The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed | Reclaim Reform

The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed | Reclaim Reform:

The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed

“One major theme in A Christmas Carol was rooted in Charles Dickens’ observations of the plight of the children of London’s poor. In 1839 it was estimated that nearly half of all funerals in London were for children under the age of ten. Those who survived grew up without education or resource and virtually no chance to escape the cycle of poverty. Dickens felt that this cycle of poverty could only be broken through education.” (Perdue)

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, “tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”

“I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”

“No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.”

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

(The Spirit of Christmas Present then asks the question at the heart of the attitude of the so-called Christian legislators and general public of Scrooge’s era who chose to either ignore the children of others or to determine which children “deserve” to receive food, healthcare and education. Bob Cratchit’s son, Tim, would heal, be cured and flourish with The Spirit of Christmas Present: Children versus Corporate Greed | Reclaim Reform:

Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures | msvigeljsmith

Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures | msvigeljsmith:

Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures

You say my school is failing. You label my students as failing. You call me a failure. Then you shake hands with profiteers who wear fancy suits and promote edperialism and atestocracy. These profiteers and elitists you embrace send their kids to expensive private schools, so their children don’t have to endure the policies stuffed full of educational malpractice you collaborated to create. They sit cozy in offices and devise untested business theories for application to the humanity that is education. You let them steal our tax dollars, and you praise them as philanthropists for their astronomical failures in education. It’s time you change your narrative. It’s time you change your proximity.

Do you really want to know what it’s like to be a public school teacher in an economically devastated & segregated neighborhood in one of our nation’s cities? Neither you nor the profiteers and policy makers really want to know. People like you want to keep judging and labeling, but you don’t want to admit that you helped create the suffering and disadvantage. You don’t want to claim the role and responsibility that you bear for the disasters you’ve created for other people’s children. Come take a look at my joyful, sad, sweet, angry, helpless, and hopeful students and tell them they’re failures to their faces. Come see me and my colleagues in our classrooms working 10-12 hour days and look us in the eyes and tell us we’re failures. Tell the families who rely on the existing public neighborhood schools we have left that they’re failures raising failures.

Does that seem harsh? It should.

But you have no problem preaching about “failing schools” full of “failing students” while you’re perched in expensive offices in skyscrapers, or as you muse about education in affluent and gated neighborhoods. Change your proximity and see if your narrative still feels all cozy, warm and righteous. See if you still possess the courage or ignorance to make bold declarations about failure when you’re looking into the eyes of hungry six-year-olds who suffered through childhood traumas and lead-filled homes in one of our nation’s cities. Can you look into those sweet, helpless faces and tell a little girl that she’s a failure?

Yet, that is what you do every time you or your education reformer/deformer friends and contributors suggest competition and privatization orclosures, instead of addressing the poverty, historic and systemic racism, andepic failure of our society to care about other people’s children.  The real failures among us fill boardrooms, legislatures, executive offices, non-profits, and cabinets all over this country. They aren’t in my classroom. They aren’t in my school. And they aren’t the families in my city.  They’re people like you.  And I have the courage to state that directly.  Now, I challenge you to stand in Hillary, Politicians, Education Reformers, & Education Profiteers: You Are Cowards & Failures | msvigeljsmith:

School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a Bind - Living in Dialogue

School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a Bind - Living in Dialogue:

School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a Bind

With her ill-informed remarks on school closures, Hillary Clinton set off a bit of a firestorm among education activists. Her full remarks have been posted by Valerie Strauss, so there is no question what she said, and as Peter Greene points out, context does not help much. She clearly thinks that if she is elected it will be her responsibility to enact policies that close low performing schools, much as her predecessors, Presidents Obama and Bush did.

There are few things more dear to corporate reformers than the idea that schools with low test scores should be closed. There are several reasons for this. On the ideological front, the possibility of closure (and the threat of displacement and unemployment for the teachers and administrators that work there) is seen as an essential element of accountability. One of the indictments “accountability hawks” level at public schools is that while failing businesses must go bankrupt and close their doors, “failing schools” can continue to function unless the rules force them to close. According to this way of thinking, people are not properly motivated without the threat of unemployment hanging over their heads.

The other big reason school closures is so precious to corporate reformers is that the chief vehicle for privatizing public schools has become charter schools. Closing down schools with low test scores gives the state the power to forcibly shift students from public schools into semi-private charter schools.

