Peter Greene read and loved Anand Giridharadas’ Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.
So did I, which is why it is on my short list of books I recommend for summer reading.
Peter writes:
Every so often you come across a book that unpacks and reframes a part of the universe in a way that you can never unsee. Winners Take All by Anand Giridharadas has been a book like that for me.
Giridharadas is writing about “the elite charade of changing the world,” and while he is taking a broad look at the way the Betters are trying to influence our country and our world, the connections to education reform are unmistakable. I’m about to go ahead and give my grossly oversimplified take on his work and its intersection with public education; as a general guide, assume everything smart came from his book and everything wrong is my fault. There’s a lot to pack into a blog post, and I will cut corners like crazy; there are so many pull quotes from this book that I have put up an entire supplemental blog post just of quotes from the work. My best recommendation if you find any of this striking is to buy the book…
The elite assumption is that the system that put them on top, the game that they are the winners of, is fair and just and unrigged and not in need of being changed in any major ways. They are not part of the problem, and they are hurt that you would even suggest that was true; they are simply the just winners in a meritocratic system.
So the solutions they will propose meet a couple of standards:
1) It will include no challenge to the fundamentals of the current system.
2) The elites will be in charge (because their eliteness is proof of their fitness to run the show).
3) It will harness entrepreneurial energy (i.e. someone’s going to make money from it).
4) It will hand most of the blame responsibility to the people on the bottom who are being “rescued….”
The fingerprints of this mindset are all over education reform.
* The very notion, popular and bipartisan among the Betters, that education is the fix for everything. All the socio-economic inequity in the country can be solved, not by looking at the system that created that inequity– in fact, we’re not even going to admit that the system had any hand in creating inequity. No the system is swell, and the winners are people who are at the top got there by hard work and wisdom and meritocratic excellence. So, no, we don’t need to look at that system– we just need these people on the bottom to get themselves better educations (including things like grit) so that they can win at the game, too.
* Think Bill Gates, deciding that he needs to rewrite and standardize public education, and will have to circumvent, subvert and co-op the actual government to do it. Nobody elected him Grand Poobah of US Education, but he is perfectly comfortable appointing himself to the job.
* Think the deification of business standards in ed reform, and the notion that the free market will fix the system, that we will know which ideas are working best because they will succeed in the market. Think Eli Broad’s assertion that schools don’t have an education problem, but a business management problem.
* Think the repeated notion that democracy is a problem in education. We need to get rid of elected school boards and we need to give school leaders the kind of freedom that an all-powerful CEO has to create his vision. In ed reform, local control and the democratic process are to be avoided.
* Think the constant rejection of expertise. Reformsters don’t need to talk to teachers. What do teachers know? (If they are really such great shakes, why aren’t they rich?) I’ve succeeded at the game, and the same wisdom that made me a winner at that game will apply to fixing education. No other sorts of wisdom are necessary.
The huge irony of this book, which excoriates the elites and the billionaires who pretend to “save” the world by privatizing it, is that one of the blurbs was written by Bill Gates. He (or more likely, someone in his office) wrote:
In Anand’s thought-provoking book his fresh perspective on solving complex societal problems is admirable. I appreciate his commitment and dedication to spreading social justice.
This is a book that lambastes the likes of Gates. Why did he endorse it?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane Best (most telling) outtake from Green’s post: “What do teachers know? (If they are really such great shakes, why aren’t they rich?)” CBK
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To Catherine King:
On behalf of myself, I would like to give you a simple answer to your question to Dr. Ravitch.
The richness in people’s heart and the richness in corporate’s mind are always in the extreme polarization.
