Many people wrongly assume that the Common Core is dead, since Trump said he would kill it and Dezvos claimed she never supported it.
But Bill Gates launched and financed Common Core, and he is still funding it.
Laura Chapman writes:
“Anyone who thinks that Gates has given up on the Common Core is wrong.
“He is still pouring money into districts that will push it. His idea of “collaboration and listening” is pay others to come into a district and offer trainings to teachers and principals whom he regards as hapless, or lazy, or incompetent, or insufficiently dedicated to the Gates agenda, including Gates-Funded the Common Core.
“I just checked the database for the Gates foundation. In just 2016 and 2017 he has poured $32,175, 526 million into pushing the Common Core.
“Grants for this purpose were sent to the twelve groups who are willing to do for-hire work defined by the Gates Foundation.
“The following received grants the largest of these grants:
Center for American Progress, $1,000,000;
EdSource Inc., $1,362,606;
New Teacher Center $2,000,000;
Loyola Marymount University, $2,000,000;
CSU Fullerton Auxiliary Services Corporation, $2,000,000;
WestEd, $4,350,875;
University of Kentucky Research Foundation, $5,000,000;
CORE Districts $6,350,000;
New Venture Fund, $7,900,010.
“Gates has sent another $7,614,758 to those CORE Districts in California in the last three years, in addition to the grant for $6,350,000 ear-marked to push the Common Core (above).
“CORE stands for the California Office to Reform Education. CORE has no formal connection to the California State Board of Education, CORE and the districts it has signed up is called a “collaborative.” I think not.
“CORE is a privately funded organization that engineered a contractual takeover of some of the largest districts in California. The contract takes the form of a Memorandum of Understanding between the superintendent of each district and CORE. That MOU allows CORE to determine almost everything that happens in some of California’s largest districts: Garden Grove, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and Santa Ana.
“CORE is funded by the Stuart Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation. The student, teachers, school, and parent data from the CORE “School Quality Improvement Index” flows directly to GreatSchools.org where school “quality” ratings are used to help market products and services to parents and other users. Zillow and Scholastic are among the companies that pay fees in order to market products and services.
“Don’t believe what Gates says. Follow the money.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Bill Gates has too much time on his hands. Some give back to society by doing good deeds. Gates has no clue about giving. He is a TAKER of the worst kind. His ego will never be filled. He is a bottomless pit of egomania.
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He also represents a frightening future trend: computer think is better than human think. I heard today that a big “toy” for the holidays has to do with programming one of those household technology butlers to read stories to children. No more need for parents to sit that messy kid on his or her lap and actually interact physically or verbally.
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Sorry, off-topic, but this in an interesting tale from across the pond that give a bit of hope that this nightmare can be reversed. I don’t follow a lot of the specific British terminology and politics since it’s regarding a school on the Isle of Wight, but the over all story should be a familiar one, but with a happy-ish ending. https://disidealist.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/isle-of-wight-shows-the-way-forward-by-renationalising-a-school/
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There was a similar article a few weeks ago that appeared about an Australian provence reversing all the ed tech and ed rephorm? It will take a revolution and years to turn this around in the US and by then 3-4 generations of children will suffer.
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Our country has so many billionaires and corporations behind privatization; it will be difficult to shut them down. We also have ALEC buying elections and the Christian right looking to shift public money into private hands, especially religious schools. We also can’t count on too many of the Democrats to protect public education. We still have a long way to go, but more people are realizing the value of authentic public education.
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So an entrenched common core establishment preaches “unity” but is really just shuffling money and shutting out common sense and the people demanding it?
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I tried to post a comment about the Guardian’s expose about the Paradise Papers, and about Gates being a suspected criminal, but of course it disappeared into thin air.
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Read the Guardian today. Is Bill Gates/Microsoft among those caught red handed?
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Don’t know about Gates, but I can’t wait to see Apple’s CEO Tim Crook “splain” Apple’s efforts to shuffle their hundreds of billions in offshore holdings into yet another tax shelter after the Irish jig was up.
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Seems all the oligarchs are in on this one.
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Oh, and I forgot to add that Common Core is a joke. It’s a joke! Any parent, student, or teacher with direct experience with Common Core knows it’s a ridiculous joke, a very unfunny joke. Poorly thought out, poorly executed stupidity.
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