So far in all the explanations of what Clinton meant to say I have yet to hear anyone suggest that school School Closures Remarks Put Clinton in a Bind - Living in Dialogue:

I Wish You Whatever Makes You Happy, Merry or Blessed

I Wish You Whatever Makes You Happy, Merry or Blessed

These celebrations are among some of those that will happen this year: 

Ramadan (Muslim)

Eid al-Fitr (Muslim)

Saint Nicholas Day (Christian)

Eid'ul-Adha (Muslim)

Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Mexican)

St. Lucia Day (Swedish)

Hanukkah (Jewish)

Christmas Day (Christian)

Three Kings Day/Epiphany (Christian)

Boxing Day (Australian, Canadian, English, Irish)

Kwanzaa (African American)

Omisoka (Japanese)

Yule (Pagan)

Saturnalia (Pagan)

Why NonProfits Can’t Lead The 99% | PopularResistance.Org

Why NonProfits Can’t Lead The 99% | PopularResistance.Org:

Why NonProfits Can't Lead The 99%

Above Photo: From BlackAgendaReport.com.

A seasoned movement elder examines what happens left organizations are led exclusively by college-educated professionals answerable to self-perpetuating boards and philanthropic funders, what happens when union leaderships free themselves from their memberships, and when community organizations become government contractors.  Only membership supported and membership-driven organizations, he suggests, can actually lead the 99%.

Warren Mar has written a provocative piece on the role of Community Based Organizations and Worker Centers in the working class movement. He explores controversial issues of the funding and democratic control of these organizations which have filled a vacuum in organizing particularly among immigrant workers.

The author entered community and labor organizing in the late 60’s and early 70’s during the second resurgence of a left alternative to capitalism. Many new left activists entered the labor movement during this time, hoping that American Unions would finally represent the entire working class, and not only those workers under a specific work place contract.

Even at its peak in 1953 the AFL-CIO unions only represented 33% of American workers. This year coincided with continuing legal Jim Crow segregation in the South, excluding African Americans from unions, and years of Asian and Latino exclusion from unions on the West Coast. Therefore the 33% reflected on longingly by union old-timers may have represented a majority of white males concentrated in heavy industry and the skilled construction trades of the Midwest and Northeast. This was the geographic concentration of the majority of union members during the height of the AFL-CIO. Not until the late 60’s and early 70’s when public sector unions were formed and – and public sector civil service jobs were integrated – did large numbers of women and minorities become card-carrying AFL-CIO union members even in the most liberal of northern cities.

The above serves as a context to what we are seeing in liberal urban areas today. Unions, even those that survive, are too insignificant to have a large impact on organizing and popular culture. At 6% density in the private sector, most young workers have no chance of stepping into a union job, so the benefits of union membership is an ideological abstraction. In contrast, many baby boomers were able to step into private sector union jobs, fresh out of high school in the early 1970’s. My first union job allowed me to rent my own apartment, in San Francisco, by making five times the minimum wage. I also had a full medical plan, paid vacation and holidays off, something my immigrant parents never obtained in the era when they were excluded from most unions and specific industries. While I fought against the racism and cronyism of unions I never faltered in my support of them. Even in liberal San Francisco, the difference between a union job vs. a non-union job meant a real living wage. I learned to work union whenever I could right out of high school because it allowed me to pay the rent and later carry the mortgage on my first home in one of the most expensive cities in the United States.

What has stepped into the void with the demise of unions?

It would take another long article to discuss the demise of unions in this country and in particular urban areas. That is not the purpose of this article. Rather, I want to look at the rise of Community Based Organizations (CBO’s), all of whom are chartered as Non-Profit Organizations. They have stepped into the void left by unions as the main and sometimes only organizers of low wage immigrant workers. Some organize workers explicitly through the moniker of being a “workers center”. Many started by representing workers that traditional unions would not touch such as transient immigrant workers who moved from industry to industry or who lacked documentation. The day laborer programs come most readily to mind and they have sprouted up in all urban and agricultural areas where a concentration of Latino or Asian migrants seek casual work, without the benefit of documentation. Others have arisen to redress violations of local progressive workers ordinances such as increases in the minimum wage, paid sick days, private contributions to health care, etc. These progressive policies, usually enacted in left-leaning urban areas, came into being without any enforcement mechanism and when there were written regulations they were remanded to municipal departments woefully understaffed and often Why NonProfits Can’t Lead The 99% | PopularResistance.Org:

A Reading List for Hilary Candidates | Live Long and Prosper

A Reading List for Hilary Candidates | Live Long and Prosper:

A Reading List for Hilary Candidates

Despite the fact that NEA and AFT “endorsed” Hillary Clinton, she is not, IMHO, a strong supporter of public education.

