, or a medical problem. In fact, it’s not a problem. Education is a complex and complicated web of relationships–and you don’t “solve” relationships. You ask questions, you listen, and you work with persons.
Clearly, this is not even an option for Bill and Eli, who already “know” what the solutions are. Talking and listening would just slow them down…
Yes. EDUCATION is not the problem, poverty and social inequity are the problems. This, however, is not how they approach the issue. Education engenders MASSIVE public money. Poverty and social inequity? Not so much…
I will say, as I’ve already done time and again, education reform is simply about making money, kids and teachers be damned. The key: dispossession of teachers and their families of a livelihood and living and subsequent enrichment with the freed up money. Piece o’cake. All other debates on the subject are trivial and divert the necessary attention that’s needed to stem the misappropriation and transformation of democratic self-rule into merely consumer options. In this vein, the language of democracy has been hijacked by well-funded right wing think tanks who represent the elite. Democracy is now “privatized” into consumer CHOICE not citizen PARTICIPATION. That’s why I’m sick of this anti-government crap because, in theory, WE are the government, as laughable as it sounds today, but because of the aforementioned propaganda campaign, government is now removed from the citizenry and presented as an out of control wastefully spending Leviathan bogeyman to be quashed by free markets (that apparently know how to “save” money, nevermind corporate welfare) with choices only, no participation needed! The wealthy, let alone ed reformers, depend on this mass mindset.
“We are the government.” This is certainly what the Constitution intended. The only way to return the government to the people is to get the money out of politics. We need to take measures to stop people like Broad and Gates from imposing their views by using their money to co-opt our representatives. We need a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. We need follow the lead of some Scandinavian countries and give all candidates the same amount of money paid for by the government. This would level the playing field so that the public is more likely to vote for those that really want to serve and not just opportunists that represent special interest groups. Otherwise, the wealthy will remake our nation, as you have said, and turn democracy into a commodity. Unfortunately, we are getting closer to this each day.
It is about the money, but not the money to be made off of education. The wealth to be preserved and increased by the destruction of Public goods like Public education.
A discredited Government that can not Tax or Regulate is their goal.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
Bill Gates and Eli road find democracy to be a “hindrance,” an obstacle to the strategic plans to change America to what they want it to be.
Is there enough evidence to prove treason, subversion, or seditious conspiracy by Bill Gates, Eli Broad, etc.?
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2381
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384
“Bribery is one of the most common tools of subversion. Most societies see bribery as a form of corruption and it used as a subversive tool because it, “implies the undermining of existing rules of political or moral conduct”.[33] It can also be one of the less reliable tools as well. Bribed officials are only useful if they take action. However actions taken over a period of time draw suspicion from the public. The official must be able to carefully conceal their actions or perform only key functions and action. For these reasons bribed officials are most effective when they are asked to take immediate action. In the case of external subversion, bribery is usually used for influence rather than for actions.[34]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion
Interesting approach, Lloyd. Thanks!
When so-called education reformers prescribe solutions for other people’s children suffer from excessive hubris, the oblivion of their privileged positions and a lack of respect for democracy. So, they easily adopt a “whatever it takes to get the job done” perspective. I wrote about this in 2013. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/15/the-problem-with-whatever-it-takes-to-get-the-job-done/
While I do not equate supporters of privately-run, but publically-funded charter schools with authoritarians like Trump, the current spectrum of anti-democratic thinking (democracy as a suspendable inconvenience) is a disturbing slippery slope.
http://www.arthurcamins.com
“. . . the current spectrum of anti-democratic thinking (democracy as a suspendable inconvenience) is a disturbing slippery slope.”
Well stated Arthur! Indeed, “suspendable inconvenience”.
In response to Ethan Gray at the article, who implores readers to provide solutions instead of critiques (the inconvenience of dissent):
[from his response]
“. . . what the non-reform crowd actually is in favor of doing (and not just against) will result in more students attending high quality schools.”
[my response]
I see this criticism frequently. Those non-reform crowd’s “solutions” are widely available, take the time to read and understand them.
Be that as it may one must first correctly identify the problem and the context of the problem. And that is where the edudeform and privateer people have been completely off-base. And once the problem is identified in public education it should be up to the local districts to address them as that is where the real “action” goes on. [using democracy as it should be vs imposition of will from afar]
To criticize not having a solution for false problems seems ludicrous and risible to me. Here is my take (from forthcoming book) on this “Oh, you criticize but you don’t have solutions.”:
A tactic of administrators or any powers that be to silence those bold enough to critique their policies and practices, even after agreeing with one’s critique, is “Well, you’ve criticized what we are doing but “What is your solution?” usually said with such tone and emphasis as if they have now trapped the perpetrator in a debate dilemma. The administrator knows that it is impossible to come up with a feasible solution to your critiques in the minute or two they allot you to do so, solving his/her problem of the critical thinker in their employ. He/She walks away smug in his/her confidence that he/she won that verbal battle. And you’re left standing there thinking “What a smug ass bastard!”
It takes an immense amount of ego, of hubris and gall to think that one person can solve long standing, seemingly intractable structural problems in the public education realm especially on such short notice. To attempt to do so guarantees failure. Not only that but who am I to propose solutions for everyone else? Our society doesn’t work that way. So I offer no specific answers but I do offer some general guidelines in struggling to lessen the many injustices that current educational malpractices entail:
• Correctly identify malpractices that hinder the teaching and learning process and that cause harm to or do injustice to students.
• Immediately reject those malpractices, cease doing them as soon as is practically possible.
• Maintain a “fidelity to truth” attitude in identifying those malpractices and instituting new practices.
• Focus on inputs and resources. Are they adequate to provide that all children have access to a learning environment in which they can learn to “savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
• Involve all, interested community members, parents, students, teachers, aides, other support personnel, administrators and the school board in revising and formulating new policies and practices so, paraphrasing the voice from the movie “Field of Dreams”:
IF WE PROVIDE IT, THEY WILL COME!
It being the proper resources implemented with a fidelity to truth attitude.
They being results in line with the fundamental purpose(s) of public education–“to promote the welfare of the individual so that each person may savor the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the fruits of their own industry.”
I knew from the onset that Gates money was not what public education needed.
When Big Money pushes to make education “competitive,” they push a winners-losers game onto the public school system and thus make educational services into PRIVILEGED CONSUMER services.
ciedie aech
Not just big money as reflected in the wealth of foundations and billionaire agenda today, but also policy makers and shapers, some of these elected. The first competitive push in my professional lifetime was the National Defense Education Act, beating the Russians in the Space Race and all of that.
We did remarkable things to counter the perceived threat from Sputnik, but the generation that pushed those achievements was educated during and just after WWII.
The next big competitive pressure on the policy front started in 1983 with “A Nation at Risk.” That ethos has been non-stop since. The need to compete in the global economy is “justified” by citations of scores on international tests. Test scores are invariably cited in chest beating about the need for “reform.” Add the competiton for profits from what is now formally organized as the EdTEch business.
Perhaps if these rich “reformers” paid there fair share of taxes we could adequately fund the schools. Nutrition, health care, anti-poverty programs could all use their fair share from these people.
But that is exactly why they attack PUBLIC Goods like Public Schools or Social Security, so that they can portray Government as failing and never pay their fair share.