Gates & Chamber of Commerce create ad campaign to calm parents on school 'reform'

[roxiejules]

Run time: 02:56 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKhxBmkcrxQ   Posted on YouTube: July 18, 2011 By YouTube Member: EducatingChangeCMS Views on YouTube: 100   Posted on DU: July 18, 2011 By DU Member: roxiejules Views on DU: 3328

 
A paid media campaign titled "Educating Change" that is designed to 'inform' Mecklenburg County North Carolina residents about school 'reform' after parent protests mount.





To those of you concerned about big-money foundations and their influence on local schools, hold onto your hats: the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation today is announcing a new public relations campaign on behalf of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Given all the uproar over expanded testing, performance-pay and other initiatives critics see as being driven by foundations like Gates and Broad, this one is sure to attract a lot of attention.

http://obsyourschools.blogspot.com/2011/07/gates-foundation-launching-new-cms-pr.html#ixzz1SVDdop5w

Skeptical parents and adamant administrators are squaring off over a surge of new testing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, as teachers watch warily and brace for hours of new work.

CMS will launch trial versions of 52 new tests, including an exam for kids as young as kindergarteners who must be tested one-on-one. The tests will be used to evaluate teachers, as the budget shrinks and officials prepare to lay off faculty.

Growing numbers of parents say the tests will waste class time and undermine learning.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/05/08/2281054/whos-the-power-behind-cms.html

As public money dwindles, "venture philanthropists" such as Broad and Bill Gates play a growing role in driving education reform. The idea that businessmen like Broad and Gates can invest their way to public power without public accountability - or experience as educators - worries some people.

"They know how to cut costs," said Fenwick English, a professor at UNC Chapel Hill's School of Education, who has labeled Broad as the top enemy of public education leadership in the U.S. "But what they don't know is teaching and learning."

Diane Ravitch, an author and former assistant secretary of education, has labeled Broad, Gates and a handful of education philanthropists "the billionaire boys club." She argues that their control of the reform movement undermines democracy.

"Business leaders like the idea of turning the schools into a marketplace where the consumer is king. But the problem with the marketplace is it dissolves communities and replaces them with consumers," she writes in "The Death and Life of the Great American School System."

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/05/08/2281054/whos-the-power-behind-cms.html#ixzz1SVBdsS8i

[Starry Messenger]

1. Fuck Bill Gates.

[pam4water]

23. +1

[somone]

2. Greedy assholes

Fuck them

[roxiejules]

3. 2 million dollars spent on needless new testing

ugh.

[madfloridian]

4. In 2009 that district laid off experienced teachers, hired TFA teachers.

http://www.news-record.com/content/2009/05/14/article/charlotte_mecklenburg_schools_to_replace_100_teachers_with_cadets

"Some experienced teachers being laid off in one of North Carolina's largest school districts will be replaced with 100 new Teach for America recruits, officials said.

A teacher advocate said the decision by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system is insulting, The Charlotte Observer reported Thursday. The newspaper said the recruits lack experience and teaching credentials.

More than 400 classroom teachers are scheduled to get layoff notices later in May. District Superintendent Peter Gorman said some will be recalled if government budgets improve for 2009-10."

[roxiejules]

17. Everytime an employer rolls out a campaign directed at employees

it usually means they are about to get screwed.


So sad to hear about all the teachers who lost their jobs.

[distilledvinegar]

5. such a small, sad world...

This district's last superintendent, Peter Gorman, just resigned in June to become the Senior Vice President of News Corp's education division. He'll be joining Joel Klein, but of course Joel's going to be http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/12/joel-klein-news-corps-investigator">a little busy with the phone hacking and all... I wish I were surprised, but instead I just feel rather ill.

[roxiejules]

6. OMG....Gorman went to work for Murdoch

That is so fitting, isn't it? Those Broad Academy Superintendents seem to come in...slash and burn...then leave real quick. The looted school district is left to the taxpayers to try and salvage.

[ooglymoogly]

7. Bill Gates is predatory to the bone.

Trusting our children to his ilk is the same as throwing them to the sharks.

[sulphurdunn]

19. Or like putting

pedophiles in charge of sex education.

[JDPriestly]

8. Let's see. Gates was a college drop-out.

He may have been very brilliant, but he did not pass the tests required to get an honest college degree as I understand it.

Now how would his teachers have fared under this system.

I personally remember being chastised frequently for being an "under-performer" in grade school. Actually, I just wasn't interested in what was going on. I was younger than everyone else and not paying attention.

Judging my wonderful teachers based on my performance would have produced a skewed result.

That's why I don't think this is fair.

A teacher who excites a creative child's imagination may not be the teacher who gets great class test scores.

Education should be fun. It should be an exploration, not a grilling.

