We all know that the experts you should interview about a controversial public policy are billionaires who’ve donated enormous sums of money to advance one side of the fight. Right?
Of course that sounds odd. But that’s the odd approach some media outlets take.
Like ABC‘s This Week (3/16/14), which took on the intense controversy over the Common Core, the educational standards framework that is cherished by the “education reform” crowd as a way to ensure that schools across the country are setting similar achievement benchmarks. The Common Core has been critiqued across the political spectrum; Tea Party conservatives see it as a “federal takeover” of public schools. But there are also serious and very substantive educational criticisms of the approach.
ABC, though, explored the views of exactly one person: Common Core proponent Bill Gates. Host George Stephanopoulos explained that Gates was on the show to “fire back” at critics; this is an odd setup, since he had just explained that there is a big advertising push “by big business groups supporting the Common Core.” If there are TV commercials criticizing the Common Core, I’ve yet to see them.
Stephanopoulos’ first question to Gates was, “Did you know you were going to stir up such a hornet’s nest?” There was little room for explaining the opposition to the Common Core; the closest the segment came was an apocalyptic Glenn Beck soundbite: “This is the progressive movement coming in for the kill.”
But there are plenty of thoughtful criticisms of the Common Core–from the way the standards are being implemented to the role of private testing companies, which stand to profit from the increased emphasis on standardized testing.
Diane Ravitch
And it should be noted that Gates’ involvement has been substantial, as education historian Diane Ravitch (1/1/14) explained in a recent speech:
The US Department of Education is legally prohibited from exercising any influence or control over curriculum or instruction in the schools, so it could not contribute any funding to the expensive task of creating national standards. The Gates Foundation stepped in and assumed that responsibility. It gave millions to the National Governors Association, to the Council of Chief School Officers, to Achieve and to Student Achievement Partners.
Once the standards were written, Gates gave millions more to almost every think tank and education advocacy group in Washington to evaluate the standards–even to some that had no experience evaluating standards–and to promote and help to implement the standards. Even the two major teachers’ unions accepted millions of dollars to help advance the Common Core standards. Altogether, the Gates Foundation has expended nearly $200 million to pay for the development, evaluation, implementation and promotion of the Common Core standards. And the money tap is still open, with millions more awarded this past fall to promote the Common Core standards.
This is not to say that Gates shouldn’t be questioned about Common Core; he should be. But shows like This Week are hardly ever going to devote this kind of attention to the issue; the last time the show covered it was in an interview with another Common Core proponent, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (10/20/13).
This means their viewers are basically hearing one side: politicians who support the standards, and the billionaire funding the policy itself.
How did Gates settle the huge anti-trust case against Microsoft?
The corp. wheedled the courts to allow a big donation to schools of software from — you guessed it — Microsoft. That must have done big damage to Microsoft’s monopoly position that sparked the case in the first place. So Gates is obviously an expert at whatever Big Media says he is.
Reading
Writing
And rigging the ‘rithmetic
I read online that Bill Gates has spent 2.3 billion dollars so far on his transformation of the American Public School system.
Any time a so-called movement to ‘reform’ Public Education is mainly led by a bunch of rich white guys, who NEVER went to public school themselves NOR send their own kids to either public or charter schools, & have NO formal training &/or experience as educators, that’s all one needs to know that what they’re hyping is really {mis}Education [of the Negro] Deform!!!
Mr ‘Wiz-Kid’ Gates has NOT even bothered to return to college to finish his BS degree in computer science [which he could now finish on-line]- let alone has any real credentials &/or experience as an educator. If one went to MicroSoft for a job as a computer technical specialist, yet had NO formal education, training nor experience in IT &/or electronic technology, I’d bet Mr M.S. Gates would NEVER hire you, NO matter how smart you were in English Lit &/or World history- nor how many different languages you could speak.
Yet somehow Just because Mr M.S. Gates is an [alleged] Wiz-Kid in computer software & code, why should we think that now makes him a wiz in {public} Education, [GMO] agriculture & [vaccine] bio-medicine???
The “No Child Left program behind made one of the GW Bush friends very rich, but it didn’t seem to help many kids. I worked with one of those private tutoring companies that had offfered 29 hours of No Child Left Behind, but more time at the table was spent filling out the paperwork to show that teachers had been there. Twenty-nine hours of justifying paperwork is not teaching, but it is wasteful.
I think people forget that the SATs started so that those not of the “upper classes” might be lifted up by their inate intelligence, which if assumed to come from only one class——-would be a great loss. The SATs set out to find intelligence which had much to offer but was overlooked. I wish people would remember that great ideas can come from every social class, because kids learn from a range of ideas amd methods and testing doesn’t tell all. The real purpose of education is to light that spark and give a life long direction, and if teachers are only teaching to the test, how many minds will fall asleep and never have a chance to explore and get excited about a future?
i read that at the age of 13 Bill Gates was designing a traffic system, so he found his spark early, and apparently his parents let him follow his passions. I wonder if his ideas do this for other kids?
Why has there been so little discussion about a policy with such enormous impact upon our future? Why was it implemented through a system which bypassed public discussion?
Here are two links to what I have found to be concise discussions: two sources about “Common Core” concerns. There are many more videos on Youtube if you care to follow the links.
Stop Common Core: series (short videos)
Part 1 of 5 Stop the Common Core
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coRNJluF2O4
and:
Common Core Curriculum
Good article.Exactly how I felt when i saw it.This is not an expert in this matter.
Is it true that after Microsoft was in court for rigging the OS game, for violating anti-trust laws, for unfair trade practices, and still today Microsoft is the only Operating System you can buy….auph! ‘scuse me, I mean, sign a license agreement, since you can’t buy it, just use it? Linux and Apple are both cryptic to be easily used and besides Apple is proprietary and Linux is just too damn hard to use and has no applications anyway. Yes, the Fedes with its way of protecting business to rip off citizens with high priced drugs, or buy rights to use a must have software package that you cannot sell to anyone else, even though you did transfer funds for what another produced, hell, can I have rights to that orange long enough go eat it? but then I have to ensure having eaten it hasn’t changed it, or made it available to anyone else?
Didn’t Bill Gates drop out of school? Why is he an expert? Just cuz he ripped off and conned enough people in gov’t to maintain a dilapidated and outdated copyright system that is the source of his big bucks, should give him no special rights or privileges to con others with influence peddling of his money. I get it, all dropouts should advise others about school curriculum.
Linux and Apple are both cryptic to be easily used and besides Apple is proprietary and Linux is just too damn hard to use and has no applications anyway.
Absolutely wrong. Linux is no harder to use than MS-DOS, Ubuntu is so close to “windows” in it’s operation and daily use, only it doesn’t lock up, and have to be ‘Shut Down, Rebooted and Reopened” every couple of hours. I have yet to have to even reboot since I got the computer.
So Gates may be nice in his funding for scholarships (The Millennium Foundation), but when it comes to making actual software and operating system, he did not make or create any. He bought his Coding from IBM and then used the 800 Lb Gorilla in the room technique to force people into using a system that was already severely flawed. Novell, Linux and CP/M were far better but through monopolistic actions and Illegal maneuvers (hence the Government intervention because he had stiffed the Government on the software) he made his empire. Sadly it is an empire built on pillars of sand.
Saying Gates is an expert in the the field of teaching is akin to saying “I gave some boxes of stuff to Good Will, so I am an expert in Charity”.
I wasn’t aware that Bill Gates had any experience as an Educator in the public school system.