Gates, Buffett, and the Corporatization of Children

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

Posted at Susan Ohanian's excellent website....

http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=6272



Ohanian Comment: Bravo! Philip Kovacs nails it. 
Please pass this important piece around.

And donate to 
<http://www.commondreams.org/econtribute0406.htm>Common 
Dreams. Bringing us fine commentary such as this 
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Gates, Buffett, and the Corporatization of Children

by Philip Kovacs

Last week Warren Buffett gave 31 billion dollars 
to the Gates Foundation. As usual, the mainstream 
media missed the real story. Leaving aside the 
creation of an Ameristocracy for another day, 
parents, teachers, students, and citizens should 
be concerned about the immediate impact of the donation on public education.

According to an almost giddy Frederick Hess of 
the neoconservative American Enterprise 
Institute, the money will increase Gates' funding 
of education to nearly 1$ Billion a year.

Ultimately this is 1) bad for children, 2) bad 
for communities, and 3) bad for democracy.

1. Bad for children: As Gates gives billions to 
schools, more schools must remake themselves in 
Gates' image. No remaking in Gates image, no money. Call it quality control.

Gates is on the record demanding children improve 
their math and science scores; he claims America 
cannot survive if children do not become more 
competitive in the Global Marketplace. However, 
as researcher Gerald Bracey reminds us, there is 
not a single scientific study linking high 
performance in math and science to global 
competitiveness, nor happiness, nor democracy for that matter.

Data worship results in a myopic view of what the 
world could and should be. Children, we might 
remind corporate America, are more than math and 
science scores. While math and science play 
important roles in our lives, there are other 
scores we might help children increase: their 
creativity score, their empathy score, their 
resiliency score, their curiosity score, their 
integrity score, their thoughtfulness score, 
their take-initiative score, their innovation 
score, their critical thinking score, their 
passion score, their problem-solving score, their 
refusal to follow leaders who lie to them score, 
their democratic engagement score...and so forth.

The lie that our schools are failing to keep this 
country competitive has been kept alive since A 
Nation at Risk, written in 1983. We are told, 
repeatedly, that schools are failing so corporate 
America can step in and save them. Think Social Security here?

Despite their ?failure,? the U.S. remains the 
sole global superpower, houses twice as many 
nobel laureates as any other country, has the 
most productive workforce on the planet, and 
leads the globe in innovation. I?d also argue 
that the average U.S. citizen is a decent and 
humane person. None of this is possible without 
the infrastructure, and genius, developed and supported by public education.

I'd rather not turn education over to Gates, as 
I'd like to see children develop into countless 
possibilities beyond what Microsoft has to offer. 
We might, as a nation, vote on what schools will 
do to the future of this country. Should we 
ratchet up test scores at the expense of a 
critical and engaged citizenry? If Gates 
continues pouring money into schools, we?ll be 
asking him that question, despite the fact that 
we did not vote him into a leadership position.

2. Bad for communities: Corporate encroachment 
into education harms communities as it strips 
parents of their ability to shape the public 
institution of schools. Some readers will want to 
say "but parents don't shape schools anyway."

That is the proper response. Parents, 
communities, teachers, and students should have 
far more influence over schooling than they do 
now. While lack of parental involvement and 
influence is a very real problem in public 
education, it is 1) rarely addressed in debates 
over school reform and 2) exacerbated by 
increased corporate control over public education.

Importantly, NCLB­legislation written by and for 
corporate America­ultimately strips parents, 
teachers, and students of the ability to 
participate in educational agenda setting, as 1) 
the agenda has been set (testing, testing, 
testing) and 2) the consequences have been 
determined. After 4 years of "failing," schools 
are turned over to other entities such as charter 
schools run by...wait for it...Gates money.

One out of four children who sit in a charter 
school does so with the help of either the Gates 
or the Waltons, despite the lack of compelling 
evidence that charter schools educate any better 
than traditional public schools. U.S. citizens 
might ask themselves if they would turn ?failing? 
communities into charter communities, run by corporations.

3. Bad for democracy: Democracy is much more than 
one person one vote. It is a system of associated 
living where individuals participate in the 
institutions that shape their lives. Schools, 
according to philosophers such as John Dewey and 
Benjamin Barber, are the mechanisms by which 
democracies maintain and recreate themselves and 
must be tended by a mindful citizenry, not corporate leaders.

I have seen very little from corporate America 
over the past 20 years that indicates sweeping 
support for democracy. One might convincingly 
argue that many corporations have undermined 
democratic ideals. Given that fact, corporate 
involvement in community schools should trouble 
all Americans, whether they call themselves 
conservative, liberal, green, independent, libertarian, or progressive.

If U.S. democracy is under assault, and many 
scholars, activists, politicians, and citizens 
believe that it is, then turning more public 
schools over to Gates does not bode well for its 
future. Does Gates, for example, value free 
speech, free expression, and free thought? The 
answer must be no if math and science are gods 
all children must worship. Does he value 
innovation, creativity, and nuance? The answer 
must again be no if he continues to remake schools in his image.

Should Gates decide to put democracy first, that 
would be a different story, and I will be the 
first to come out in support of his efforts to 
reform public schools. However, until that 
happens, citizens must stand up against the 
hostile takeover of their public schools. To do 
anything less guarantees less democracy for our children.

Philip Kovacs is finishing his Ph.D. in 
Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State 
University. Email to: philipkovacs@yahoo.com.

­ Philip Kovacs
Common Dreams
2006-06-28