Her math mistake in Iowa (misunderstanding the meaning of average) notwithstanding, she believes that closing schools will help…well…somehow. She said,

Now, I wouldn’t keep any school open that wasn’t doing a better than average job. If a school’s not doing a good job, then, you know, that may not be good for the kids.”

Like other politicians, she believes that closing a school solves problems which result in low achievement. For the most part those problems are based on high levels of poverty. Schools with large numbers of high poverty students need more support. More support equals more tax money. Closing public schools to open charters, or diverting money to private schools through vouchers won’t solve the problems. Shifting students from one school to another won’t solve the problems. Blaming teachers and parents for the low income of families in a school neighborhood won’t solve the problems. What Mrs. Clinton should have said was, “Instead of closing schools we need to bring people out of poverty and A Reading List for Hilary Candidates | Live Long and Prosper:

Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political Disconnect

Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political Disconnect:

Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political Disconnect

Merry Christmas! Today I am writing about illusion and how K-12 education, despite some cursory remarks, is still ignored by Presidential candidates.

If you haven’t already noticed, while there are many topics discussed at Presidential debates, there is never, and I mean NEVER, any mention of the vast concerns about the privatization of America’s public schools, or other volatile issues surrounding K-12 education.

Here are two scenarios to illustrate my point and put a holiday spin on it.

This time of year always brings back memories, and one of those, for me, is of my daughter, when she was young and believed in elves. About a week before Christmas I would slip little treats under the Christmas tree. One night I put some cookies near a few gifts, and when I looked up there she was, big round eyes staring at me in disbelief.

We talked about it. I suppose there is a debate about whether you should lead children on with Santa and elves, but when you are a child (and parent) it sure is a lot of fun. And most kids accept reality when they get older.

That is, unless they are politicians running for President, union leaders and education Elves, Marshmallow Farms, and the K-12 Education Political Disconnect:

CURMUDGUCATION: IN: Let's Try Solo Bargaining + NY: USED Rattles Sabres

CURMUDGUCATION: IN: Let's Try Solo Bargaining:

IN: Let's Try Solo Bargaining

Indiana State Senator Pete Miller is not the first guy to have this idea, but he's the one currently floating it in a state legislature-- let's do away with collective bargaining and let every teacher negotiate her own individual contract.

This is Miller's idea for fixing the teacher shortage. Let's treat teachers fairly, he says. But only when a shortage forces us to, and only some of the teachers. After all, why should I have to pay big bucks for both a first grade teacher and a science teacher when the former are a dime a dozen and the latter are so hard to come by?

I've thought about the solo negotiating approach before, because it seems like an interesting thought experiment. What would schools look like if each contract was individually negotiated?

They would probably look poorer, because at least the larger districts would hire professional negotiators to handle the workload. There are over 2,500 teachers in the Indianapolis district-- exactly who is going to negotiate 2,500 contracts? It's going to be somebody who doesn't have any other job and who was hired just to handle negotiations, which means administration just got bigger.

Or they would look more...well, awkward. In a smaller district, individual contracts would be negotiated by the same people who work as supervisors. I'm trying to imagine the dynamic of, "Yes, I told you last month that you couldn't have another $500 of pay, and now this month I am asking 


NY: USED Rattles Sabres

The United States Department of Education has once again tried to lean on New York and other states where the opt out movement has made a dent in participation rates for the Big Standardized Test.

Newsday reports that the state has received and replied to a letter similar to the one that went out in October, suggesting that they sure could hold up some Title I funds if the state doesn't get its participation rate above 95%. Depending on the reports you read, NY's participation rate in last year's BS Testing was in the neighborhood of 80%.

Newsday reports that the USED says it will take "appropriate" action, and that such action could involve withholding funds, threatening to withhold funds, or talking about threatening to consider withholding funds. So take that, New York.

Newsday also reports that USED offers advice on how to coerce participation rates; it is typical of the department that all suggestions involve threats of some sort of punishment, from withholding aid to counting all non-participating students as non-proficient (because the test data is really really important, but it's okay to completely pollute the data pool with made-up scores).

[Update: Since I originally wrote this piece, somebody found me a copy of the actual letter. Read for yourself-- it's as bad as Newsday reports.] 

