Archives for category: Billionaires

Tom Ultican discovered a fascinating study of tech philanthropists and their self-serving gifts. Gates, Zuckerberg, and other tech giants are “giving” in a way that supports their self-interest.

The study that Ultican reviews is “Education, Privacy, and Big Data Algorithms: Taking the Persons Out of Personalized Learning,” by Priscilla M. Regan and Valerie Steeves.

They argue:

“We argue that, although there has been no formal recognition, personalized learning as conceptualized by foundations marks a significant shift away from traditional notions of the role of education in a liberal democracy and raises serious privacy issues that must be addressed.”

“It presents yet another example of the transformation of the traditional role of public education as educating citizens to one of educating future workers and consumers, a contrast of liberal democracy with neoliberal democracy.”

“The edtech sector has been focused on the notion [of personalized learning] …. While companies have generated hundreds of products and a smattering of new school models are showing promise, there is little large-scale evidence that the approach can improve teaching and learning or narrow gaps in academic achievement.”

The authors also review Education Week as a model of education journalism that is underwritten by edtech foundations and helps to market their wares. Reporting by Benjamin Herold on Ed tech, however, is exceptionally critical.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Education has become “a de facto Ed tech sales firm.”

I have been saying for a long time that “personalized learning” is actually depersonalized learning because it attempts to replace human teachers with computer instruction. Education requires human interaction, not a connection between a human and a machine.

Despite my cynicism about the tech billionaires and their relentless pushing of Ed tech, I don’t think they are motivated by greed. When you are already a billionaire, what difference does more money make? I believe they promote Ed tech because that’s all they know. When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Actually, I don’t think the tech billionaires have given much thought to their concept of education. They display little or no interest in literature, the arts, or any of the humanities. This reflects their limits and their ignorance. The fact that they have so much money and power threatens the very heart and soul of education. Education is not, should not be merely trading or transactions. It is and should be a way of life. Try explaining that to Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg or any of the other tech titans—or state legislators or members of Congress.

Categories Billionaires, Education Reform, Philanthropy, Teachers, Technology

Farhad Manjoo: The Pandemic Brings Good Times to Billionaires

By dianeravitch

December 4, 2020 //

Farhad Manjoo is an opinion writer for the New York Times. In this column, he says that the wealth of American billionaires has grown dramatically during the pandemic. We know that millions of Americans are facing hunger, poverty, and evictions. Inequality is expanding.

He writes:

When I called up Chuck Collins on Tuesday afternoon, I found him glued to one of the grimmest new metrics documenting America’s economic and social unraveling.

Collins is a scholar of inequality at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, and since March he has been tracking how the collective wealth of American billionaires has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. In previous recessions, Collins said, billionaires were hit along with the rest of us; it took almost three years for Forbes’s 400 richest people to recover losses incurred in 2008’s Great Recession.

But in the coronavirus recession of 2020, most billionaires have not lost their shirts. Instead, they’ve put on bejeweled overcoats and gloves made of spun gold — that is, they’ve gotten richer than ever before.

On Tuesday, as the stock market soared to a record, Collins was watching the billionaires cross a depressing threshold: $1 trillion.

That is the amount of new wealth American billionaires have amassed since March, at the start of the devastating lockdowns that state and local governments imposed to curb the pandemic.

On March 18, according to a report Collins and his colleagues published last week, America’s 614 billionaires were worth a combined $2.95 trillion. When the markets closed on Tuesday, there were 650 billionaires and their combined wealth was now close to $4 trillion. In the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, American billionaires’ wealth grew by a third.

It is difficult to think of a more succinctly obscene illustration of the unfairness of the American economic and political system.

“The economy is now wired ‘heads you win, tails I lose,’ to funnel wealth to the top,” Collins told me.

Billionaires amassed their new billions just as millions of other Americans plunged into dire financial straits. More than 20 million people lost their jobs at the start of the pandemic. As Congress lazily contemplates whether or not to bother to continue to provide economic assistance to America’s neediest, as many as 13 million people are at risk of losing the expanded benefits that keep them just beyond the grip of hunger and homelessness.

