From: "Horn, James" <jhorn@monmouth.edu>
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In a ramped-up effort to further divert
attention from the corporate-inspired
third-worlding of America and the Walmartization
of American workers, Bill Gates and Eli Broad
have committed $60 million for a media blitz and
pocket-stuffing campaign aimed at blaming the
public schools for economic insecurity.
Following in a long history of crisis- mongering
that hopes to keep attention away from the real
source of economic uncertainty and increasing
debt, Gates and Broad serve as front men for a
rapacious and under-handed corporate America
that continues to execute and plan the continued
exportation of any American job that isn't
nailed down to cheap foreign labor markets.
Look, look, see the failing schools!!!
With three times as much to spend as the
Swiftboat Diversion Team of '04, this
$60,000,000 Madison Avenue campaign represents
an unprecedented attempt to buy the future of
American education. Besides the scary ads that
are being planned to show the meltdown of public
schools, there is the declared and undeclard
agenda: 1) longer school year leading to
year-round schools (future workers should not be
getting summers off), 2) a national curriculum
imposed by the Business Roundtable and Achieve,
Inc., and 3) pedagogical piece work based on
teacher bonus pay for choking higher test scores
from children who are showing clear signs of
post-traumatic stress disorder. From the New York Times:
Eli Broad and Bill Gates, two of the most
important philanthropists in American public
education, have pumped more than $2 billion
into improving schools. But now, dissatisfied
with the pace of change, they are joining
forces for a $60 million foray into politics in
an effort to vault education high onto the
agenda of the 2008 presidential race.
Experts on campaign spending said the
project would rank as one of the most expensive
single-issue initiatives ever in a presidential
race, dwarfing, for example, the $22.4 million
that the Swift Vets and P.O.W.s for Truth group
spent against Senator John Kerry in 2004, and
the $7.8 million spent on advocacy that year by
AARP, the lobby for older Americans.
Under the slogan ?Ed in ?08,? the project,
called Strong American Schools, will include
television and radio advertising in
battleground states, an Internet-driven appeal
for volunteers and a national network of operatives in both parties.
?I have reached the conclusion as has the
Gates foundation, which has done good things
also, that all we?re doing is incremental,?
said Mr. Broad, the billionaire who founded
SunAmerica Inc. and KB Home and who has long
been a prodigious donor to Democrats. ?If we
really want to get the job done, we have got to
wake up the American people that we have got a
real problem and we need real reform.?
Mr. Gates, the chairman of Microsoft,
responding to questions by e-mail, wrote, ?The
lack of political and public will is a
significant barrier to making dramatic
improvements in school and student performance.?
The project will not endorse candidates ?
indeed, it is illegal to do so as a charitable
group ? but will instead focus on three main
areas: a call for stronger, more consistent
curriculum standards nationwide; lengthening
the school day and year; and improving teacher
quality through merit pay and other measures. . . .
Strong American Schools or Strong-Arming
American Schools While Shipping the American
Economy Offshore? The American people are not as
stupid as these evil twins think.
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Posted By Jim Horn to Schools Matter at 4/25/2007 07:39:00 AM
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