Salon Covers Bill Gates' Common Core Obsession

Michael P. Mazenko on Bill Gates and the Common Core at Salon:

It’s hard to envision Bill Gates not getting exactly what he wants, or backing down from anything. However, that was before he became the sugar daddy and primary backer of the Common Core State Standards, which have raised the ire of parents, students and educators in the past year. As Common Core critics began pushing back against adoption of the standards and influencing several state legislatures to cut ties with Common Core, Gates and his foundation found themselves in the unusual position of backpedaling last month.

In a surprising act of damage control, the pro-Core Gates Foundation took to the pages of the New York Times with an open letter calling for a two-year delay in the use of Common Core-linked tests as measures for teacher and student accountability. Gates Foundation director Vickie Philips conceded frustrations with Common Core, writing, “No evaluation system will work unless teachers believe it is fair and reliable. The standards need time to work. Teachers need time to develop lessons, receive more training, get used to the new tests and offer their feedback.”

Of course, educators know those considerations should have been obvious from the beginning, long before states were coerced into adopting the standards, in some cases unseen. For a successful businessman, Gates has been rather negligent in testing, piloting and evaluating an unproven product like Common Core before selling it to an unsuspecting public. Experts in education like Dr. Diane Ravitch know there is a time-honored process to review policies and standards. Bill Gates, however, is far from being an education expert.

He is, instead, a billionaire who believes his wealth and business success qualify him to set education policy.

This isn’t the first time Gates has reversed his position on education after realizing he knows less than he thought he did about how to “fix schools.” Gates poured more than $600 million into his “small schools campaign,” only to later concede he was wrong and the idea was virtually fruitless. While that doesn’t seem to bother a man who can literally waste billions of dollars, it’s more disturbing to hear him admit, “We won’t even know if it will work.” Playing so frivolously with institutions like public education should not be so easy. Clearly, whenever scandal is brewing in politics, it’s always a matter of following the money. And with Common Core, there’s little doubt about the money trail.

Read the whole piece and send it along to your friends and family.

The more people who become aware of the Gates machinations on education, the better.

As Mazenko points out in the piece, this is a guy who spent $600 million on his small schools initiative, then said "Whoops! That didn't work! We'll move on to our next great idea - the Common Core!"

Public education and public schools should NOT be playthings for a billionaire who wants to try out his theories.

Bill Gates And His Super Banana

Evil genius Bill Gates doesn't just experiment on other people's children in education policy - he also experiments with genetically modified food that he would NEVER feed himself or his kids but is supersure is "safe" for other people's consumption.

To whit, his "Super Banana" - here's a propaganda piece from the Washington Post that is so breathless in it's desire to only say good stuff about the GMO project that it literally has NOTHING negative about GMO's in the story at all:

In half of the world’s countries, vitamin A deficiency is a scourge that leaves disease and death in its wake.

Every year, it inflicts between 250,000 and 500,000 helpless and malnourished young people with early-life blindness. And in half of those cases, it also brings death, according to the World Health Organization. Vitamin A deficiency also puts pregnant women at risk.

It’s rare in developed countries, but the goal of completely eradicating vitamin A deficiency — mostly in Africa and Southeast Asia — remains unmet.

Scientists are now working to genetically engineer “super” bananas that are fortified with crucial alpha- and beta-carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A.

“There is very good evidence that vitamin A deficiency leads to an impaired immune system and can even have an impact on brain development,” Queensland University professor James Dale said in a news release. “Good science can make a massive difference here by enriching staple crops such as Ugandan bananas with pro-vitamin A and providing poor and subsistence-farming populations with nutritionally rewarding food.”

Some of the genetically modified cooking bananas are being sent to the United States for their first human trial; scientists aim to have them growing in Uganda by 2020.

The project is being backed by nearly $10 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

 East African Highland bananas are usually chopped and steamed, but they have little in the way of nutrients — especially vitamin A, according to Dale.

On the outside, the genetically modified crops essentially look the same as other East African Highland bananas; but on the inside, the carotene enrichment gives them an orange hue.

Lab tests in gerbils have been successful, and Dale is confident in his science. But in order for the crops to be planted in Uganda, the country’s legislature has to approve a bill allowing genetically modified crops. It is currently in the committee phase.

Dale also believes that the technology can easily be replicated in other parts of Africa where different varieties of bananas or plantains are dietary staples.