You quote that: “What do teachers know? (If they are really such great shakes, why aren’t they rich?)” CBK
IMHO. “Teachers deeply know their unlimited richness of love for their teaching career whereas Corporate realizes their potential or richness of unlimited looting tax payers fund plus all teachers’ pension fund”. Back2basic
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m4potw I hope you know that, to me, that quote is a “tell” about just how capitalist and shallow their view really is. CBK
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Looking in All the Wrong Places. For education “reformers” who really wanted to learn factual realities, find valuable information, learn aobut kids’ status and progress in school, there were always ONLY two places they needed to go. For fundamental anwers and insights on their basic questions, for substantive information about how the children are doing, they should have taken deep and thorough looks at:
1. Teachers’ notes
2. Inside teachers’ heads
These two places are the only places these “reformers” NEVER did look, did not carefully and honestly consult. That’s what I have long suspected because of how shamefully it shows through. Case closed.
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I would add a place, even more important than your two (even though I agree with your thought). . .
Inside the children’s heads!
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They don’t know or care how to look in children’s head anymore than they know or care to use actual educator expertise.
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Bart Yes–my guess is that they don’t even try to hide it because they think everyone else thinks this way also: If it doesn’t make buckets of money, it’s a failure . . . by THEIR definition of success and failure. That’s one reason why, whenever I hear the term “success,” I see red flags pop out of the discussion. What exactly do they mean by “success”? <–none of which endorses poverty or ignores the need for financial security. CBK
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Please allow me to correct two spelling error typos: “aobut” [to: about] and “anwers” [to: answers].
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Not only do most elites reject the workings of democracy, they often weaponize their wealth to pervert its course. They use their wealth to buy influence with policy makers to ensure their biased views will prevail. This is beyond believing that the free market has magic power. It is not a so-called free market when rich people can exert far more influence than regular people. It is meddling with the rules of democratic engagement, and it is playing unfairly and dirty like the back room deals the wealthy are known for.
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They must be rescued from themselves, for they are just money flowing the way money flows, insufficiently checked by current laws & regulations. And we voters are at a disadvantage, as the money already dictates their self-preserving, anti-public-good policy. We have only one choice, to become activists/ protesters/ letter-email-writers & wise voters, making it clear to clout-y $ powers that we will unseat every legislator in their thrall, & will elect only those who promote public interest. FIRST PRIORITY: reform campaign laws [get the $ out], SECOND: repeal/ legislative workaround for Cit-United decision [get the $ out], THIRD: reform 501(c)3&4 laws [get the $ out].
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First, happy belated birthday, Diane.
Did Gates or someone from his office actually read the contents of this book?
I continue to question whether the “elites” really want the masses educated. Knowledge is power and they don’t want their power challenged or taken away. They want us educated enough to do their bidding.
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‘This is a book that lambastes the likes of Gates. Why did he endorse it?’
Because he doesn’t recognize his own weaknesses, beginning with lack of first-hand experience, nor perceive his own part in failures. It’s one thing to fail repeatedly to, say, create a light bulb. It’s another to fail in ways that have negative impacts on kids.
It’s the classic ‘born on third base and thought he made a triple’ scenario, this inability to appreciate the hard-won expertise of others or be humbled by screw-ups. When you think about it, this has been Gates’ (and other tech and business impressarios’) hallmark since forever: If I succeed, it’s all about me. If I fail, it’s someone else’s fault.
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It’s doubtful that Gates wrote the blurb in question and even more doubtful that whoever wrote it actually read the book .
Despite the claim to be data driven, Gates and those who work for him at Gates Foundation are very uncurious.
A lot like Trump and George W. Bush in that regard. They generally don’t read or consult actual experts because they have no respect for them.
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SomeDAM Poet The Gates group does ask for input from the public–as is evident in their recent (last year) efforts to gather information and suggestions: “Request for Information: Advanced Education Research and Development Programs (issued by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) . . . .”
Their criteria for acceptance, however, is where we get into the weeds of their motivations. CBK
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Gates asking for information on schools is like an astrologer asking for information on planets.
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. . . a little more complicated than that. CBK
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Neither is interested in real science — or even knows what it is.
And both are interested in information only for the purpose of bolstering their pseudoscientific notions.
