May 4, 2018 9:30 am
Mercedes Schneider takes apart Bill Gates and his monumental hypocrisy and arrogance.
She documents his predilection for experimenting on other people’s children, as he did with the Commin Core, and his penchant for carelessly destroying other people’s lives, as he did with the ineffective teacher evaluations.
She notes that he recently announced an initiative to fix poverty, but is not investing much money, as compared to the billions he wasted on education forays.
Bill Gates has funded studies to belittle class size reduction, though in his own schooling and in that of his children, small classes were crucial.
He has given advice lately, sharing advice about how to raise children. He says you should love them unconditionally and pay no mind to their grades or test scores. Nice for his children, whose elite schools would never follow Gates’ education ideas. But what about the teachers who got fired because their students didn’t try or their parents didn’t care?
And last, to really see how out of touch he is, read about the “modest” bequests he plans to leave them.
Posted by dianeravitch
Categories: Class size, Common Core, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations
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Gates is a candidate — perhaps the leading one — for most destructive figure in American education history.
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By Ohio Algebra II Teacher on May 4, 2018 at 9:49 am
Agree, Ohio Algebra II Teacher.
Gates just pulls stuff out of his behind and thinks he is right when he is so WRONG about so much. I truly think Gates is UN-EDUCABLE. He thinks he knows everything … a malady of his “kind of person.”
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By Yvonne Siu-Runyan on May 4, 2018 at 10:05 am
“Most Destructive Deformer” (aka No bull) Prize
The competition’s keen
For “Most Destructive Bloke”
But Gates, as we have seen
Has really gone for broke
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 10:14 am
He’s pulled out every stop
With Common Core and VAM
It’s hard to really top
The Billyan erring man
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 10:20 am
So good!
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By Ohio Algebra II Teacher on May 4, 2018 at 10:37 am
And to boot, Gates and the microsoft software are quite possibly the worst software in the world but the microsoft crook – is able to shove this software down our throats even though microsoft windows and all other microsoft products are garbage.
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By Microsoft software on May 4, 2018 at 11:32 am
Ah, so many poems to choose from
“Bill and the Beanstalk”
Deep within the garden Gates
He planted seeds, for common fates
For beanstalks that would reach the
cloud
A Common Core for teaching crowd
The beanstalks grew with public money
Grew in the Land of Milken honey
Put down roots in public schools
Teaching standards, teaching rules
Beanstalks to which teachers bowed
Channels to the data cloud
Techies harvest student fruit
The more they eat, the more we toot
“The House that Gates Built”
Billyan errs and Common Cores
Rickety stairs and creaky floors
Leaky roofs and shaky stoops
That’s the house that Gates built
Flooded basements, cracked
foundations
Broken casements, termite nations
Sagging beams and cracking seams
That’s the house that Gates built
Failing kids and firing teachers
Software bids and testing leechers
Standardizing and capitalizing
That’s the house that Gates built
“Hell’s Bells”
The Gates of Hell
Are leaved with gold
And Billy’s bell
Is loudly tolled
But bell is cracked
As we can see
Cuz Bill hijacked
Our Liberty
“Devalue Added Model (DAM)”
Gates is to value
As white is to black
As any can tell you
His stuff is a hack
“Fences and Gates”
Fences and Gates
Are all they need
To seal our fates
And feed their greed
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 9:59 am
LOVE your poems, SomeDAM Poet. 👏
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By Yvonne Siu-Runyan on May 4, 2018 at 10:10 am
Thanks but those are old ones.
Unfortunately, they have no “use by” date
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 10:16 am
These poems still apply, sadly!
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By retired teacher on May 4, 2018 at 10:41 am
“Foilanthropy”
The billionaire’s foilanthropy
Subverts and foils democracy
It circumvents the people’s voice
Replacing it with wealthy choice
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 10:29 am
Gates is the master of the “disconnect.” He suffers from an extreme case of “affluenza” and arrogance that give him license to dictate to the rest of us from his billionaire bubble. He fails to see the hypocrisy between his own life and what he proposes for other people’s children. His wealth has enabled him to insert himself into education policy of which he understands nothing. He seems totally unaware that his “villanthropy” has wrecked teachers’ careers and their ability to support their families. He laments the fact that persistent poverty has interfered with his agenda. Poverty is at the core of the education problem in the United States, and this admission may be one of his only accurate realizations. We cannot test our way out of poverty or punish teachers to blame them for their students’ poverty.
