This is one of the very best poems from Some DamPoet. He/she wrote it after the Gates Foundation admitted that its plans were not working out as well as they hoped, but that they intended to double down on their foundering efforts. The Los Angeles Times reprimanded the Gates Foundation for its hubris. So does Our Poet.
“The Charge of the Gates Brigade” (based on “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
Half a wit, half a wit,
Half a wit onward,
All in the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered
“Forward, the Gates Brigade!
Charge for the schools!” he said.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered
II
“Forward, the Gates Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the Coleman knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and lie.
Into the Valley of Dumb
Bill and Mel foundered
III
Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
Boldly they tuned out that,
Into the Ravitch jaws,
Into the mouth of cat
Bill and Mel foundered
IV
Flashed all their BS bare,
Dashed was their savoir faire
VAMming the teachers there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in with mir’s-n-smoke
Valiantly went for broke;
Cluelessly rushin’
Reeled from reality’s stroke
Shattered and sundered.
VAMming attack, for naught,
Bill and Mel foundered
V
Teachers to right of them,
Teachers to left of them,
Teachers behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with fact and stat,
While Bill and Mel chewed fat
They that had fought the BAT
Came through the Ravitch jaws,
Back from the mouth of cat,
All that was left in end:
Bill and Mel foundered
VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Gates Brigade,
Bill and Mel foundered
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Hello Diane: On the poem: “The Charge of the Gates Brigade,” has there been any direct response from the Gates camp to such publications? Am I correct to think that there is no hope for a decent dialogue to occur, or is that all over with? or do you think the Gates and/or others in their position just don’t want to say: “I hate democracy”? Ignorance is not contemptible–that’s what education is about. However, dogmatic ignorance is?
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Before you can have dialogue with people who are trying to destroy you, they must stop trying to destroy you.
When Bill, Melinda and their worker wasps in the reform hive demonstrate good faith efforts to stop their attacks on teachers and public education, then dialogue can begin.
Until then, implacable resistance to their lying, arrogance, undermining of democratic rights and inhumanity is called for.
And SomeDam Poet outdoes her/himself here, in form and content. Bravo/Brava!
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“When Bill, Melinda and their worker wasps in the reform hive demonstrate good faith efforts to stop their attacks on teachers and public education, then dialogue can begin. Until then, implacable resistance to their lying, arrogance, undermining of democratic rights and inhumanity is called for.”
And to Steve B.: Why don’t you overdo it and at least say what you mean?
But really, folks, one thing I cannot believe is that the Gates (as one example) started out wanting to hurt education of children in the US or any other country. Does anyone here want to claim that? . . .
. . . even though it’s just as clear to most on this blog that they go about it in ignorant and dogmatic fashion. American ignorance combined with power is nothing new. What’s new is the exponential power that large money can bring to the influence of that ignorance.
I do think SOME in “that camp” are “set” and, thus, actually irredeemable in their focus on what is negative about public education, coupled with their blindness about what is good about it, not to mention about their own hubris. And you can call me naive and overly-optimistic if you want, but I do have to wonder if we have passed a place where real dialogue can occur at least between people who want the same thing–a good education for our children so that they and theirs can actually have a future. Am I wrong to think that’s the case with the Gates–at least?
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Catherine,
For years, I tried to meet with Bill Gates. I contacted the president of the Gates Foundation when planning a trip to Seattle a few years back. I wanted to meet Bill. The CEO, Jeff Raikes, took me to a lovely lunch but made clear that Bill would never meet me. It wasn’t because he didn’t know me. He told Jonathan Alter (who wrote about it) that I was his “chief adversary.” Why didn’t he want to meet and talk?
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Hello Diane. You say: “He told Jonathan Alter (who wrote about it) that I was his ‘chief adversary.’ Why didn’t he want to meet and talk?