Food banks across the country are bracing for another surge in demand. If a federal moratorium on evictions is allowed to expire at the end of the year, millions of Americans will have to pay months of back rent — making them vulnerable to what housing advocates warn will be a wave of evictions.

Why are American billionaires doing so well while so many other Americans suffer? Part of the story is garden-variety American inequality. Stocks are overwhelmingly owned by the wealthy, and the stock market has recovered from its early-pandemic depths much more quickly than other parts of the economy.

But some billionaires are also benefiting from economic and technological trends that were accelerated by the pandemic. Among these are the owners and investors of retail giants like Amazon, Walmart, Target, Dollar Tree and Dollar General, which have reported huge profits this year while many of their smaller competitors were clobbered as the coronavirus spread.

Then there are companies that have bet on the rapid digitization of everything. Eric Yuan, the chief executive of Zoom, became a billionaire in 2019. Now he is worth almost $20 billion. Apoorva Mehta, the founder of the grocery-delivery company Instacart, was not a billionaire last year; this year, after a spike in orders that led to a new round of investment that pumped up the value of his company, he’s safely in the club. Dan Gilbert, the chairman of Quicken Loans, was worth less than $7 billion in March; now he commands more than $43 billion.

But like in the rest of the economy, there is a great deal of stratification even among billionaires — richer billionaires got even richer in 2020 than the poorer ones did.

Some of the numbers are staggering. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, was worth about $113 billion at the start of the pandemic. Now he is worth $182 billion — an increase of about $69 billion. Jim, Alice and Rob Walton, three of the largest shareholders of Walmart, saw their combined wealth grow by $47 billion during the pandemic.

This is a good time to urge you to read The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger.

The more equal societies are, the happier they are. We are sinking into an abyss of anger, hopelessness, envy, and despair.

Categories Billionaires, Economy, Inequality, Injustice

Nancy MacLean: How the Koch Network Fosters Disinformation

By dianeravitch

December 3, 2020 //

If you have not read Duke Professor Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains, you should. I reviewed it for the New York Review of Books here. It describes in great detail how the Koch brothers created an academic foundation for their extremist libertarian views. In this paper, MacLean goes into new detail about the workings of the Koch network and its efforts to undermine democracy. The Koch network knows that it does not have popular support so it has developed ways to “work around” the will of the majority. Currently, its major project is to block any effort to confront climate change.

The paper is titled “Since We Are Greatly Outnumbered: Why and How the Koch Network Uses Disinformation to Thwart Democracy.” The essay appears in a publication called The Disinformation Age, published by Cambridge University Press.

Thanks to “Unkoch My Campus” for bringing this paper to a large audience.

Categories Billionaires, Dark Money, Koch Brothers

SomeDAM Poet: The Billionaire and the Reformer

By dianeravitch

November 19, 2020 //

SomeDAM Poet wrote these verses.

“The Billionaire and the Reformer” (after “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” by Lewis Carroll)

The pol was pining for a charter,
pining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The regulations sleight —
Which wasn’t hard, because the pol
Was charter acolyte

The public was pining sulkily,
Because they thought the pol
Had got no business to be there
After the charter stole —
“Incredible of him,” they said,
“To work for charter dole”

The money was tight as tight could be,
The coffers were bare as bare.
You could not see a dollar, cuz
No dollar was in there:
No Race was funding overhead —
There was no Race to fund.

The Billionaire and the Reformer
Were talking under bleachers;
They wept like anything to see
Such qualities of teachers:
If these were only cleared away,’
Our schools would be like peaches!’

If seven Chetty’s with seven VAMs
VAMmed for half a year,
Do you suppose,’the Billionaire said,
That they could get them clear?’
I doubt it,’ said the Reformer,
And shed a bitter tear.

O students, come and walk with us!’
The Billionaire did beseech.
A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
A better way to teach
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each.’

The eldest student looked at her
But never a word he said:
The eldest student winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head —
Meaning to say he did not choose
To go with Jobs, and fled

But four young students hurried up,
All eager for the fest:
Their hair was brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and best —
And this was odd, because, you know,
They’re going to a test.

