Thursday, July 5, 2012

More Puzzling about the Gates Foundation « Diane Ravitch's blog

More Puzzling about the Gates Foundation « Diane Ravitch's blog:


More Puzzling about the Gates Foundation

I blogged about an article on the  Gates Foundation this morning. The article was written under a pseudonym. The author of the article posted the following comment this morning in response to my post:
I’m puzzled, too. When Gates first announced the foundation, my husband was at UCD working on international health and nutrition. The exact year was 1994, I think. Anyway, I confess I actually cried for joy, and I’m not easily moved by press announcements.
My disillusionment has been gradual, and in fact continues through this week. I wonder if you opened the links in my post?
You see a picture of Gates personally putting a dose of polio vaccine into a child’s mouth, in one link, as though 





What About Sweden?

A reader of the blog posts a comment saying that the U.S. should be open to charters and privatization because, well, what about Sweden.
What about Sweden? Their educational system is one of the best in the world. It’s a public/private hybrid that essentially uses a voucher system. This is something the NEA has foot tooth-and-nail for years.To post that “fighting public education” is by itself a bad thing is simply not enough detail. I think it’s safe to say that monopolistic “public education” is a failure in the U.S. It’s verboten to try something new?
The suggestion is that Sweden should be a model because it has welcomed for-profit schools and various forms of privatization.
Well, what about Sweden? I checked the PISA results and found that Sweden has scores no better than those of the U.S., in reading, mathematics, or science; in fact, Sweden’s scores are nearly identical to ours, right