If There Remains Any Question

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday May 01, 2011 · 7:36 AM PDT

2011/05/01 · 07:36

Let's do some truly basic math.

First, consider that Bill Gates, a billionaire whose wealth and success have been built on computer innovation and entrepreneurship, has been an education reformer for many years now--stretching back to a small schools focus:

Bill Gates used to believe that one of the solutions to failing schools was to create smaller ones with 500 students or fewer. His foundation spent $1 billion toward this; seeing the opportunity to bring in private dollars, districts started shifting to smaller schools. Small schools became the big new trend. But then the foundation conducted a study that found that, by itself, school size had little if any effect on achievement. The foundation dropped the project and moved on to teacher reform, but by then some urban districts throughout the nation had changed to small--and more expensive to operate--schools.

So the first formula is:

Gates' initiative + Gates funding = abandoned schools in the wake of failure (with no consequences for Gates)

As the Los Angeles Times reports above, Gates is now focusing on teacher quality--including calls for teacher evaluations tied to test scores measuring student achievement against the common core standards.

This suggests a new formula:

Gates money + common core standards + testing industry = profit for Gates and testing industry at the expense of students, learning, and public education.

If there remains any question if Gates should be driving education reform, if there remains any question why Gates is focusing on education, let me suggest there shouldn't be.

This formula is obvious, as reported by Education Week:

The announcement today by the Pearson Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation marks yet another entry into the increasingly crowded marketplace of curriculum creation sparked by the common standards. All but six states have adopted those learning guidelines.
In a conference call with reporters, officials from the Gates and the Pearson foundations said the project will create 24 courses: 11 in math, for grades K-10; and 13 in English/language arts, for grades K-12. Four of those courses will be available for free online through the Gates Foundation. The full 24-course system, with accompanying tools including assessments and professional development for teachers, would be available for purchase, likely through Pearson, the for-profit company that operates the Pearson Foundation, in New York City.

Each course will serve as a 150-day curriculum and will harness technological advances such as social networking, animation, and gaming to better engage and motivate students, Judy B. Codding, the managing director of the Pearson Foundation, told reporters.

The current and historical claims that public education is failing are more often than not political and corporate hyperbole that serves not to address education reform or to fulfill the promise of universal public education, but instead masks the political and corporate failures that allow swelling poverty among children and an ever-widening equity gap among the American public.

If there remains any question about Gates, testing corporations, and politicians driving education reform, then whoever continues to wonder is simply ignoring why the wealthy and powerful invest their money and time. . .

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

Make YOUR voice heard!

Comments are closed on this story.