Latest News and Comment from Education

Saturday, March 9, 2019

Bill & Melinda Gates Don’t Discuss Their Takeover of America’s Public Schools

Bill & Melinda Gates Don’t Discuss Their Takeover of America’s Public Schools

Bill & Melinda Gates Don’t Discuss Their Takeover of America’s Public Schools



Bill and Melinda Gates’s 2019 letter “We Didn’t See This Coming,” is filled with their concerns and optimism about everything from commodes to climate change. Always eager to discuss their global initiatives to help the poor, and a variety of other endeavors, they say little about the aggressive ways they are remaking public education to their liking.
Almost every nonprofit created to disparage public schools or the teaching profession has the Gates Foundation as a major donor.
Maybe they don’t notice, or didn’t see coming, how they promoted charters at the expense of public schools. Perhaps they didn’t mean to criticize the teaching profession by meddling with their teacher effectiveness initiative, and supporting Teach for America types. Didn’t they realize the hubbub they’d create wanting to collect massive amounts of data on children?
They don’t seem to understand that public ownership of public schools is critical to a democracy. That’s what is at stake here.
Many educators and parents, however, insist that Bill and Melinda Gates are about privatizing public schools, making the workers they want for the future economy, and replacing teachers with technology.
Yet the dynamic duo dodge discussion about how they’re dismantling public CONTINUE READING: Bill & Melinda Gates Don’t Discuss Their Takeover of America’s Public Schools