For the past several weeks, former Oakland public school teacher Anthony Cody has been engaged with the Gates Foundation on issues surrounding education reform, poverty's impact on learning ability, charter schools and other issues.
This week was the final exchange, and it was a doozy. Moreover, it parted an opaque curtain on how nonprofits view teachers and their contribution to the dialogue.
The discussions have centered around charter schools and how they play into the for-profit education push, particularly in schools serving impoverished students who are also not performing on standardized tests. Cody's final entry concerned the profit motive in education "reform." I have the impression the Gates folks really didn't appreciate what he said very much.
Cody wrote:
The market, by definition, seeks to tap the desire to make money as a motivation for solutions
