[p2p-research] Defining Altruism ? Normative vs Autonomous ? Liberal Vs Conservative ?

Wed Jul 21 15:14:45 CEST 2010

here, on the harmful effect of the gates foundation on education reform,
http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2010/6/14/4553190.html

 Raving Ravitch and the Gates Foundation
by gatekeeper 1<javascript:openWindow('http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/cmd=view_user/username=cbgateskeeper',
'info', 450, 600);> on Mon 14 Jun 2010 12:00 PM PDT  |  Permanent
Link<http://gateskeepers.civiblog.org/blog/_archives/2010/6/14/4553190.html>
|
Cosmos<http://technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fgateskeepers.civiblog.org%2Fblog%2F_archives%2F2010%2F6%2F14%2F4553190.html>
It is rare for a public intellectual to rave
against<http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/jun/10/obamas-right-wing-school-reform/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nyrblog+%28NYRblog%29>,
or even stand up against the ideas of the Gates Foundation and the
Billionaire Boys Club. Listen carefully. She is not finished.

The title of her book reminds one of the title of a book by another
giant-slayer, Jane Jacobs. Does Ravitch see herself Jane to Gates' Moses?

++++++++++++++++++

Obama's Right-Wing School Reform
Diane Ravitch
New York Review of Books blog
June 10, 2010

Recently, I wrote a book, The Death and Life of the Great American School
System, in which I took issue with a number of currently popular education
strategies that I had once supported, and now, seeing their questionable
outcomes, challenge. Since then, I have been traveling across the country
and have made three dozen speeches. What started out as a conventional book
tour—with stops only in Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco—turned into
something else: a whistle-stop campaign to warn against some of the
education “reforms” currently in vogue. From the day that the news broke
that I had turned against No Child Left Behind—the federal law that
nationally enforces a heavy emphasis on testing and accountability—and that
I’d come out against against market-based ideas of school choice, I have
been overwhelmed with invitations to speak in almost every state.

The result has been exhilarating, exhausting, and ultimately disheartening.
The exhilarating part was meeting thousands of teachers and hearing their
appreciation for my support of their work. Teachers repeatedly asked if I
could voice their opposition to what is now called reform. Many described
the challenges they face trying to comply with the unrealistic goals of No
Child Left Behind. At Stanford, a teacher from Salinas County broke into
tears as she described her students, the children of lettuce pickers, most
of whom knew no English. When I spoke in Oakland, a group of teachers drove
four hours to hear me and to get copies of my book for every member of their
school board.

The disheartening part was recognizing, along with my audiences, that the
policies I criticize now have not only the unwavering support of Republicans
but also the endorsement of the Obama administration. Secretary of Education
Arne Duncan has been campaigning with Newt Gingrich to enlist bipartisan
support for what I believe is a very conservative agenda. For me, the irony
of all this is that I broke ranks with my former colleagues at some
staunchly conservative think tanks by writing my book at precisely the
moment the Obama administration has embraced their ideas. Again and again, I
have been asked by talk show hosts (at least the well informed ones), “How
did right-wing ideas become the education agenda of the Obama
administration?”

My sense is that it has a lot to do with the administration’s connections to
the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation. Although both are usually
portrayed as liberal or at least Democratic, their funding priorities have
merged with those of the very conservative Walton Family Foundation. I
explain this curious power elite in a chapter of my book called “The
Billionaire Boys Club.”

The Obama administration has dangled $4.3 billion in federal aid before the
states in a competition called the Race to the Top. To be eligible to win,
the states must increase the number of privately managed charter schools,
must agree to evaluate teachers by student test scores, and must commit to
“turning around” so-called failing schools (including by closing them or
privatizing them). In the first round of this contest, the winning states
were Tennessee, which received $500 million, and Delaware, which got $100
million—apparently based on their readiness to enact comprehensive reform
along recommended lines. In this time of severe fiscal stringency, 37 other
states—-including New York—have applied for funding from the next round of
Race to the Top, each promising to reshape its education system around the
administration’s priorities in order to win it.

The main ideas embodied in the Race to the Top program and other
administration policies were incubated in conservative think tanks. I have
argued that none of these “reforms” is likely to improve education, and all
are likely to do harm.

Charter schools are the fad of the moment. There are some excellent charter
schools, and some dismal ones. They have been around for nearly twenty
years, and, to date, the best evidence shows that in aggregate students in
them perform no better or worse than students in regular public schools. As
their numbers grow under pressure from the Obama administration, their
quality is not likely to improve; the history of American education is
replete with small-scale demonstrations that became less effective when
rapidly expanded to a mass scale. So, if history is a useful guide,
charters, which are by definition very thinly regulated, will go from being
no better or worse to being a very problematic sector riddled with extreme
variability in performance and not infrequent cases of financial
mismanagement. It is hard to see this turn to privatization of one of our
nation’s basic public services as a route to better education.

Similarly, the strategy of tying teacher evaluations to test scores will
have predictably negative consequences. It will promote more time spent
preparing students for very inadequate tests and a narrowing of the
curriculum (with less time for history, geography, science, the arts,
foreign languages, and every other non-tested subject). It will judge
teachers for matters over which they have no control, such as student
absenteeism and family involvement (or lack thereof).

Everyone asks, how can we stop this misguided and potentially harmful
approach? I keep hoping that some elected official, some Governor or
Senator, will recognize that millions of discontented parents and
teachers—not just the vilified teachers’ unions—are looking for political
leadership. They don’t want to lose public education, and they hate the
relentless emphasis on testing and punishment. I keep watching for the
leader who will mobilize those who now are voiceless and demand that our
nation get serious about improving education: making sure that all children
have access to a full and balanced curriculum—-rather than just preparation
for standardized tests—and taking steps to improve the teaching profession,
rather than demeaning and demoralizing it.

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 6:51 PM, Patrick Anderson <agnucius at gmail.com>wrote:

> Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > Bill Gates is heavily into promoting GMO's,
>
> Yes, this is much more scary than software.  He is helping to stop
> User Freedom for food when he funds legislation and the production of
> "Copy Protection" techniques used in plant and animal lifeforms.
>
> "'Gates Gives $300 million - but with a Catch'" --
>
> http://OpenDotDotDot.BlogSpot.com/2009/10/gates-gives-300-million-but-with-catch.html<http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/10/gates-gives-300-million-but-with-catch.html>
>
>
> He is also heavily involved in the 'giving' of pharmaceuticals while
> simultaneously working to stop countries from making their own copies
> of that so-called "Intellectual Property".
>
> "'BILL  GATES: KILLING AFRICANS FOR PROFIT AND P.R.'" --
> http://GregPalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=232&row=0<http://gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=232&row=0>
>
> _______________________________________________
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