So, in the most important regards, they are pretty much the same.
And I’d have to say that astrology is quite a bit more complicated than Gates simplistic (and idiotic) ideas about education.
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SDP– I will second that, having spent many an hour in New-Agey days creating annotated birth charts for folks [it’s like analyzing comp lit ;-)]
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And both the astrologers and Gates are crackpots.
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SomeDAM Poet I should have known better. CBK
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“The elite assumption is that the system that put them on top, the game that they are the winners of, is fair and just and unrigged and not in need of being changed in any major ways. They are not part of the problem, and they are hurt that you would even suggest that was true; they are simply the just winners in a meritocratic system.”
They have to believe this. If they don’t, as the winners, they’re admitting that some or all of their accomplishments weren’t earned. I think that’s the real resistance to it.
Here’s another recommendation:
https://www.gangstercapitalism.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgezoBRDNARIsAGzEfe53wcAVAa4nKvfkOyTMKO2-WOH9dyt6nCvqoKM6NZmdKD7yjINZSqoaApybEALw_wcB
It’s about the college admission scandal. I feel like I knew college admissions to elite schools were “rigged” almost by design so the scandal itself wasn’t shocking to me. It’s just a variation of “rigged”. What is interesting in this podcast is the role of elite private high schools in all this- how they are a market and thus are subject to capture by their customers, who are not the students but are the PARENTS.
I feel ed reformers have not considered the downside of parental controls of schools in a market system. The wishes of parents and the best interests of students often do NOT align. That’s a fairy tale. In these elite schools it is often the school plus the students contra the parents. The parents are wrong, but the parents are paying so the school defers to their wishes, KNOWING it will harm the students.
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“…the role of elite private high schools in all this- how they are a market and thus are subject to capture by their customers, who are not the students but are the PARENTS.”
Got that right. parents are a generation behind the job market but get that the well-paying labor pie has shrunk horribly since their day – but don’t want to face it – so they are full of fear for their kids & perfect patsies for anyone selling snake oil.
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Chiara – I have a different take on much of this. Not that I disagree or feel you are wrong, just that this is all only a starting place.
With regard to the last first – while not for a moment excusing the rogue parents, in some sense this is blaming the victim. I didn’t listen to the podcast, only read the preview’s incredibly aggressive and hostile take on elitism’s grab.
The thing is, I consider even those somewhat-wealthy parents to be not really the problem, they’re followers of this ethic that’s described so well. These actors are not the millionaire VC club discussed in the book (Winners Take All, “WTA”). And they’re certainly not the billionaires. These are just upper-level marks as we are all lower-level marks.
And the con set onto them is the transfer of this ethic Giridharadas describes. That is, while the “elite assumption is that the system that put them on top, the game that they are the winners of, is fair and just and unrigged and not in need of being changed in any major ways. They are not part of the problem, and they are hurt that you would even suggest that was true; they are simply the just winners in a meritocratic system.” — this is what the actual-elites adopt. And as in a pyramid-scheme, those on lower rungs adopt this same ethic.
Only without very much cognizance, not that the elite have either. But they’re absorbing this belief that they are on top and have a right to be there and that to be there is not only not-wrong but is right. Therefore they fulfill this by these misdeeds. They are keeping things in harmony.
More, this mantra trickles further down too, to families/parents in charter schools, and the ideologues fighting so hard for them. This ethic of “doing well by doing good” is not only considered proper but circularly, it all becomes right if it is true. This is the justification of parents in charter schools I’d argue (and the policy makers scorching the earth all around to protect them). That their children need to be in this space that is a net good or benefit to society because that’s what their calling is, to protect this space, and by protecting it they are thereby aiding society.