That’s the best question going–and if he reads this blog, I put the question to him. But it seems to me that if he really wants what’s best for children where their education is concerned (and I think he does or at least DID), and especially now that he has experienced some unexpected failures with his assumptions, methods, and concrete movements, it seems he’d want to open and participate in a dialogue with you and others who, again, want the same thing. Thanks for your reply.
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Catherine, it’s unnecessary to prove that Gates wakes up every morning with the conscious, explicit intention of destroying public education; needless to say, that is a cartoonish view of how things work. Like almost everyone else, including the most psychopathic types (which I don’t assume Bill or Melinda to be), they construct their own rationales, based on what they think is socially acceptable.
No, we don’t have to prove that. All we need do is point out that 1) the policies that Gates supports and generously funds (often semi-clandestinely, as with Common Core) dovetail almost perfectly with his financial interests, and that they impervious to any real-world feedback demonstrating their utter failure, or any democratic feedback from the people negatively affected by those policies.
That’s QED enough for me.
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I’m glad for you.
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The Common Core is the plague that was released by Gates on the children of the United States. It is an experiment in what is unnatural, inhumane, and unethical…and it bastardizes, and openly mocks public education in the United States for profit, and to “socialize” our young citizens.
It is the Frankenstein of our time…prepared in the bowels of the Gates castle.
But sadly, for Mr Gates, one thing that may actually be attributed to Frankensein is that he was a doctor.
Mr Gates is not a doctor, nor a scientist, nor an educator…yet he has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to bring his monster to life. He will keep his children far from it, as will those who have been influenced by his “greenish persuasive notes”‘ such as Obama, Clinton, Duncan, and King. His monster walks on dollars alone…through the neighborhoods of America.
Mr Gates has unleashed a terrible malaise on the people of the United States, and perhaps on the world.
He must be stopped now.
He must be arrested.
He must be punished.
And the laws of the United States must once again serve to protect each and every citizen.
…not just the doctor/educator “want-to-be” who invests money destroying our children’s lives, without any uncertainty as to what will happen over the ten or so years of ithe core’s hideous existence
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Nor a college graduate. Which I suppose in his case is commendable. He was enough of a rebel, rebel to rebel against the waste and stupidity of large unwieldy bureaucracies. But then why go on later in life and create one without seeing these inherent flaws?
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Come back, Lost Poet, come back–we miss you, need you & love your genius.
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I’ve heard of a poet in residence, this is a poet in absentia. In any case, SDpoet is a very talented and gifted individual who appears to have remained true to his beliefs.
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Joe: what you wrote.
😎
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So true! You have a wonderful way with words, Diane!
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I guess if you are a coder, you have a hammer and everything looks like a nail. Perhaps The Gates Foundation never considered the flip side, how data dumbs us down. There is no way to rate art, music, or architecture. There is no best rock song.
Why the fixation with ranking?
Trying to put a number on the ephemeral.
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To “The Scholar-Gypsy”-Poet with apologies to Matthew Arnold
“Go, for they call you, [SomeDAM], from the hill;
Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes!
No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed,
Nor the cropped herbage shoot another head.
But when the fields are still,
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest,
And only the white sheep are sometimes seen
Cross and recross the strips of moon-blanched green,
Come, [Poet], and again begin the quest!…”
As for William Gates the Third meeting with or ever listening to Diane Ravitch, it would be like Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson meeting with Al Gore. He doesn’t want to hear any inconvenient truth.
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Perhaps. . . .
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Nice to see you back, SDP! Please don’t be a stranger! I miss your poems, as well as your insightful comments.
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SDP is still missing. I hope h/she returns after the election.
I save his/her poems.
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I so miss SDP and hope s/he returns.
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Bill and Melinda –
Here are some ideas that work –
– universal preschool
– small class size
– increased salary
– more prep time
– lesson study
– after school tutoring
– homework clubs-group study
– supplies paid for
– science labs at elementary
– teacher assistants
– field trips and assemblies
– music and art enrichment
how about funding ideas that work ?
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I would add to that list a systematic triangulation between public schools, families, and adult education programs?
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Brilliant, SD Poet!
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