Class size does not matter for other people’s children. While his own children reaped the benefits of smaller classes at Lakeside School, large class sizes are fine for everyone else. Gates is a data, numbers guy, and he can only see one way to evaluate anything. Education is a lot more dynamic and elusive than the data that narrow metrics can measure. Gates is clueless and out of this depth in the field of education. He meddles in that which he does not understand. Many of Gates’ proposals also benefit the tech industry. Much of what he proposes is not supported by evidence so he buys access for the right to experiment on other people’s children. If class sizes become unweildy, cost effective “personalized learning” will address this issue. It will also send billions of more dollars into Microsoft’s coffers. Perhaps this has always been the end game for Gates’ interest in education and his so-called “philanthropy.”
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By retired teacher on May 4, 2018 at 10:40 am
retired teacher: a sober and down-to-earth portrayal.
And speaking of portraits…
Oscar Wilde and his late 19th century book THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY. Bill Gates and his early 21st century rheephorm projects. Connect the dots as you will…
😱
For those wondering how wide the gap is between what Bill Gates & Co. ensure for THEIR OWN CHILDREN and what they want to mandate for ALMOST EVERYONE ELSE’S CHILDREN, go to the website of Lakeside School.
Link: https://www.lakesideschool.org
😎
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By KrazyTA on May 4, 2018 at 11:54 am
Common Core has responsibility for the scarce sounds of laughter in classrooms across America by marginalizing the abilities of the professional teacher over computer data. Professional teachers know that meaningful learning is fun and engaging. Providing students with filed trips, outside learning, and having them create hands-on-projects are just a few ways to engage them that technology can’t replace. Stop data-mining our children.
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By AlwaysLearning on May 4, 2018 at 12:00 pm
I used to love filed trips — especially the ones filed under “fun”. 🙂
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 1:42 pm
Yes. CLEARLY one of the worst symptoms attached to extreme “affluenza” is hands-off I-know-all arrogance.
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By ciedie aech on May 4, 2018 at 1:11 pm
Gates is the darling of the media, they absolutely worship him. It’s as if he can walk on water and he’s viewed as a combination of Mother Teresa, Albert Schweitzer and Walt Disney (we’re talking the sugar coated idolizations of the latter 3 people). Whenever he’s interviewed, he always gets the soft soap, gushing, worshipful treatment by the “reporter.”
Gates and the other mega wealthy charter cheer leaders have too much money, too much power; they have more wealth and clout than some small countries.
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By Joe on May 4, 2018 at 11:08 am
Well, he doesn’t get worshipful treatment here. A few years ago, he said in an interview that I was his most significant adversary. I did a fist pump.
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By dianeravitch on May 4, 2018 at 12:14 pm
Diane, when the history of so-called reform’s bad faith and total failure is written, it will be your change of heart that will be acknowledged as the pivotal moment when things changed.
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By Michael Fiorillo on May 4, 2018 at 1:06 pm
Michael, that is very kind of you. I am trying to write a brief history now and I am leaving myself out. Even as I continue to blog, I am working on my new book. I am on the second chapter, which will be a truncated history of the past 40 years.
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By dianeravitch on May 4, 2018 at 1:51 pm
“Getting a rise out of Gates”
To draw the wrath of Bill
Is surely highest praise
If praise were kind of hill
That that be Himalayas
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 1:34 pm
“Then that be Himalayas”
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 1:44 pm
Please don’t leave Wilson out of that history!
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By Duane E Swacker on May 4, 2018 at 2:04 pm
At least your task is easier than Stephen Hawking’s.
He had to condense the 14 billion year history of the Universe into a couple hundred pages in his “A Brief History of Time”
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 2:11 pm
For sure.
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By dianeravitch on May 4, 2018 at 2:35 pm
“The Wizard of Reform”
The Wizard of Reform
With testing and with VAM
Had conjured up a storm
A lion-scaring sham
He bellowed “schools have failed”
And “teachers are a log”
But Wizard was unveiled
By lady with a blog
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 5, 2018 at 7:06 am
You are exactly right about the Royal treatment he gets by the “news” media.
The latest 60 Minutes is a perfect example.
Probably the only negative stuff we ever heard about Gates (indirectly) was in the interview of Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen
Everyone should really watch that interview.
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 11:29 am
By the way, even in that interview, Stahl is kind of obsequious toward Gates at the end and even makes an obnoxious comment about Allen, comparing him to Howard Hughes.
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 11:45 am
Obama and Duncan allowed Gates to insert himself into education policy. In a bit of irony Obama awarded Gates the medal of freedom because he is such a “humanitarian.” Lots of teachers and students would disagree. http://time.com/4580807/president-obama-presidential-medal-of-freedom/
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By retired teacher on May 4, 2018 at 11:59 am
Gates is a magVAMimous huVAMitarian
“Legacies”
The legacy of Carnegie
Is libraries inspiring
The legacy of Gates, we see
Is testing, VAMs and firing
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 12:47 pm
And if he got the “Medal of Fiefdom”, it was well deserved.