I’m not sure this makes sense. I am having a hard time articulating this. I think it’s really important, though, to getting some handle on this super, super-weird schism that I see. Inasmuch as I believe, at least, that folks from plain-old parents on up to policy makers fighting for charter schools, a goodly chunk of them truly existentially believe themselves to be SJW of the first righteous order. Never mind that you or I think they are not and are not accomplishing SJ. They believe it with a fervor that’s beyond self-righteous. It’s a self-sealing belief just as you say above, for this reason: “They have to believe this. If they don’t, as the winners, they’re admitting that some or all of their accomplishments weren’t earned. I think that’s the real resistance to it.”
I really think this stuff touches very deep down into people’s psyche’s and the ask to repudiate it gets really close to psychological places that people just simply cannot touch or allow. Maybe this is just pop psychology but I think it’s important to understand and respect and completely dictates how one speaks and fights this out here, living in suburbia-white-charter takeover land. You can’t ask your neighbor to split their soul, but that’s a little bit of what’s happening here when you say “no, this precept is wrong and it’s not yours to uphold”.
Hope this makes any sense.
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Bernie raised $18 mil. in the 2nd, 3-month period of 2019. 99% of donations were less than $100. When O’Rourke and Buttigieg announce their quarterly financial support they should report how many big donors are supplying it.
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Sanders and Warren don’t do closed-door big donor events like the other candidates do.
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“The Closed Door Democrats”
A very good name for the type.
That’s what they are all about: closing doors on the rest of us.
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$18M divided by 90 days equals $200,000 per day. Since you say that 99% were less than $100 I’ll go with $100 average for each donation. That would mean $200K divided by $100 which equals 2,000 donations per day everyday for those 90 days. Something doesn’t seem right with that-doesn’t seem plausible to me. Not that I don’t hope it isn’t that way as that would show some serious grassroots/little gal/guy support.
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Duane,
I must admit to being totally ignorant about stuff like number of donations per day to politicians.
But there is another number that might give us some insight. Sanders’ campaign has reportedly received about 2 million individual contributions this year.
That amounts to an average of just over 11,000 per day (assuming they started at beginning of year, more if later)
So, I’d have to say that 2000 per day is at least in the right ball park. Right order of magnitude, at any rate.
And if you consider that the average donation reported by the Sanders campaign was actually only about $18, or roughly 1/5 the $100 that you used for an estimate and multiply the 2000 per day number by about 5 you get 10,000, which is actually not far from the 11,000 average obtained by dividing 2 million by number of days since the beginning of the year.
Interestingly, according to politico, “The leading profession of donors this electoral cycle is teachers”
I wonder, could that have to do with Sanders’ policy statements that actually reflect many of the things that Diane Ravitch has been saying?
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How much does the average donation figure tell us? It doesn’t tell us much about the person who donates $1000, which is like 50 people giving a $100. I need someone who can dissect stats to tell me if knowing the median amount of a donation would tell me more. Obviously, the person who donates $1000 is not necessarily rolling in dough, and Bernie, without a doubt, has a wider appeal to a crowd that is not donating from one of their yachts. I guess the average probably gives us a way to roughly guess at a candidates donors. Biden’s average donation is no doubt higher.
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“The person giving $1000 is not rolling in dough”? That person is also not part of the median family who makes less than $60,0000 a year and who spends a substantial amount of income on necessities like health care. He/she’s also not one of the huge percentage of Americans who have less than $50,000 in savings for retirement.
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You missed the entire point of what I was saying, however poorly I said it. Hey, I have never given $1000 to anyone, nor could I afford to do so, but I would like to know the proportion of donors for ALL candidates that fall within a particular donation range. My point was that the average really gives us limited information about the donor pool. Saying the average donation was “x” and therefore the majority of donors fall in that category does not really give us a lot of information, actionable or otherwise. Giving us the median donation at least tells us that 50% gave more and 50% gave less. An average is affected by extremes, large and small.
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Speduktr
I agree that the average by itself gives limited information, but the original comment also provided the information that 99% of donations to Sanders during the latest period were less than $100 and that the total was 18 million.