In this context, High Education Commissioner Elia's actions to improve test participation actually NY: USED Rattles Sabres

NYC Educator: Leaving Hillarytown

NYC Educator: Leaving Hillarytown:

Leaving Hillarytown

Hillary Clinton opened her mouth the other day, and said she wouldn't keep open any school that wasn't better than average. She later clarified to say she meant good, rather than better than average. To me, that was not much of a distinction. I work in a good school, even by reformy standards, but I don't delude myself that it's because we are all super teachers. I'd say it's because we have super kids, and that any school with such kids can do well. Just ask Geoffrey Canada, who had to dismiss entire cohorts to make himself look good. Ask Eva Moskowitz, with her "got to go" list.

For anyone who hasn't noticed, there is a direct correlation between high poverty, high needs, and low test scores. Kids like the ones I serve are a drag on any school, because it turns out people who don't know English tend to score poorly on standardized tests in English. Perhaps one day someone will do a study and prove it, and we'll all be amazed. Until then, schools dominated by ELLs will be targeted. For example there was the one in Rhode Island, where they wanted to fire all the teachers. Obama and Duncan thought that was fantastic. (If I recall correctly, the teachers were ultimately kept on, but under diminished working conditions. Another victory for the reformies.)

Despite this explanation in Diane Ravitch's blog, and the convoluted story to which it links, I cannot rationalize this as Hillary having misspoken. While the feds don't directly close schools, they've had massive influence in school closings anyway. For Hillary to even utter such a sentence indicates to me that she has drunk deeply of the reformy Kool-Aid that says teachers and schools are to blame. She does  not seem to have read Ravitch or considered what this reformy movement is all about. It also kind of dashes my hopes that she will advocate for a rational teacher evaluation system. The fact that Eli Broad contributes to her gives me even more pause.

Every day I talk to great teachers whose morale is in the toilet, who casually mention what else they can do for a living, and others who drop hints that they will dump this gig and go work in Macy's or wherever the first moment they can afford it, or the day they're vested. This will have little effect on Hillary or her rich friends, who sidestep the nonsense they impose on public schools by paying to send their kids elsewhere. But you're not gonna see kids I teach at Dalton anytime soon.

I'm also troubled by the viciousness of her supporters. On Facebook I've seen people suggest that those of us reluctant to support her are massive idiots. When the first story about her quote surfaced it was on the Weekly Standard, and there were outraged ad hominem attacks even though the story simply offered the quote. Later there was video, and multiple sources, and crickets from those who attacked the conservative publication.

The irony here is that my vote, beyond the primary, is ultimately of very little importance. If Hillary grabs the nomination and has trouble in New York, she's a dead duck. Personally, I'm not at all keen on voting for candidates of any party who don't support public education. When NYC Educator: Leaving Hillarytown:

Can students pray in school? Wyoming school district learns what’s legal and what isn’t. - The Washington Post

Can students pray in school? Wyoming school district learns what’s legal and what isn’t. - The Washington Post:

Can students pray in school? Wyoming school district learns what’s legal and what isn’t.

Can students pray in school? A Wyoming school district has learned what’s legal and what isn’t — and the truth may surprise some people.

In October, several students at a Wyoming high school formed a circle in the cafeteria to give thanks for the food they were about to eat. Soon after, Principal Stanetta Twiford of Glendo High School told the student they couldn’t do it again in the cafeteria because it could be seen as forcing religion on other students, which is not allowed in public schools, the Christian News Network reported.  The district superintendent, Dennis Fischer, backed up in his principal when a parent of one of the students got involved.

But that parent then contacted the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian group, which sent a letter to Fischer saying that the prayer group was, in fact, legal. Fischer did some research on his own about what is permitted and sent a letter back, saying that he learned that the prayer group did not violate the law. The decision was reversed.

So where and when can students pray in public school? This is from Charles Haynes, vice president of the Newseum Institute/Religious Freedom Center who writes and speaks extensively on religious liberty and religion in American public life.  I published this in 2014, but it’s worth repeating.

From Haynes:

The claim that public schools are hostile to Christians … isn’t true.

Truth be told, students of all faiths are actually free to pray alone or in groups during the school day, as long as they don’t disrupt the school or interfere with the rights of others. Of course, the right to engage in voluntary prayer or religious discussion does not necessarily include the right to preach to a captive audience, like an assembly, or to compel other students to participate.

Visit public schools anywhere in America today and you’re likely to see kids praying around the flagpole, sharing their faith with classmates, reading scriptures in free time, forming religious clubs, and in other ways bringing God with them through the schoolhouse door each day.

As for celebrating Christmas, students are free to say “Merry Christmas,” give Christmas messages to others, and organize Christmas devotionals in student Christian clubs.

