The bill gates problem, p.55
The Bill Gates Problem, page 55
committed suicide: Ian Lovett, “Teacher’s Death Exposes Tensions in Los Angeles,” New York Times, November 9, 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/education/10teacher.html.
“not for sale!”: Taylor Soper, “Teachers Protest in Downtown Seattle, Say Bill Gates Is Ruining Education,” GeekWire, June 27, 2014, https://www.geekwire.com/2014/teachers-protest-gates-foundation/; Jesse Hagopian, “Debating the Gates Foundation,” Socialist Worker, March 13, 2012, https://socialistworker.org/2012/03/13/debating-the-gates-foundation.
“shaming poorly performing teachers”: Gates, “For Teachers, Shame Is No Solution.”
preposterous good-cop routine: Anthony Cody, “Teachers Face Good Cops or Bad Cops in Push for Evaluations,” EdWeek, February 29, 2012, https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/opinion-teachers-face-good-cops-or-bad-cops-in-push-for-evaluations/2012/02.
or an exclamation point: Stecher et al., Improving Teaching Effectiveness.
Smiling, quiet, obedient: “Better Connected, Future Vision,” inBloom, video available at https://vimeo.com/60661666.
plumbing infrastructure: Tricia Duryee, “Gates-Backed InBloom Winding Down After Non-Profit Faces Concerns over Privacy,” video (at 53:40 and 56:00), GeekWire, April 21, 2014, https://www.geekwire.com/2014/gates-backed-inbloom-winding-non-profit-faces-concerns-privacy/. Note: The group changed its name from the Shared Learning Collaborative to inBloom early in its history. In 2011, Shared Learning Collaborative was incorporated in the state of Washington as a limited liability company. The same year, the Gates Foundation’s annual tax filing reported that SLC was a “controlled entity,” which, according to IRS rules, means Gates owned more than 50 percent of it. Documents from Gates and inBloom widely describe the project as a “non-profit.” It’s not clear that the project ever had 501c3 status. See “Shared Learning Collaborative Blossoms into ‘inBloom Inc.,’” EdSurge, February 5, 2013, https://www.edsurge.com/news/2013–02–05-the-shared-learning-collaborative-gets-a-new-name-inbloom-inc; Query of Washington State Corporations and Charities Filing System; “Exempt Organizations Annual Reporting Requirements—Form 990, Schedule R: ‘Related Organization’ and ‘Controlled Entity’ Reporting Differences,” Internal Revenue Service, n.d., https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/exempt-organizations-annual-reporting-requirements-form-990-schedule-r-related-organization-and-controlled-entity-reporting-differences.
$4.35 billion: Monica Bulger, Patrick McCormick, and Mikaela Pitcan, “The Legacy of InBloom,” Data and Society, February 2, 2017, 11, https://datasociety.net/pubs/ecl/InBloom_feb_2017.pdf.
helping states write: Lyndsey Layton, “Common Standards for Nation’s Schools a Longtime Goal,” Washington Post, June 9, 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/common-standards-for-nations-schools-a-longtime-goal/2014/06/09/cbe7e9ec-edb1-11e3-92b8-52344c12e8a1_story.html.
“the database tracks”: Stephanie Simon, “K–12 Student Database Jazzes Tech Startups, Spooks Parents,” Reuters, March 3, 2013, https://web.archive.org/web/20130304030215/https://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/03/us-education-database-idUSBRE92204W20130303.
a major scandal involving data privacy: Ruth McCambridge, “NY Parents Protest Foundation-Funded inBloom Educaiton Data Portal,” Non-Profit Quarterly, May 2, 2013, https://nonprofitquarterly.org/ny-parents-protest-foundation-funded-inbloom-education-data-portal/.
was shuttered upon news: Jim Watterson, “News of the World: 10 Years Since Phone-Hacking Scandal Brought Down Tabloid,” Guardian, July 10, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jul/10/news-of-the-world-10-years-since-phone-hacking-scandal-brought-down-tabloid.
Like dominoes: Molly Hensley-Clancy, “How Rupert Murdoch Suffered a Rare Defeat in American Classrooms,” BuzzFeed News, August 24, 2015, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mollyhensleyclancy/how-rupert-murdoch-suffered-a-rare-defeat-in-american-classr; Natasha Singer, “inBloom Student Data Repository to Close,” New York Times, April 21, 2014, https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/21/inbloom-student-data-repository-to-close/.
independent appraisal: Pivotal Ventures did not begin funding Data and Society until 2018, after the report on inBloom was published in 2017. Data and Society claims on its website that “We do not accept funding that would affect our ability to pursue work free of external interference, and we fiercely protect the independence of our researchers and fellows in their intellectual activities and individual funding relationships.” “Data and Society Funder List,” Data and Society Research Institute, n.d., https://datasociety.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Funders-List-2021-Feb-2022.pdf; “About,” Data and Society Research Institute, n.d., https://datasociety.net/about/.
