Over the weekend, The New York Times published a startling expose of Bill Gates' successful efforts to shape education policy in the United States.
Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates poses on April 4, 2011 in Paris. (Photo: Miguel Medina, AFP / Getty Images)
As I showed in my recent book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, Gates is one of a small group of billionaires that is promoting privatization, de-professionalization, and high-stakes testing as fixes for American public schools. I called this group "the billionaire boys club," which includes Gates, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and the Walton Family Foundation.
The Times article documents how Gates has put almost everyone concerned with education policy in his debt: advocacy groups and think tanks of left and right, education journals, public television programs, leaders in academia, local school districts, and state education groups. In addition to what is reported in the Times,
