gemini://gemini.techrights.org/2012/10/09/leftover-links-for-october-10-2012/

I’m back after a little break and will start out with a recap of a very important topic, the private assault on public education lead by Bill Gates and other ultra wealthy rent seekers.EducationThe Chicago teachers strike and where it all beganYes, schoolchildren in Chicago are victims, but not of their teachers. They are victims of a nationwide education “reform” movement geared to undermine teachers’ unions and shift public resources into private hands; they are victims of wave after wave of ill-conceived and failing policy “innovations” … The city’s current reform wave began in 2004 with Mayor Richard Daley’s Renaissance 2010—a massive program, funded in part by $90 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to transform the city’s schools by 2010. The strategy included firing and replacing entire staffs in low-income neighborhood schools, shutting down dozens of schools, and setting up charter schools. … Renaissance 2010 has done little to improve the educational performance of the city’s school system…Seattle Education Blog: Bill Gates and me.Someone asked me today while we were waiting to be seated for a filming of a debate regarding I-1240 (more on that later), why everything Bill Gates, or for that matter the Walton’s, fund, I am opposed to. Well, I’m not. I appreciate the money that Bill Gates and his wife spent to create the sculpture park in Seattle that faces the sound. … Unfortunately, Bill Gates knows nothing about public education.This person makes the “Uncle Joe” mistake, thinking that the person giving her trouble has their best interest at heart rather than private gain. School takeover by Steve Barr and the Future Is Now charter school causes student walkout in New Orleans: Is this what we want Seattle?Students at Walter L. Cohen in New Orleans began a walk out/protest on October 4th, 2012 when their teachers and administrators were dismissed and the announcement was made that Future Is Now Charter (Steven Barr, formerly of Green Dot in California, and Gideon Stein) would be taking over the governance of the school. … I’d say that the people of New Orleans have had their fill of charter schools.Many New Orleans public schools were privatized in the wake of Katrina and the effort is ongoing. Here we see what happens where people can not effectively organize resistance.The No on Intiative 1240 campaign needs YOU!The Walton’s and Bill Gates have just added more money to the privatization till for a total of $3M from Gates and $1.8M from the Walton’s to the Yes on Initiative 1240 campaign. This has truly become a battle of the 1% versus the rest of us.This is what effective, local resistance looks like. We need national resistance to protect those without the resources to help themselves.Let’s give President Obama a clue about Race to the TopPlease write a letter to President Obama and send it to Anthony Cody’s e-mail address listed below by Oct. 17th. Please invite everyone you know to write to Pres. Obama. We need thousands upon thousands of letters to make a difference for Public Education!A look at KIPP, Michael Feinberg, NCTQ and Bill GatesKnowledge is Power Program (KIPP) is in a rush to now dumb down education in New Zealand even though New Zealand and Australia have higher international test scores than the US and the majority of other nations. KIPP is trying to worm their way into New Zealand using the same old phrasing such as “failing schools” and “ineffective teachers” and pushing the idea of hiring “unregistered” (cheap) staff to populate charter schools. … Fortunately in New Zealand they are having an open national debate on charter schools something that never happened in the United States where venture capitalists made up their minds about what was best for our students and in a stealth like fashion went about privatizing our public schools.The attack is international, like other Microsoft operations.EduShyster: Stuff White People Like: Education ReformThe key take away [of the Chicago teacher's strike]: rich white people who send their kids to private schools were the only group to oppose the teachers’ strike. In other words, the very group whose children will likely grow up to become the next generation of achievement gap warriors.There’s an interesting list of Washington state “reform” backers, Bill Gates – $1M Alice Walton- Walmart heiress and daughter of founder Sam Walton- $600k Bezos family – Jeff Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon- $1.5M Nick Hanauer – described as a “venture capitalist” living in Seattle- $450k Paul Allen of Microsoft – $100k Katherine Binder – EMFCO Holdings Chairwoman -$200k The McCaw’s- a wealthy and prominent family in Seattle – $100kThe Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for SupermanWhy Washington state schools are #42 in education funding: Let’s start with Bill GatesOne person got up and said that she was willing to pay a state income tax to begin to subsidize what was needed by the community. … What is ironic about this is that the second wealthiest individual in the world and number one in the United States, according to Forbes, lives among us in Seattle and yet is not willing to pay his fair share of taxes to support the infrastructure that he used to create and maintain Microsoft including public education. On the other hand, Gates is paying millions of dollars in our state to lobby for charter schools which is the privatization of a public good.

● 10.09.12

●● Leftover Links for October 10, 2012

●●● The return of Reader’s Picks