Four other students followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more —
All hopping through the student waves
And scrambling to the door.

The Billionaire and the Reformer
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little students stood
And waited in a row.

The time has come,’ the Billionaire said,
To talk of many things:
Of Common Core — and standard tests — of passing score — and VAM—
And why the schools are failing [Not!] —
And whether pigs have wings.’

But wait a bit,’ the students cried,
Before we have our talk;
For some of us are out of breath,
And some of us can’t walk!’
No hurry!’ said the Reformer.
As patient as a hawk.

A lot of bread,’ the Billionaire said,
Is what we chiefly need:
Testing and Common Core besides
Are very good indeed —
Now if you’re ready, students dear,
We can begin to weed.’

But not with us!’ the students cried,
Turning a little blue.
After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!’
The day is fine,’ the Billionaire said.
Do you admire the view?

It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!’
The Reformer said nothing but
‘That cut score won’t suffice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf —
I’ve had to tell you twice!’

It seems a shame,’ the Billionaire said,
To play them such a trick,
After we’ve brought them out so far,
And made them test so quick!’
The Reformer said nothing but
The opt-out’s spread too thick!’

I weep for you,’ the Billionaire said:
I deeply sympathize.’
With sobs and tears he sorted out
The scores of lesser size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

O students,’ said the Reformer,
You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none —
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d flunked out every one.”

Categories Billionaires, Humor

Tom Ultican: School Board Elections Pit Billionaires vs. Public School Advocates

By dianeravitch

November 13, 2020 //

Tom Ultican writes here about three major school board elections: Oakland, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis. These are districts that are in the crosshairs of the billionaire privatizers. No one can explain why billionaires want to privatize the public schools in these three districts (as well as dozens more). We now have nearly 30 years of evidence that neither charters nor vouchers produce educational miracles. New Orleans is not a national model: Last year, half the charter schools in this all-charter district were identified by the state as D or F-rated schools. Assignment to anyone: Why do the billionaires keep funding failure?

Ultican reports that the pro-privatization candidates vastly outspent the pro-public education candidates. In Oakland, the pro-public education slate won all but one seat (in that race, the pro-public education groups were divided, or they would have had a clean sweep).

In Los Angeles, the billionaires won one seat, enough to give them a single-seat majority of the school board.

In Indianapolis, the billionaires swamped the pro-public education candidates with their vast spending power.

It is an attack on democracy when billionaires from out-of-state (or from in-state) can drop a few million into a local school board race and make it impossible for ordinary citizens to compete. The individuals and the groups funding this assault on democracy–Michael Bloomberg, William Bloomfield, Stacey Schusterman, Arthur Rock, the Walton family, Reed Hastings, Doris Fisher, and other billionaires should hang their heads in shame. So should Stand for Children (which funnels billionaire money into races against public school advocates) and The Mind Trust.

For their ceaseless efforts to dismantle public schools and replace them with privately managed charters, I hereby place the following billionaires on this blog’s “Wall of Shame”: Michael Bloomberg, the Walton family, Reed Hastings, William Bloomfield, Doris Fisher, Arthur Rock, and Stacy Schusterman.

The same richly deserved dishonor goes to the infamous servant of the billionaires, Stand for Children.

Categories Billionaires, Bloomberg, Michael, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Hoax, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Oakland, Privatization, Shame, Wall of Shame

Oakland: Public School Allies Win Control of School Board

By dianeravitch

November 7, 2020 //

Jane Nylund, parent activist in Oakland, reports on the good news from that district. Oakland has been the Disrupter/Reformer playground for nearly twenty years. For most of those years, billionaire Eli Broad picked the superintendents.

Jane Nylund writes:

Good morning, the good news out of Oakland is that our grassroots campaigns for 4 school board seats beat back Bloomberg and his privatization machine. The board flipped 3 out of 4 seats, to elect the following:

District 1-Sam Davis

District 3-VanCedric Williams

District 5-Mike Hutchinson

District 7-Clifford Thompson

In addition, Oakland’s Measure Y, which passed by a whopping 77%, will provide $750 million for new school building construction/rehabilitation for our crumbling infrastructure.