It’s true that some public school officials still misunderstand (or 

Can students pray in school? Wyoming school district learns what’s legal and what isn’t. - The Washington Post:

Nine questions for the Obama administration about school reform - The Washington Post

Nine questions for the Obama administration about school reform - The Washington Post:

Nine questions for the Obama administration about school reform

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has only a few days left before his official exit on Dec. 31. Though his designated successor, John King, the former education commissioner of New York State, will have about a year in the job, the education legacy from this administration will be President Obama’s and Duncan’s.

Mark Naison, a professor of African American studies and history at Fordham University and director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program, offers the following nine questions that need to be answered when the full accounting of the Obama administration’s education reform efforts is written. These appeared on Naison’s blog, and I am publishing them with permission.

Naison writes that Obama’s Race to the Top — his chief education initiative, which rewarded federal funds to states that promised to enact specific reforms that became extremely controversial — was created with hopes of achieving great equity. But there was enormous collateral damage,  Naison says, and that damage “may have well exceeded the gains.” Other critics argue that there were no real gains and that the Obama-Duncan reforms wound up leaving feeling teachers demonized, public education increasingly privatized and the achievement gap still wide.

Here are Naison’s questions:

*How many schools were closed?

*How many great teachers were fired or forced into retirement?

*How many teachers still on the job were placed under a doctor’s care because test-based accountability had destroyed their self-confidence?

*How many communities experienced sharp declines in the number of teachers of color working in their schools?

*How many new charter schools were created which were embroiled in controversy because of financial irregularities or abusive practices?

*How many lucrative contracts were extended to test companies and consulting firms?

*How many students were deprived of recess, physical education and the arts because they were forced to prepare for tests?

*How many special needs or ELL students were unable to graduate because requirements were suddenly raised?

*How many families with young children were filled with stress because testing had taken over their lives?

What other questions need to be asked and answered?Nine questions for the Obama administration about school reform - The Washington Post:

State funding of charter schools causing woes for public schools - The Jackson County Times-Journal: News

State funding of charter schools causing woes for public schools - The Jackson County Times-Journal: News:

State funding of charter schools causing woes for public schools

 JACKSON— There was a brief discussion during a Jackson Board of Education meeting regarding the downfalls of charter or community schools, some of which are online programs.

According to Jackson City Schools Superintendent Phil Howard the Jackson City School District has lost $3,578,324.99 since 2003 because of children going to charter schools. Money that could have gone into Jackson’s coffers.

To prove the negative impact charter schools have on the public school systems Howard indicated they sent a bill to the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) for the amount lost since 2003. While Howard doesn’t expect any type of payment for the bill, he implied the gesture would show the ODE just how much funding public school districts are losing because of charter schools.

Howard said there is a huge movement of districts coming together in opposition of charter schools. Their main philosophy is that public school districts are paid for with tax dollars, but those same tax payers should not also have to pay for charter schools.

Those districts opposing charter schools feel that parents should pay for their children to go to charter schools if they choose to take them out of the public school system.

Howard said the districts involved in the movement want to get the attention of legislators so that some type of reform can be done regarding the way the state handles the charter schools.

The impact of charter or community schools in the Wellston City School District and the Oak Hill Union Local Schools is just as detrimental.

In 2003, the Wellston City School (WCS) District lost $64,695 to community schools compared to $260,552 this year. Karen Boch the superintendent of WCS stated, “Since 2003, we have lost approximately $3.1 million dollars. Obviously, this is detrimental to the district as it pulls resources from our students.”

Boch said most of the students go to the Electronic Classroom Of Tomorrow (ECOT), and it is frustrating because while the state is working to tighten up accountability, the standards aren’t the same.

“Students can return to their home district at any time, which we welcome, Boch continued, “However, what we often find, is that the students often return with lower academic function than when they left the district.”

Boch wanted it understood, however, that it was not her intention to just target ECOT in regards to the lower academic functioning, it was just one example she used to clarify her point.

Mirroring what Boch said, Michael A. McCoy, the superintendent of The Oak Hill Union Local School District stated, “The Community School Deduction hits us much like Open Enrollment when a student chooses to attend another school and reside in our district. Although less money is never a good thing, and it effects the programs and services we provide to our students, the main objection I have is that we are providing public monies (state & local) to a “For Profit Business” that, more often than not, provides very poor educational opportunities to the students with little or no accountability or oversight.”

McCoy said the community schools play by a completely different set of rules than public schools when serving regular education students and special needs students. And many times, those students come back to the public school system after time in the community schools having made no education progress.

