Get sick, get well
Hang around a ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is goin' to sell
-- Bob Dylan

Thursday, August 4, 2011

New ed fiefdom: The Murdoch/Gates alliance

Bill Gates & Rupert Murdoch at the 2009 Microsoft CEO Summit

The Obama/Boehner Debt Ceiling deal could weaken and even destroy large areas of public space and public sector educational initiatives. At the same time, it will expand the power of new private fiefdoms built on alliances between giant philanthropies and corporate "reformers."

The latest fiefdom is being constructed as an alliance between the Gates Foundation and corrupt media mogul Rupert MurdochVicki Phillips of the Gates Foundation announced the "amazing" new alliance:
 Wireless Generation is a subset of Murdoch's News Corp which is cutting multi-million-dollar deals with large urban schools districts like NYC. Former NYC schools chancellor Joel Klein heads up the initiative for Murcoch.

But the Gates Foundation admits it is having a tough time getting grant recipients to be straight with them about the success or lack thereof, when reporting on how they spent $2,5 billion in Gates money last year.

"We have some work to do to build more productive grantee relationships," CEO Jeff Raikes wrote in a letter released with the foundation's annual report.

Among the findings, said Greg Shaw, senior adviser for strategic partnerships, were "reports of senior grantee people who worry about whether they can attract the right staff to work on a Gates Foundation grant or even keep people on a Gates Foundation grant because they sense that the quality of the interaction, the clarity of communications, the openness to feedback isn't always there." -- Seattle Times
As part of our contribution, the foundation took an important first step a few weeks ago and selected a vendor to build the open software that will allow states to access a shared, performance-driven marketplace of free and premium tools and content. That vendor, Wireless Generation, will create the software, but it will be owned by an independent nonprofit, so that any school, school district, curriculum developer, or tool builder can contribute to the collaborative.” -- Parents Across America

1 comment:

  1. How is a man who is under INVESTIGATION for violation of privacy rights and hacking getting his dirty hands into the education of the children of NYC? He should be in jail!

    ReplyDelete