Measure QQ, giving 16 and 17-year olds the right to vote in school board elections, also passed by a wide margin.

In nearly 20 years of privatization push into Oakland, this is the first time since 2003 that Oakland schools will be returned to local control by a school board that values and embraces authentic public education. Remaining hopeful for the future, and look forward to strengthening and improving Oakland’s schools.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, California, Corporate Reform, Education Reform, Oakland

DFER Names Its Candidates for Secretary of Education

By dianeravitch

November 6, 2020 //

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Chalkbeat reports that the privatizers at “Democrats” for Education Reform have identified their candidates for Biden’s Secretary of Education. They are three big-city superintendents who have worked harmoniously with charter schools.

DFER is an organization of hedge fund managers and financiers who are supporters of charter schools, merit pay, high-stakes testing, and value-added evaluation of teachers. In 2008, DFER successfully advocated for the appointment of Arne Duncan, a supporter of their goals.

Democrats for Education Reform is coordinating a behind-the-scenes push for Chicago schools chief Janice Jackson, the head of Baltimore schools Sonja Brookins Santelises, or Philadelphia superintendent William Hite, according to an email sent to supporters Monday by the group’s presidentShavar Jeffries and obtained by Chalkbeat. All three, Jeffries wrote, would represent a “‘big tent’ approach to education policy making….”

DFER was an influential actor in policy during the Obama administration, but those policies have mostly proved ineffective and/or rejected by teachers. In light of Betsy DeVos’ fierce advocacy for charter schools, DFER’s agenda is out-of-step with the Democratic Party.

In general, though, DFER has found some of its favored policies moving further from the Democratic Party’s mainstream. As a presidential candidate, Biden has proposed a slew of new federal restrictions on charter schools and been critical of standardized testing — a clear shift from the Obama administration, which promoted the growth of charter schools and teacher evaluations linked to test scores.

“It is certainly the Biden plan,” the campaign’s policy director Stef Feldman said at a recent event, describing the candidate’s agenda for schools. “The vice president is pretty committed to the concept that we need to be investing in our public neighborhood schools and we can’t be diverting funding away from them.”

A number of factors have driven the shift within the Democratic party — including disillusionment with Obama-era reforms, the increased political strength of teachers and their unions, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who is highly unpopular among Democrats and became a figurehead for school choice.

This shifting ground is reflected in DFER’s recent policy agenda, which was signed onto by a few civil rights groups; the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank; and major charter school organizations, including the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. The document emphasizes areas of likely agreement with a Biden administration, including expanding access to early childhood education, increasing federal funding for low-income students and students with disabilities, and raising teacher pay. Charter schools get only a brief mention in a section about “choices in quality public schools.”

The Center for American Progress is not a “progressive” think tank. It has long advocated the Obama-era education policies that align with DFER.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Biden, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democrats for Education Reform, DFER, School Choice, Testing, VAM (value-added modeling)

Los Angeles: Billionaires Buy Control of School Board

By dianeravitch

November 5, 2020 //

Every two years, the future of the Los Angeles public schools hangs in the balance with the school board election. The charter industry’s billionaire backers have consistently funded candidates who will support more charter schools. Twenty percent of the students in LAUSD attend charters; eighty percent of the charter schools have vacancies.

In Tuesday’s election, the charter industry competed for two seats, one held by veteran education Scott Schmerelson. Despite a deluge of smears and lies about him, he was re-elected.

Congratulations, Scott Schmerelson!

Split Decision on Board Elections Reverses School Board Alignment – EdX News from Election 2020

The other race was an open seat, and the charter industry flooded it with money and picked up the vote they needed to gain control of the board, 4-3.

So we will keep watch to see the charter lobby’s next move in L.A.