I think the information provided in combination with the total number of donors since the beginning of the year gives a pretty good idea whether 2000 donors per day is plausible, which is the question I was addressing above.
Politico also noted that there were almost1 million donors to Bernie during the second quarter of about the same as during the first quarter.
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Thank you, SDP. I lose track of what I have read when I respond to individual comments that come through on my email.
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Poet,
Patience is your virtue.
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I was amazed when I read Winners Take All by how much of the elite’s teaching of ‘grit’ to us teeming masses I recognized from the CCSS curriculum foisted on me. Talk about a propaganda campaign!
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Bill Gates has so much grit, he has to gargle and spit BEFORe he brushes his teeth.
Otherwise the grit would wear away his teeth in a matter of weeks.
The Gritted Age
The Gritted Age
Is full of grit
And Gated Age
Is full of $&it
Gritted Age: Age of the Great Gritsby
Gated Age: Age of the Great GatesB
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Gates is definitely full of something. That’s what his blurb on Giridharas’ book is, full of it. He’s trying to usurp the narrative. Gates wants people to think wealth inequality is too complex for ordinary citizens to understand. Leave everything to him and the technocrats. The somewhat condescending comment must be meant as Gates’ attempt to frame himself as part of the solution instead of the problem. It’s like him and his ilk calling the testing and charters takeover of education part of the civil rights movement. Astroturfing propaganda. He admires the “fresh perspective on complex societal problems,” but his neoliberal perspective will still monopolize the globe. Full of it. Always.
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SDP, exactly right.
The somewhat condescending comment must be meant as Gates’ attempt to frame himself as part of the solution instead of the problem.
The vagueness of the blurb convinces me, as you previously said, that Gates did not read the book, did not write the blurb, and neither did his hireling who wrote the blurb.
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Brilliant!
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I also agree with LeftCoastTeacher’s most astute observation about Gates wanting to frame himself as part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
As this point he just be desperate to salvage what is left of his reputation.
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Thank you both, but it was just geometry. Triangulation is Gates’ modus operandi. Attaching his corporate libertarian ideas to liberal figures and institutions is his way, the third way. Just about everything he says and does can be understood using triangles.
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Obtuse triangles at that.
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My nephew, Matt grossmann, and his wife, Sarah Reckhow, are both nationally recognized writers.(Matt’s latest book is red state blues….how the conservative revolution stalled in the states. In 1909, Matt and Sarah advised me to pay attention to Diane Ravitch…..and for Christmas of 2018….they sent me a book….”Winners take All”, and after I spent a couple of days memorizing the spelling of the author’s name, I started the 6 week struggle to read the book, rereading many pages two or three times. From 200 to 250, more or less, he deals with the reality of former President Clinton. I don’t know what Matt and Sarah think, but I believe this election is one in which the democrats should redefine themselve…..and this will involve leaving the Clintons as well as Biden and to a less completely, but still some, Obama…..behind. I have had a good week watching the debates, and the resulting polls. Matt offered this advice to Biden:
@MattGrossmann
Jun 29
Can’t Biden say:
There are no federal mandates to bus students to other schools in order to achieve racial integration. I favor overturning Parents Involved v Seattle to allow school districts to voluntarily do so. What new mandated federal busing proposal does Harris favor?
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Sarah Recklow’s book which put a positive spin on the egregious, anti-democracy effect of big, out-of-state money spent to buy local school board elections was the topic of a Ravitch post. Recklow is at Michigan State University, where if there was a semblance of faculty governance, the Dept. of Ed.’s acceptance of money from John Arnold would have provoked review.
Federal law protects civil rights. I’ve never met a states righter who I would want in my living room. The Koch’s favor states rights because its easier for big money to influence at the state level which is why they created ALEC (Stand Your Ground Laws are the work of ALEC also, the laws that led to the U.S. as the most incarcerated population in the world). Thank God the Confederacy lost. It’s America’s shame that Steve Bannon …
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The Confederacy lost?