“In West Africa farmers grow plantain bananas and the same technology could easily be transferred to that variety as well,” Dale said in his statement. “This project has the potential to have a huge positive impact on staple food products across much of Africa and in so doing lift the health and well-being of countless millions of people over generations.”

What are the long-term consequences of screwing genetically with the food system?

What are the long-term consequences of feeding humans GMO's?

What unseen consequences will arise from the "solution" the Gates Foundation has for vitamin A deficiency?

They don't know and they don't care - and neither does the writer of this Post puff piece about the GMO banana Gates is pushing.

You have to wonder, is the Post looking to make things up to Gates for putting him on the front cover a few weeks back in a CCSS piece that made him look like an arrogant, whiny schmuck on wheels?

Gates, Bloomberg, Buffet, Oprah And Jeb Bush Meet At Gates Foundation Conference In South Carolina

From a local affiliate in South Carolina:

CHARLESTON, SC -Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft and one of the richest people in the world, is spending time in the Lowcountry.

  WCBD  confirmed the American business magnate is at the Sanctuary on Kiawah Island.

Suspicion was raised when nearly 20 very expensive jets were seen lined up at the Charleston International Airport on Johns Island.

Officials with the Beach Company confirmed to WCBD that other big names such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, TV host Oprah Winfrey and Billionaire Warren Buffet flew into the Charleston Executive airport on Johns Island Wednesday night.

Other prominent people said to also be staying there this weekend are  Jeb Bush and Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

 The famous guests were attending a two day long conference led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Officials say the meeting was about the foundation Gates and his wife Melinda run.

The meeting rented out the entire Sanctuary Hotel on the gated island. Security has been high throughout the entire week, keeping the public away from the hotel.

WCBD spoke to the Mayor of Kiawah by phone who said the town is happy to serve as host to the event.

"We wish them luck with what they're doing," Mayor Charles Lipuma said. "If they want to play golf, they couldn't have picked a better weekend. We are glad we could offer them great weather."

They weren't there to play golf, you can be sure of that.

They were there to continue destroying the public education system, among other policy goals

Shame they had to go to such lengths to try and keep their meeting secret.

Reminds me a little of these guys.

Or these guys.

At any rate, I love the line in the story about suspicion being raised that something was up when 20 "very expensive jets" were seen lined up at the Charleston Executive airport on Johns Island.

I wonder how that Save The World From Global Warming initiative Gates and Bloomberg are heading is going?

Private jets are good for the environment, yes?

Why Won't Bill Gates Respond To Questions About His Connections To Monsanto?

Monsanto may be the most evil company in a world.

They are responsible for Agent Orange, PCB's, rBGH (bovine growth hormone) and other toxic materials that have caused cancers and deaths.

They polluted a town in Alabama with PCB's, including dumping 45 tons of toxins into the town's drinking water, covered up the extent of the pollution that had occurred over 40 years, and colluded with political officials to avoid prosecution for the crimes.

They secretly dumped tons of toxins in Britain, polluting the groundwater and soil, and did all they could to hide the matter from residents of the area as well.

Monsanto quite literally wants to build a monopoly around the world's food supply.

They currently are working to genetically modify and patent every seed known to man so that they can literally trademark and force every farmer in the world to have to buy see from them every year (as opposed to just saving and reusing the seeds from year to year.)

In addition,  Monsanto pesticides and other ancillary products must be used to get the Monsanto seed to grow, further driving farmers into the financial clutches of the company.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, three companies (Dupont, Syngenta, and Monsanto) already own 47 percent of the global seed market, so they are well on their well to achieving their goal.

But the Monsanto seeds are not quite as good as advertised.

In India, the Mosanto BT cotton seeds have caused the financial ruin of many small farmers. 

Farmer suicides have skyrocketed as a consequence.

By 2008, 125,000 farmer suicides were linked to crop failure brought on by Monsanto seed.

By 2011, the number of farmer suicides linked to Monsanto and other corporate seed practices had increased to 200,000.

In Argentina, Monsanto hired a contracting company that abused workers in slave-like conditions, forcing them to toil 14 hours a day, prevented them from leaving the fields, and withheld wages.

You can watch a 2008 documentary called The World According To Monsanto to see a good overview of the evils of this company, but I'm sure you get the point:

Monsanto is evil.

So why would any self-proclaimed "philanthropist" out to do "good" in the world link himself and his philanthropic foundation to this company?

Well, Bill Gates has done just that.

Gates via his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation bought 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock in 2010 worth approximately $23 million dollars. 

Community Alliance For Social Justice explains why this is a problem:

“The Foundation’s direct investment in Monsanto is problematic on two primary levels,” said Dr. Phil Bereano, University of Washington Professor Emeritus and recognized expert on genetic engineering. “First, Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well-being of small farmers around the world, as well as an appalling environmental track record. The strong connections to Monsanto cast serious doubt on the Foundation’s heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa and purported goal of alleviating poverty and hunger among small-scale farmers. Second, this investment represents an enormous conflict of interests.”

Monsanto has already negatively impacted agriculture in African countries. For example, in South Africa in 2009, Monsanto’s genetically modified maize failed to produce kernels and hundreds of farmers were devastated. According to Mariam Mayet, environmental attorney and director of the Africa Centre for Biosafety in Johannesburg, some farmers suffered up to an 80% crop failure. While Monsanto compensated the large-scale farmers to whom it directly sold the faulty product, it gave nothing to the small-scale farmers to whom it had handed out free sachets of seeds. “When the economic power of Gates is coupled with the irresponsibility of Monsanto, the outlook for African smallholders is not very promising,” said Mayet. Monsanto’s aggressive patenting practices have also monopolized control over seed in ways that deny farmers control over their own harvest, going so far as to sue—and bankrupt—farmers for “patent infringement.”

News of the Foundation’s recent Monsanto investment has confirmed the misgivings of many farmers and sustainable agriculture advocates in Africa, among them the Kenya Biodiversity Coalition, who commented, “We have long suspected that the founders of AGRA—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation—had a long and more intimate affair with Monsanto.” Indeed, according to Travis English, researcher with AGRA Watch, “The Foundation’s ownership of Monsanto stock is emblematic of a deeper, more long-standing involvement with the corporation, particularly in Africa.” In 2008, AGRA Watch, a project of the Seattle-based organization Community Alliance for Global Justice, uncovered many linkages between the Foundation’s grantees and Monsanto. For example, some grantees (in particular about 70% of grantees in Kenya) of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)—considered by the Foundation to be its “African face”—work directly with Monsanto on agricultural development projects. Other prominent links include high-level Foundation staff members who were once senior officials for Monsanto, such as Rob Horsch, formerly Monsanto Vice President of International Development Partnerships and current Senior Program Officer of the Gates Agricultural Development Program.

The Seattle Times further explains why sustainable food and environmental advocates find the Gates Foundation connection to Monsanto troubling:

 Much of the foundation's work has avoided major controversy.

That changed when, four years ago, the foundation, along with the Rockefeller Foundation, created the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), aimed at alleviating hunger by boosting farm productivity.

The name itself gave some people pause. An earlier Green Revolution that started nearly 70 years ago had similar aims.

Some say that by introducing high-yield crop varieties it averted widespread famine in India and Mexico and helped those countries become more self-sufficient. Critics, on the other hand, say it led to lasting environmental damage and displaced small farmers, to the benefit of corporations that started up large-scale industrial operations.

The foundation announced it would fund projects that trained farmers and opened up new markets, as well as introduce new seed varieties. Initially, these would be conventionally bred seeds.

But over time, the work has been seen as increasingly tied to large-scale industrial agriculture and has pushed the use of genetically modified crops, critics say. For example, the foundation helped fund $37 million in grants to engineer crops to increase their vitamins and minerals.

Day believes the whole model is wrongheaded. "There's plenty of food being produced in the world," she said. "It's a matter of people being poor, and food not being distributed fairly.
"The Gates foundation is driven by an ideology based on technology," Day added. "Technology doesn't solve all problems."

It seems reasonable to ask Bill Gates himself why his Foundation has invested in Monsanto and why the Foundation is promoting Monsanto products the world over via their "philanthropic efforts." 

Anthony Gucciardi of Natural Society attempted to do just that:

In a unique opportunity to ask Bill Gates himself why he has purchased 500,000 shares of Monsanto behind the scenes (expelled into the news thanks to tax information) and teamed up with Cargill to expand GMOs worldwide, myself and several others asked him ourselves.
Yesterday Gates opened himself up to questions from online users via the social sharing site Reddit, in which he posted an open interview of sorts known as an ‘Ask me Anything’ post. This is essentially an invitation for questions that the subject will answer via text. While I had a large number of questions for Gates, such as if he actually eats GMOs himself, I simply asked him:

“Why did you buy 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock?”

Unsurprisingly, the comment received a large degree of feedback. Users asked Gates to please respond to the question, and several others posed similar variations to Gates that all went unanswered (as to be expected). Some quotes from users in response to my question included:

User Lawfairy replied: “I wish he’d answered this one — to me, this is one of the most curious things about Mr. Gates, whom I otherwise respect as one of the foremost humanists of our generation… Mr. Gates’ relationship with Monsanto is, in my mind, simultaneously the most morally troubling thing about Mr. Gates”
Another user posted (with links intact): “Would you be willing to take some time to give us some insight with your investments in Monsanto? Despite having the headlines of “ending world hunger”, this company has done some despicable things in the past 100 years and I don’t believe they have the public’s best interest in mind. Having a single company or entity trying to “control”, “manipulate” or “own” the world’s food supply, in my opinion, is not the way to end world hunger.”
Another user answered with: “Because he is supporting the Bilderberg group!”

None of these received a response nor did the many others I could not include in this article. The answer, it seems, is to bring this topic to the mainstream. The very same mainstream that seems to think Bill Gates is some sort of philanthropic super star that can do no evil. I am opposed to all wrongdoing at every level, and I find it absolutely disturbing that someone funding the GMO agenda and slave-labor-linked companies has been met with applause.

Gates dodged the question, but it certainly is a good one.

Why is the Gates Foundation partnering with one of, if not THE most, evil company in the world, a company with documented track record of poisoning and killing people, a company whose goal is to quite literally own the world's food supply system, a company with a documented history of hiring contractors tat treat workers like slaves?

Does Bill Gates really think partnering with Monsanto and bringing Monsanto products the world over via his philanthropic efforts will make the world a better place?

It would be nice if some mainstream journalist, like say Nick Kristof, would stop sucking up to the Bill and Melinda Gates long enough to ask them these questions.

But I guess that's asking too much, isn't it?

You can see the theme that runs through Gates' "philanthropic work" in agriculture, disease eradication, education and the like.

He wants to technologize everything - from farming to teaching to disease fighting - and either cannot understand or refuses to understand that often times human technologies are doing as much harm as good (and sometimes much more harm than good.)

It doesn't hurt that he makes money off technology of course, or makes money off his "philanthropic efforts" too by pushing technology into everything, from the classroom to the cornfield.

That's all connected too.

Gates claimed a few years ago that he wanted to give all his money away before he died through his philanthropic efforts.

And yet, he's richer now than he's ever been and is accumulating more and more wealth and power as he grows older.

I am reminded of the Meyer Lansky character Hyman Roth in The Godfather II who claimed to be handing over the Cuban operations and casinos to the Corleones but who really had other aims in mind.

When asked why Roth, already ancient, was still scheming even as he closed in on his own mortality, Michael Corleone says "He acts like I'm his son -- his successor -- but he thinks he's gonna live forever -- and he wants me out."

Gates is the same way - he thinks he's going to live forever and he wants to control everything - from education to disease eradication to climate change mitigation efforts to agriculture to poverty alleviation.

That he gets richer and more powerful even as he "gives" away his money in these efforts tells you everything you need to know about his true motivations.

No wonder he won't answer questions about his connections to Monsanto - it's a window into his true malanthropy.

Just How Much Damage To The World Can Bill Gates Do?

Lots:

In a decision outraging campaigners for food sovereignty and agroecological approaches, the Gates Foundation has awarded a $10 million grant to develop genetically modified (GM) crops for use in sub-Saharan Africa.

The grant is for the John Innes Centre in Norwich, which hopes to engineer seeds for corn, wheat and rice that will fix nitrogen (take nitrogen from the air) so that the crops would not need fertilizers. But GM Freeze, which campaigns against GM food, crops and patents, says that "nitrogen fixing wheat and other cereals have been promised by the GM industry for several decades" and that other, non-GM methods are the solution. Pete Riley, campaign director GM Freeze, adds that "GM is failing to deliver."

This approach sets up a highly profitable scenario for seed makers, as farmers would be reliant upon these companies to continue buying their seeds, and would not be able to save the patented, modified seeds.

Commenting on the Gates Foundation grant, Mariam Mayet of the African Centre for Biosafety in South Africa said: "GM nitrogen fixing crops are not the answer to improving the fertility of Africa's soils. African farmers are the last people to be asked about such projects. This often results in the wrong technologies being developed, which many farmers simply cannot afford. We need methods that we can control aimed at building up resilient soils that are both fertile and able to cope with extreme weather. We also want our knowledge and skills to be respected and not to have inappropriate solutions imposed on us by distant institutions, charitable bodies or governments."

Speaking to Bill Moyers on Moyers & Company, eco-activist Vandana Shiva said that Bill Gates is "so totally wrong on this assumption that genetically modified seeds produce more. In India, Monsanto came in with a claim of 1,500 kilograms of cotton per acre with their genetically engineered cotton. The average yields are 400 kilograms. Our studies show that. The government studies confirm this."

As a teacher who has watched Gates upend my profession and the institutions I work in, ditto to what Mariam Mayet said:

We also want our knowledge and skills to be respected and not to have inappropriate solutions imposed on us by distant institutions, charitable bodies or governments."

This is what teachers want too.

But all knowing Bill Gates, the man behind such vaunted innovations as the Zune and Windows Vista, will not respect the knowledge and skills of people but he will help impose inappropriate solutions from distant institutions, charitable bodies and governments.

All in the name of making the world a better place, of course.

Or aggrandizing his own ego as the Godlike figure he thinks he is.

Billionaire Bribes NY State

From the Post:

ALBANY -- Charter-school backers have kicked in $4 million to help the state Board of Regents craft education reforms -- raising questions from school officials about the influence of private money on education.

The donations from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are part of the budget-squeezed board's effort to raise $18 million to implement "Race to the Top" reforms.

That $4 million will go to make sure that 40% of my teacher evaluation will now be based on test scores.

Never mind that those tests will be taken on computers running Gates software and the test scores will be tracked on Gates software as well.

No conflict there.

And no criminally activity that the Gates Foundation is handing $ million to the state to do what it wants.

Melinda Gates Steps Down From Washington Post/Kaplan University Board

I guess the NY Times expose on the fraud that is the Washington Post/Kaplan company got to Ms. Gates.

Here is how the Washington Post covered her resignation:

Melinda French Gates, philanthropist and wife of billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, has resigned from the Washington Post Co. board of directors, the company announced Friday.

Gates, a former Microsoft manager who runs the multibillion-dollar Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with her husband, had joined the board in 2004.

She did not give a reason for stepping down. A family spokesman said she was spending more time than before working and traveling for the foundation.

The Post board's chairman, Donald E. Graham, said it is "sad at losing her."

The Post's Kaplan education unit has come under harsh scrutiny in news reports quoting former Kaplan employees who said that they had been instructed to use the Gates name to persuade students to take classes at the company.

Gates said in a statement released by The Post that she has "been impressed with The Washington Post Company's work with Kaplan, whose new approaches to education are allowing students opportunities that would otherwise not be possible."

She also said the "mission" of The Post "remains as vital today as at any time in its history."

Gates and her husband are close to Warren E. Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway company owns about 24 percent of the Post Co. Buffett has pledged to donate much of his fortune to the Gates Foundation.

The Post's board, which includes Buffett, now has 11 members.

It's a shame Gates wasn't honest about the reason she was stepping down.

It doesn't take a genius to see that the Times expose was the reason.

She could have done the education reform movement some good by actually criticizing the Post/Kaplan Company for their fraudulent activities stealing money from students and taxpayers.

But to be honest, it would probably be difficult for Gates to do that.

The nexus between for-profit education companies and the education reform movement has never been more apparent than when Chancellor Klein jumped ship at the NYCDOE to head up Rupert Murdoch's new online for-profit education company this week.

Geoffrey Canada at the Harlem Children's Zone has his own connections to for-profit education companies, having taken $25 million in cash payments from Goldman Sachs, part owner the Art Institutes.

There is a lot of money to be made from the suckers out there and people like Gates, Klein, Canada, Buffet, et al. all know that.

That's why they don't do anything about the kind of fraudulent activity that the Post/Kaplan Company engages in.

In fact, not only don't they do anything about the fraudulent activity, they're not even willing to publicly criticize it.

But I guess it's hard to do that when they're making money off of it themselves.