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 4, 2018 at 12:52 pm
Another factor in Gates’ candidacy for most destructive figure in the history of American education is that his playbook of using his money to purchase policy rather than actual philanthropy has spread to rest of the Ed Reform plutocracy.
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By Ohio Algebra II Teacher on May 4, 2018 at 12:39 pm
Yes, he’s the poster child for Malanthropy, or using the tax benefits positive PR of a non-profit organization to advance his financial and political interests.
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By Michael Fiorillo on May 4, 2018 at 1:12 pm
“… and benefits AND positive PR…”
Sorry.
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By Michael Fiorillo on May 4, 2018 at 1:19 pm
And everyone do not forget about the small schools initiative that was created by genius Bill Gates. Here in NYC, MIkey Bloomberg Mayor bought into the small schools concept and now every school in NYC is a small school squashed into a building with other small schools.
However, Bill Gates has publicly stated that the idea was a complete failure. Really? So now we are stuck here in NYC with the Gates guinea pig experiment as we all squish together while Gates is off to his $50 million dollar estate. Sick the moral compass people on this crook who stole windows from apple (i don’t care what anyone says) and who uses our children as “his” guinea pigs.
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By Gates Ginnea pig on May 4, 2018 at 1:38 pm
“The Hypocritic Oath”
The Hypocritic Oath
Is taken by Reformen
And certifies their growth
To hypocriti-Coremen:
“The PARCC and Common Core
Are really something nice
But my kids must endure
A Core-less sacrifice”
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By SomeDAM Poet on May 5, 2018 at 6:32 am
My senator….who, among other things, stupidly joined other super centrist “don’t say too much to obviously support teachers so called democrats” in asking for genuine progressive representative Bob Burns’ resignation……is in St. Louis tonight with a democrat organization…..Bob racks up amazing vote totals because people trust him, so she ought to be nervous that he might show up, and I might show up to offer………some much needed wisdom. In case I cannot make it, I have offered this article in the post dispatch current affairs forum…..under the title “Trump 44%, McCaskill 38%? Neither know the Bill Gates effect”….McCaskill is going to lose…..she does not care about the damage done by her party through Gates and Duncan…..and the more Trump lies, the more his support rises…..he has no idea how much Gates did to make it possible for the democrats to become weak enough to allow the outrage of his presidency to even happen. It would be so great if someone outside of Missouri could locate my threat and offer some thoughts about the Bill Gates disconnect. The “liberal” post dispatch offered a report on Trump today…typical….his successful NRA appearance..NOT one word about his and Giulani’s idiocy. It is tough to make Missouri voters pay attention to anything. Looks like they will manage to give the nation another senator to pack the supreme court with more conservatives. I plan on voting for McCaskill, but I tweeted advice to her….get your head out of your…….somewhere.
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By joe prichard on May 5, 2018 at 11:11 am
thread, not threat. http://interact.stltoday.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1265308#p7899506
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By joe prichard on May 5, 2018 at 11:13 am
moderation if I put a link in. So locate my thread, not threat….
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By joe prichard on May 5, 2018 at 12:29 pm
Bill Gates is just naive — but naive actions can have severe impact on people’s live, as with all the anguish and suffering inflicted on teachers because he encouraged teacher evaluations and terminations based on student test results without even thinking about the myriad factors that influence how children learn…especially the factors arising from poverty and broken families. Such naive failure to consider all influential factors makes you wonder how he went about writing programming code. And then there’s his naive support of charter schools, oblivious to the multiple ways that charter school operators skim money away from educating children…to say nothing of racial resegregation of children in charter schools. Yes, I prefer to think of Gates as naive, instead of outright evil like so many other billionaires who are using their wealth for social engineering that violates the fundamental precepts of our nation’s founding philosophy. If Gates wants to really do something to improve the education of our nation’s children and to pursue social integration, he should set up a foundation whose mission is to buy homes for people of color in community enclaves where there are few or no people of color…and not just one home at a time, but multiple homes so that the people of color have each other for support during the initial period of living among the larger community. Only when people live together as neighbors do they learn to know and to understand each other.
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By Scisne on May 5, 2018 at 9:53 pm
Trying to find your video, which in the search results claims is over 14 minutes long, but I can’t seem to find it/the link? Thank you, Gates just gets more and more insane by the day it seems, considering so many of his dreams are becoming realities thanks to covid 1984.
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By Skylaire Alfvegren on March 3, 2021 at 4:18 pm