Sure could have fooled me.
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Jeffrey Henig, Recklow’s co-author, wrote a book with Frederick Hess of AEI (a libertarian think tank).
Hess and, a manager of a Gates-funded ed organization wrote, “Don’t Surrender the Academy”, for Philanthropy Roundtable. In the article they laid out a plan for the self-appointed reformers to use money to steer university departments in the direction they wanted. Hess quoted the reformers as wanting to “blow up ed. departments”.
Winners take all. Libertarians believe people should die in the gutter like feral dogs.
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I think that was probably 2009 when they told me to start paying attention to Diane.
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1909 must’ve been a good year. No Common Core.
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In 1909, Common Core was just a glint in Bill Gates’ grandfather’s eye.
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wow…I check diane’s site every day and I missed this one. The criticism seems well placed against the book that claims big money forces can be agnostic…….I trust the book Matt and Sarah sent me for Christmas. Sarah has been outsourced to Harvard from Michigan state. Matt’s suggestion for what Biden could have asked Kamala was well placed…….but I have been blasting the Post Dispatch in st. Louis for their refusal to acknowledge Kamala was in the race….it culminated in my daring them to report the cnn poll (27-22) they ran an ap story from the washington post…….I wonder if they will mention the Iowa and the 22-20 poll from today……
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“Sarah’s been outsourced to Harvard” ….where Roland Fryer’s c.v. shows a $1 mil. grant from Bill Gates.
Neoliberalism is Harvard’s contribution to the oligarchy.
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Roland Fryer began his lab with $6 million from Eli Broad. Apple, Tree.
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“Roland ‘Nobel-less Ed lab’ Fryer” (apologies to the late great Warren Zevon, RIP)
Roland was a warrior from the land of the Crimson sun
An econ man for hire, fighting to be done
The deal was made at Harvard on a dark and stormy day
So he set out for the White House to join the Edu-fray
Through merit pay and testing he fought the Edu-wars
With his finger on the figure, knee-deep in the scores
For days and nights he battled, the unions and their ties
He tried to earn his living, with some help from Condi Rice
Roland the Ed Lab Fryer
Roland the Ed Lab Fryer
His comrades fought beside him, Raj Chetty and the rest
But of all the Ed Lab hires, Roland was the best
But his merit-pay experiment went belly-up to hell
That son-of-a-gun experiment, blew up his Nobel
Roland “Nobel-less Ed Lab” Fryer, Harvard’s bravest hire
They can still see his Nobel-less body stalking through the night
In the brilliant flash of Roland’s Ed Lab fire
In the brilliant flash of Roland’s Ed Lab fire
Roland “Nobel-less Ed Lab” Fryer
Roland “Nobel-less Ed Lab” Fryer
Roland “Nobel-less Ed Lab” Fryer
Talkin’ about the man, Roland “Nobel-less Ed Lab” Fryer
For anyone who has not heard the original, it is a classic.
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University faculty should be advised about the work of UnKochMyCampus.org. UnKoch will soon be introducing the Academic Capture Warning System. I am looking forward to reading their format and results.
With no specific professor in mind, I have observed a trend, faculty who produce research that is liked by plutocrats find fast promotions, easy publication, access and speaking engagements, plum assignments, and receive underserved acclaim.
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Tables Turned
Winners take all
And then take more
Billionaires’ fall
Will even the score
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Recently, the neo-liberal Kennedy School of Government at Harvard honored former Mich. Gov. Snyder, as it did Jeb Bush. The difference- the conscience of the students forced Snyder to reject Kennedy’s offer.
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Like Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing The World. The Market World approach of solving the world’s problems Giridharadas describes in rich detail is a bull market fantasy. And the parallels w ed reformers are more than striking, although G bends over backwards granting good intentions to most of these Market Worlders, like Gates. In his story philanthropic elites are like fleas on the elephant of political-economic inequality.
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