[roxiejules]

10. A manufactured crisis was needed in order to convince us

to buy into these 'reform' programs. The end result will not be better or happier students. Sadly, it will be another transfer of wealth from our pockets to the oligarchs.


Plus, you know things are getting out of hand when Murdoch and Goldman Sachs enter the playing field, too:



http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/freshman-education-industry-murdoch-earns-pluses-and-minuses-28449

Investors’ growing interest in education is another indication of the dawning era. Vander Ark, who was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s first executive director for education, launched the first fund dedicated to education three years ago. Now, he told TheWrap, private equity dealmakers and venture capitalists are pouring into the field.

This week, for example, the first ever Goldman Sachs-Stanford University Global Education Conference is convening worldwide education leaders. The purpose, says the invitation: “to discuss how innovation, globalization, regulation and technology are impacting education, and how the public and private sectors can work together … Education appears to be at a fundamental inflection point.”

[russspeakeasy]

9. Is it just me ? More and more of the latest stupid ideas

I hear come from NC.

[roxiejules]

11. No, this is happening all over the country

Not the ad campaign, but the decimation of public schools, firing teachers, stressing children and spending money on test after new test after new test. Insanity.

[chervilant]

13. Insanity,

for sure. Our species is pure dee ate up with the dumb ass...

[AlbertCat]

25. I hear come from NC.

The state's legislature has gone totally repug for the 1st time in like 100 years. They think they're the greatest and can do as they please.... in typical GOP fashion.

[chervilant]

12. Clear the Static?!

Educate yourself?!?

Little Billy Gates needs to hire a better PR company...

[roxiejules]

14. Microsoft outsources to save money

and then Gates does an ad campaign to convince us it is a 'competitive world' and we need more education.



http://www.cwalocal4250.org/outsourcing/binarydata/sell-out.pdf - 2004


WASHINGTON: Some of America's best minds - Bill Clinton, Alan Greenspan, Bill Gates among others - have
come out in support of free trade and against protectionism, issues that affect outsourcing to India.
They say fears of its impact on the US economy are unwarranted – and largely
exaggerated.

[KansDem]

24. Yeah, I thought the "educate yourself" quip at the end was a bit over the top...

Made me want to say "Fuck you, Billy!," so I'll say it...

"Fuck you, Billy!"

[JJW]

15. What proof?

30 years ago, operating system came with computer and was free. Upgrades were $ 5. Now Microsoft charges $ 300 for O/S and $ 200 for an upgrade. So where is there any evidence Mr Gates can cut costs?

[roxiejules]

16. +1

Excellent point

[sulphurdunn]

20. Mr. Gates

real claim to fame is a career dedicated to creating a low wage monopoly and in retarding the development of software technology for the last 20 years. He is now attempting to impose the blessings of that business model upon public education.

[midnight]

18. K&R

[sulphurdunn]

21. The corporate reform model

of education works if you accept its basic premises.

1. Standardized test scores are the only effective measures of student learning and of teacher effectiveness.

2. Teacher effectiveness and student learning are unrelated to a teacher's content area knowledge or experience.

3. Professional organizations and collective bargaining inhibit teacher effectiveness.

4. Student achievement is unrelated to social or economic circumstances.

5. Elected school boards and parent associations are ineffective governors of public schools.

6. The private sector business model should replace the local control model of public education.

I accept none of these. There is no demonstrable evidence to suggest that anyone should. Corporate school reform is being steamrolled by private money, political corruption, false arguments, questionable motives and manufactured data. It is just another example of the corporate cancer that is killing the public sector of our society. Nothing more.

[fasttense]

22. That video is pure propaganda. n/t

[1monster]

26. The economy is tanking. And what does Bill Gates's Microsoft do to help it?

He hires H1B workers to fill the jobs of US citizens working for Microsoft and further poisons the pot by having those same citizens train their H1B workers in the job as part of their severance agreement.

"I fear the Greeks even when bearing gifts." (a citizen of Troy)

I fear the Gates especially when bearing "gifts." (me)

[wxgeek7]

27. This is what they've had in mind all along

The greedy, tax-dodging, billionaires salivated over this for years. Now that cities and states are nearly broke, the billionaires are happy to step in and give their money to "charity" (and why pay taxes, when they can give to charity and get recognized for how kind they are), but of course with conditions.

Sad thing is, Mr Gates made most of his money by destroying/buying up competitors, creating/maintaining monopolies, and creating/selling buggy software. Btw, set yourself free, and move to GNU/Linux :)

[yurbud]

28. if the rich guys cared about education, they'd pay for poor kids to go to the same private schools

their kids go to.

Or push for reforms to make public schools more like the best private schools--and none of those spend their days teaching to the scantron.