Categories Billionaires, Charter Schools, Los Angeles

Los Angeles School Board Race: Dirty and Expensive

By dianeravitch

October 29, 2020 //

Larry Buhl of Capitol & Main explains the LAUSD school board elections. They are shaping up as the nastiest and most expensive in school board history.

As usual, the combatants are charter school billionaires, who want more charters, versus the United Teachers of Los Angeles, who are fighting for public schools and to protect the gains they made in the strikes of 2019.

The charter side has far outspent the UTLA and their allies. The charter lobby has been entirely responsible for the vicious attack ads, especially those against incumbent Scott Schmerelson, a veteran educator. Early charter flyers against him were anti-Semitic. He was falsely accused of inflating his salary as a board member (an independent commission sets the board’s pay). Schmerelson was targeted with a barrage of lies. He was endorsed by every Democratic Club and labor union in his district, as well as the Los Angeles Times.

The biggest edge of the pro-charter forces is money. With the support of billionaires, their candidates are amply funded.

A pricey proxy war between rival factions — charter school advocates and L.A.’s main teachers union — is playing out in two runoff races that could determine control of the Los Angeles Unified School District board. On one side is United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). On the other are California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) and charter allies Alice and Jim Walton; philanthropist and major charter backer Eli Broad; and Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Because the two races could tip the balance of power on the board toward teachers unions and traditional schools, or to charter schools, both sides are spending an unprecedented amount of money on their candidates – and, in the case of the charter-friendly candidates, to attack their opponents.

Both sides have been spending increasingly larger amounts to influence the outcomes of LAUSD races, and this year’s race has now eclipsed 2017 as the most expensive in L.A. history. Most of the ads are created with money from independent expenditure groups, called IEs or just outside spenders. These groups face no fundraising limits, and the candidates, whose campaign money is dwarfed by the influx of IE cash, aren’t allowed to influence the IE ads or approve their content. Legally they can’t coordinate with IE groups at all.

In 2020, IEs have spent more than $13 million on just these two board races. That’s $10 million more than IE money spent on all 2020 Los Angeles City Council races combined. And charter school advocates have enjoyed a lopsided financial advantage. Pro-charter forces have already spent far more than they did in 2017. The total spent on negative ads by pro-charter IEs on all LA school board races this year tops $5 million, about ten times more than money spent by UTLA and allies. And the L.A. City Ethics Commission site shows that a new mailer has gone out nearly every day in October.

Categories Billionaires, Broad Foundation, Charter Schools, Elections, Los Angeles

Indianapolis: Stop the Billionaires from Capturing Our School Board!

By dianeravitch

October 29, 2020 //

John Loflin of Indianapolis writes about the money flowing into the city’s school board elections from out-of-state billionaires and their usual front called Stand for Children.

Loflin writes:

To whom it may concern:

Just in case you have not seen this Recorder story, “Political groups give over $200,000 to Charter friendly candidates for IPS” here’s the link: Political Groups Give $200,000 To Some Candidates In IPS Board Race.

This inordinate, almost obscene, amount of money–notably from out of state donors–just to run for a board seat in a school district with just 31,000+ students, raises deep concerns about how democratic is the institution of public education in Indianapolis: http://vorcreatex.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Purchasing-the-2012-2014-and-2016-IPS-school-board-elections.pdf.
Who is flooding Indianapolis with such large amounts of money?

We know Stand for Children/Mind Trust are now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, using a 501c4 in Oregon, to elect their candidates. We also know that Stand for Children, the Mind Trust, Rise Indy, and the Teachers Alliance for Equitable Public Schools (TAEPS) are all part of the same group of people out to buy and control IPS. They’re funded by conservative white billionaires like Michael Bloomberg or Alice Walton who will never step foot in Indianapolis. And they use state legislation created by the conservative/right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

Check the diagram connecting all the dots “Out of state ed reform money floods into Indiana communities.”https://www.indianacoalitionforpubliced.org/2020/10/25/out-of-state-education-reform-money-floods-into-indiana-communities/?fbclid=IwAR0YlnDEXVJorGXk1It7xIpnRSlp9FBEtISSVZjZOh7r415toXBRF7DqlEY