Category Archives: Uncategorized

Megan Tompkins-Stange recently wrote a book (Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform and the Politics of Influence) about her study of certain big foundations. I posted EduShyster’s interview with her. She writes here about the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its intention to remake American education, without asking parents or educators if they agree with the foundation’s plans.

She describes the Gates Foundation’s pivot from small schools to Common Core to “personalized learning.” Each pivot involved maximum imposition on districts and states eager for new money, and the money also had strings attached. The strings designed by the Gates Foundation.

As Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and the Walton family foist their experiments on other people’s children, they have no accountability for their mistakes. Sometimes they don’t even seem to acknowledge them.

She writes:

But education is a public good: a fundamental human right to which citizens in…

Wow! I have seen billionaires put money into elections on behalf of charter schools around the country, but this one takes the cake.

Alice Walton and Jim Walton of Arkansas really want Massachusetts to have more charter schools. They must be very unhappy that the public schools of the Bay State are #1 in the nation. Clearly, the state needs disruption and market forces to shake up its highly successful school system.

Mercedes Schneider writes that the two Waltons gave $1.828,770 to the campaign in Massachusetts to increase the number of charters in the state by a dozen a year in perpetuity.

Mercedes writes:

According to the September 09, 2016, filing of the Massachusetts ballot committee, Yes on 2, billionaire Arkansas resident Alice Walton is one of two individuals providing the $710,100 in funding to promote MA Question 2, raising the charter school cap.

Alice Walton provided $710,000.

A second…

John Thompson, teacher and historian in Oklahoma, is a frequent contributor to the blog.

Diane Ravitch publicized an educator’s concise and astute critique of Florida’s standards of instruction where “The FLDOE has absolutely no clue on how long it takes to teach each standard effectively.” An educational software company “looked at the standards that a fifth grade teacher is required to teach effectively and stopped counting when we found it would take a minimum of at least 300 school days to teach the standards to an effective level.” The obvious problem is that covering the tested standards would take 2/3rds of a school year more than the time students are in class – even if there were no disruptions of learning ranging from assemblies and class disruptions to the time wasted on benchmark and other form of testing.

Reader: It Takes 300 Days to Teach the Florida Standards Effectively

Moreover, even…

Gary Rubinstein explains here what happened when he posted about the nearly 500 videos that Success Academy put up on the Internet.

They were there. Some disappeared. They reappeared. They all disappeared.

What’s next?

Jonathan Pelto writes about a report on Bill Gates’ underwriting of “journalism” touting privatization of public schools in Liberia, gates is an investor in Bridge International Academies, a for-profit business that offers scripted schooling by uncertified teachers in poor nations in Africa. Some have called it the new colonialism masquerading as philanthropy.

Gates has invested in BIA. it is not philanthropy.

“In a stunning expose written by Adam Johnson of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), it becomes undeniably clear that Bill Gates has reached the point where his billions not only fund the myriad of corporate education reform initiatives that are sweeping the country and the world, but his investment in the media taints much of the coverage of these developments.

In an article entitled, “This Guardian Piece Touting Bill Gates’ Education Investment Brought to You by Bill Gates,” FAIR’s Adam Johnson explains:

“The Guardian (8/31/16) published a broadly…

Okay, maybe you can’t be shocked anymore to learn that billionaires have bought politicians. Still, when you read this article in the Detroit Free Press, I think you will be as outraged as I was and am. The charter lobby has outdone itself this time. I haven’t paid as much attention to the DeVos family as I should have. Their fortune comes from Amway. Betsy DeVos started a privatization organization deceptively named the American Federation for Children. The family would like to replace public education altogether, preferably with vouchers. They are devotees of the free market ideology, though they are happy to have government subsidize the free market. One thing is clear: they despise public schools and will gladly reward legislators to agree with them.

This article was written by Stephen Henderson, editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. If the DeVos family and the Michigan GOP wanted to…

Dr. Nicholas Kardaras is a licensed psychotherapist and a specialist on children’s screen addiction. In this article in TIME magazine, he asserts that the schools’ investment of $60 billion in new technology benefits the tech entrepreneurs, not the students. He calls it a hoax driven by the pursuit of profit.

He writes:

As the dog days of summer wane, most parents are preparing to send their kids back to school. In years past, this has meant buying notebooks and pencils, perhaps even a new backpack. But over the past decade or so, the back-to-school checklist has for many also included an array of screen devices that many parents dutifully stuff into their children’s bag.

The screen revolution has seen pedagogy undergo a seismic shift as technology now dominates the educational landscape. In almost every classroom in America today, you will find some type of screen—smartboards, Chromebooks, tablets, smartphones. From…

In an amusing tour de force, NBCT teacher Stuart Egan (in North Carolina) poses the question, what if businesses were run like public schools?

Public Schools Aren’t Businesses – Don’t Believe Me? Try Running a Business as a Public School

No business leader could function under the same conditions.

Comparing schools to businesses isn’t like comparing apples to oranges, it’s like comparing apples to rocks.

For example:

“Be prepared to open up every book and have everything audited. If you are a public school, then every cent, every resource, and every line item is open to scrutiny by a variety of inspectors. Be prepared to be constantly audited and have those findings be available and open to interpretation to people outside of your business, even when those people may not know how your business operates.

“Be prepared to publicize all of the salaries of the people who work for you. ALL…

There are few public school systems in America that have been more harmed by what Diane Ravich aptly dubbed “corporate education reform” than those in Denver, Colorado. Ciedie Aech tells the story of a professional educator working in the horrific and unstable environment that developed with the extra-legal federal take-over of public schools. In reality, this is a heart wrenching story, but Aech’s sarcastic humor turns it into a delight. Any teacher in America’s public k-12 system who reads “Why is you always got to be trippin” will immediately recognize many scenes Ciedie delightfully paints while telling this dreadful story.

About the Title

 “One day when noise from unsupervised students caught my attention, I stepped into the hallway to find a group of boys throwing friendly punches outside a neighboring classroom.

 “‘Gentlemen!’ I stated reactively, clearing my throat. Happy to ignore extraneous interference, the boys continued their game. ‘Gentlemen!’ I…