Despite a Handshake and a Promise, Still NO Gates Foundation REPLY to #EducatingGatesRally Demands
Photo Courtesy of Alex Garland Photography, used with permission.
Dear Bill and Melinda,
In the summer of 2011 the seeds of this protest were planted when I read Bruce Levine’s book “Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite”. Bruce Levine and I talked on the phone and exchanged emails that summer. He spoke and wrote about the need to take our grassroots’ protest to the corporate elite vs the politicians — because that is where the real power seat is held.
Yet that July, I found myself taking the message to the politicians instead at the Save Our Schools March in DC, where I was fortunate to meet educator/activist/author Anthony Cody, Jonathan Kozol, Diane Ravitch, and so many of my activist friends. During that meeting the plans for this protest were hatched. We convened again in DC the following year. It took time to build awareness of your influence on education. It took time to garner grassroots support to confront you — because so many rely on your rhetoric and your money — rather than your actions and their consequences on the people who experience what I call #TheGatesEffect.
Finally, on behalf of 100′s of teachers, parents, and community members I felt privileged to deliver our demands and the entire collection of Teachers’ Letters to the Gates to your foundation on Thursday, June 26th, 2014 at the Educating Gates Rally. But what is the Gates Foundation’s response? What are you doing about our demands?
Despite the fact that in an interview with KPLU’s Kyle Stokes, Dr. Vicki Phillips said the Gates Foundation gives our concerns “legitimacy“ (like that is within her power?) — and claims we share the same goals — we have yet to receive a reply. Despite a promise from the Gates Foundation’s Director of External Communications, Jeremy Hillman — we Despite a Handshake and a Promise, Still NO Gates Foundation REPLY to #EducatingGatesRally Demands | Teachers' Letters to Bill Gates: