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By Anthony Cody. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the CEO of the Gates Foundation, has released her first annual letter, describing the foundation’s work in a number of arenas around the world. In the US, their focus has been K-12 education, so here we have their appraisal of their own work. This summary is notable more …

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By Anthony Cody. On Sunday I spent several hours transcribing Bill Gates’ Oct. 7 speech on the subject of the Gates Foundation’s K12 education strategy. The Gates Foundation had published the text of the speech here, but I found that his actual remarks, while roughly similar, were not the same. I think it is …

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By Anthony Cody. On October 7th, Bill Gates gave a speech providing a comprehensive review of his Foundation’s K12 education strategy. This arena is their number one domestic priority, and a place where they have invested billions of dollars over the past 15 years. As we approach the end of the Obama …

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By Anthony Cody. A high stakes experiment in educational collaboration is unfolding in the state of California, and I have a feeling of foreboding. I am afraid teachers and students in my state are like frogs in a pot that is slowly heating, and before we know it we will be cooked. Though State Superintendent Tom …

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The latest interview with Bill Gates on CNBC has the world’s richest man discussing education with little evidence that he has learned much over the past six years. Is he paying attention? In a bubble? What the heck is going on? As readers of this blog know, I have been attending to the words and deeds of Bill …

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By Anthony Cody. This coming week I will be back in Seattle, a few months shy of the third anniversary of my first visit to the Gates Foundation. I will give a talk at the University of Washington, introduced by Jesse Hagopian and several Teachers of Conscience from the area, who have refused to give high stakes …

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By Anthony Cody. (Originally posted here, July 23, 2012. This essay is also included in my book, The Educator and the Oligarch, a Teacher Challenges the Gates Foundation.) In the summer of 2012  I traveled to Seattle and spent most of the day meeting with leaders of the Gates Foundation, discussing their work …

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By Joseph Ray Lavine. A co-founder of the Network for Public Education addressed the ineffectiveness of current U.S. standardized testing and teacher evaluation standards in a speech at the University Chapel, at the University of Georgia, in Athens, Georgia, last Wednesday. Anthony Cody, who also writes the …

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By Anthony Cody. We are getting decidedly mixed signals from the Gates Foundation these days. From Bill Gates himself, we get a sense of frustration that education has not welcomed his central thesis that the “tools of science” — namely common standards and high stakes tests aligned to them, …

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By Anthony Cody. Bill Gates sounded surprisingly defensive when asked about the Gates Foundation’s work in education, in a video interview made available this week by the Wall Street Journal. His statement suggests he is unaware of much of what his money is buying in the field of education. Here is the exchange …