McCoy provided a list of community school deductions dating back to 2003, showing how large the financial impact is on his public school district. In 2003, Oak Hill lost $37,353; 2004 Oak Hill lost $96,932; 2005 they lost $76,149; 2006 they lost $87,836; 2007 Oak Hill lost $157,588; 2008 they lost $163,170; 2009 Oak Hill lost $203,825; 2010 they lost $196,502; 2011 they lost $216,712; 2012 Oak Hill lost $244,544; 2013 Oak Hill lost $209,591; 2014 Oak Hill lost $201,160; and in 2015 Oak Hill lost $226,554; for a total of $2,339,458.

This there is a lot of money being pulled from the public school coffers, which explains why many of the districts are pushing for legislation that would force parents and the private institutions to claim more financial responsibility.State funding of charter schools causing woes for public schools - The Jackson County Times-Journal: News:

Bill Gates names the 6 best things that happened in 2015 - Yahoo Finance

Bill Gates names the 6 best things that happened in 2015 - Yahoo Finance:

Bill Gates names the 6 best things that happened in 2015

Every year, Bill Gates puts out his annual list of the year's best news on his blog GatesNotes.

It's a nice feel good message, especially since 2015 also ushered in so many negative things, like the rise of extremist terrorist groups, the Paris attacks, the ongoing Syrian refugee crises, endless mass shootings in the US and so on.

So to get you in a happy, grateful mood for the holiday season, here's one of the world's most charitable person's take on the best things that happened in 2015, in a Letterman-style list.

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.(Flickr/Sanofi Pasteur) the Rubella virus

No. 6: "German measles" Rubella has been eliminated in the Americas.

This thanks to a 15-year effort to vaccinate people.  Rubella is really dangerous for pregnant women, and can lead to death or severe birth defects. 

"This milestone lends momentum not only to efforts to wipe out rubella around the world. It also gives a shot in the arm to efforts to eliminate measles, which is more deadly and more contagious than rubella, because the rubella and measles vaccines are often given in combination," Gates said.

The Gates Foundation is trying to end measles, and has been developing more affordable vaccines. 

No. 5: Mobile banking is huge hit and getting bigger in developing countries.

Gates has said that he believes mobile banking is one of the best things ever invented to help people lift themselves out of poverty. 

"Today, more than two billion people have no access to financial services, severely limiting their ability to borrow, save, invest, and participate in the mainstream economy. But that is changing fast," he writes.  

For instance, 75% of adults have a mobile bank access in Kenya and huge strides are happening Brazil, Rwanda, Tanzania, Bangladesh, and India.

"When I’ve traveled in these countries, I’ve seen digital financial innovation that’s even outpacing what we see in rich countries," he adds.

No. 4.  SAT college prep studying is now free for everyone

.

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(Khan Academy) In June, the company that created the SAT helped the online training site Khan Academy launch free online studying tools, filled with interactive lessons and videos, for the SAT or PSAT.

"I’m very excited about this development because of what it means for kids who can’t afford expensive test-prep classes and tutors," he says.

No. 3 The Nobel Prize went to three researchers fighting diseases of the poor. 

"On October 5, I woke up to the wonderful news that this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine had been awarded to three researchers who developed indispensable tools for fighting diseases of the poor," Gates writes.

Two of the researchers are working on curing parasitic worms and the other is trying to cure malaria. The invented "true miracle drugs," Gates says.

No. 2: Neil deGrasse Tyson gives a brilliant 272 word defense of science.

"He makes the best argument I’ve ever heard for ensuring that science plays a big role in policymaking," Gates writes. "Inspired by the short and eloquent Gettysburg Address, Dr. Tyson makes his case in just 272 words."

 And the No. 1 best news of 2015 is ... Africa went a year without any new polio cases.

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(AP/Jean-Marc Bouju) A child receives a polio vaccine."On July 24, Nigeria marked one full year without a single new case of locally acquired polio, the crippling and sometimes fatal disease. It is the last country in Africa to stop transmission of wild polio," Gates writes. "This milestone represents a huge victory—one that some experts feared would never come."

It came about because of a huge effort, involving hundreds of thousands of people who mapped every village in the north of the country, counting all the children and delivering oral polio vaccine several times a year. 

In 1988, polio was still running amok in 125 countries. Now, it's endemic in only two, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and Gates believes the day is coming when it is eradicated.  

NOW WATCH: I visited Amazon's first retail store, and one thing was especially annoying

Bill Gates names the 6 best things that happened in 2015 - Yahoo Finance: