Mercedes Schneider

An Open Letter to Bill Gates and a Keynote Challenge

Dear Bill,

You don’t know me. I have never applied for one of your fat, corporate-reform-promoting education grants. I am not even tempted to even though I have little money. You see, I am a career public school teacher, and I consider your money wielding a detriment to a healthy democratic society.

You and other philanthropists have given me a lot to write about over the past year. Whereas I have a book in press on the privatization of public education (and yes, you are in that book), most of my writing I have done on this blog for free. Readers can take or leave my work as they choose.

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ALEC’s Extensive Plans for Education Restructuring in Your State

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) (established 1973) offers corporate America the opportunity to shape legislation that serves its profit-garnering interests and to do so in statehouses around the country.

To accomplish this controlling of the legislative process, ALEC provides forums (conferences that double as posh vacations for legislators and their families) in which both companies and legislators meet in order to write and vote on “model” legislation. The agreed-upon “model” legislation is then advanced in statehouses nationwide, carried home with legislators like a corporate-financed virus, with ALEC providing abundant reminders and “talking points” (a short list of statements that offer the appearance of having detailed knowledge of an issue) for legislators to help ensure passage of bills designed to fill those corporate-sponsor coffers.

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What Teach for America Says When It Talks to Itself

As I was researching my “Bill Pays to Help Arne” post, I came across a discussion site, Wall Street Oasis, where those hoping to Make It Big on The Street are able to connect in order to solve issues related to their career ambitions.

The site has a link for Teach for America (TFA).

The link includes a number of revealing 2008-2013 discussion threads, particularly since many writers assume that they are interacting with fellow TFAers who desire what TFA founder Wendy Kopp promotes: A high-powered, lucrative, “real” career following a brief TFA stint.

Many assume the TFA promo of Ivy League Short-term Student Saviour, but not all.

Kopp advances the ungrounded idea that TFA recruits can “close the achievement gap” because they are the “best and brightest”– and that they can do so going into America’s toughest teaching situations in two-year stints. And after “closing the gap,” TFAers can fulfill the nation’s need for their “best and brightest” leadership in key educational roles, including those of district or state superintendent, or charter school/education company “founder.”

How “School Choice” Has Failed Louisiana (Especially New Orleans) Parents

Advocates of the privatization of American public education have proclaimed the week of January 26, 2014, as “school choice week.” As such, they are celebrating the creation of their own lucrative bureaucracy, one that is anything but controlled by parents.

In short, “school choice” is a misnomer.

“School choice” would be better named “forced choice,” for those in charge in the “choice” bureaucracy are the ones who control (and manipulate, and move at will) the boundaries of “parental choice.”

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On Teaching: An Open Letter to Marc Tucker

Marc, I have read your article, On Writing, and I am wondering about a couple of issues that I address in this post. The first issue is pronoun-centered– who “we” are. The second involves your discourse on “lower ranking” teachers.

I end by offering my own suggestions.

Who Are “We”?

One of the striking quotes in your article is

First, we stopped demanding that students read anything very challenging in school, and then we stopped holding our teachers or students accountable for the quality of student writing.

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My MLK Post: An Assignment for Test-Driven Reformers

On this day dedicated to the memory of a remarkable man who gave his life (literally) for the sake of civil rights and social equity, I expect that education privatizers will use the opportunity to promote themselves as “overcoming” opposition to their self-serving, destructive policies.

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inBloom and Data Mining: A Common Core Cousin

This week I posted this piece about a January 9, 2014, webinar promoting data mining– a webinar with Gates money all over it. (Here is a briefer follow-up to the post.) The initial post had a record number of comments, some of which were made by an inBloom representative. The comments prompted me to further investigate some of the nuances of inBloom, including key funding for and individuals associated with this data storage mammoth, and of the privatizer-promoted data mining craze in general.

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The Fordham Strong Arm of Letter Grades for State Standards

In my previous post, The Importance of Common Core for Nationally-pervasive Ed Reform, I cite the 2009 Broad Foundation report in which a number of major reformer “participants” told America of the reforms it might expect to be in place in 2012– one of which is the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Among the list of “participants” are Chester Finn of the Fordham Institute and a number of Gates Foundation representatives.

I am mindful of the Fordham-Gates connection as influential in promoting CCSS. In my series on CCSS-Gates spending, I note that Gates paid Fordham $2 million to “review” and “track state progress towards implementation of” CCSS.

I also note that Gates paid Fordham an additional $1.5 million for “general operating support”– which could mean Fordham salaries.

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The American Enterprise Institute, Common Core, and “Good Cop”

In my research on Gates’ Common Core State Standards (CCSS) spending, I came across this unusual grant to the pro-reform group, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI):

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The Importance of Common Core for Nationally-pervasive Ed Reform

A great error made by those combating corporate reform is in viewing the reforms as separate and distinct one from another. I have noticed as much in discussions about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). However, the “standards” were not intended to “stand” without the entire spectrum of reforms.

In fact, the power of a truly national privatization of public education depends upon CCSS.

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