Any future U.S. edtech:” Bulger, McCormick, and Pitcan, “The Legacy of InBloom.”
data collection: “Report Offers Recommendations for How Systems Can Access and Use Postsecondary Outcomes Data to Support Students’ Success,” Chiefs for Change (blog), December 1, 2021, https://www.chiefsforchange.org/2021/12/01/report-offers-recommendations-for-how-systems-can-access-and-use-postsecondary-outcomes-data-to-support-students-success/. Note: Alongside the foundation’s data collection efforts in education, it has a growing portfolio of projects aimed at what it calls “digital inclusion.” This encompasses new digital banking systems and digital identification schemes aimed at promoting equity, such as bringing underrepresented communities onto a platform where they can more fully join the modern economy. In 2022, New York University’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice published a long report profiling the potential dangers of such efforts, specifically citing the Gates Foundation’s key funding to groups working in this space, like G2Px, MOSIP, the Digital Impact Alliance, ID4D, ID4Africa, and the GSMA Foundation. “Proponents have cloaked this new paradigm in the language of human rights and inclusion,” the report notes. “Like physical roads, national digital identification systems with biometric components (digital ID systems) are presented as the public infrastructure of the digital future. Yet these particular infrastructures have proven to be dangerous, having been linked to severe and large-scale human rights violations in a range of countries around the world, affecting social, civil, and political rights. The benefits, meanwhile, remain ill-defined and poorly documented. Indeed, those who stand to benefit the most may not be those ‘left behind,’ but a small group of companies and security-minded governments.” Paving a Digital Road to Hell: A Primer on the Role of the World Bank and Global Networks in Promoting Digital ID, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, NYU School of Law, June 2022, https://chrgj.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Report_Paving-a-Digital-Road-to-Hell.pdf.
bankruptcy proceedings: Natasha Singer, “Federal Regulators Seek to Stop Sale of Students’ Data,” New York Times, https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/23/federal-regulators-seek-to-stop-sale-of-students-data/.
Amazon and Cisco: Jeff Bryant and Velislava Hillman, “How Big Businesses Are Colonizing the Classroom,” Progressive.org, February 16, 2022, https://progressive.org/api/content/45cc4ab4-89c7-11ec-80f6-12f1225286c6/.
Out of these discussions: Mercedes K. Schneider, Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools? (New York: Teachers College Press, 2015), 20–22, 27.
“comprehensive benchmarking”: The foundation announced its first four grants for K–12 education in October 1999, with money going to Achieve, Partnership for Learning, Public Agenda, and West Seattle High School. The foundation’s grant records show $350 million for projects explicitly described as for “common core” or “CCSS” (Common Core State Standards), but it is virtually certain that the real number is significantly higher. Jack Hassard, professor emeritus at Georgia State University, in 2014 estimated that Gates had spent $2.3 billion to advance Common Core. Jack Hassard, “Why Bill Gates Defends the Common Core,” Art of Teaching Science (blog), March 15, 2014, https://jackhassard.org/why-bill-gates-defends-the-common-core/.
Rex Tillerson: Erin Kourkounis, “CEOs Tout Benefits of Common Core Standards,” Tampa Tribune, October 28, 2013.
“on the decline”: Glenn Britt, “Investing in Innovation,” Forbes, March 1, 2010, https://www.forbes.com/2010/03/01/science-technology-education-thought-leaders-britt.html?sh=60dc6d571eee.
“regulatory capture”: McShane, “Bill Gates at AEI on the Common Core.”
beef up: “Is Bill Gates a Closet Liberal?,” Salon, January 29, 1998, https://web.archive.org/web/20120607021236/https://www.salon.com/1998/01/29/feature_349/.
paid low wages: Daniel Costa, “STEM Labor Shortages? Microsoft Report Distorts Reality About Computing Occupations,” Economic Policy Institute, November 19, 2012, https://www.epi.org/publication/pm195-stem-labor-shortages-microsoft-report-distorts/; Daniel Costa and Ron Hira, “H-1B Visas and Prevailing Wage Levels,” Economic Policy Institute, May 4, 2020, https://www.epi.org/publication/h-1b-visas-and-prevailing-wage-levels/.
“fought tooth and nail”: Neil Krauss, “Support the Page Amendment, but Let’s Not Pretend We Can Educate Ourselves out of Inequality,” MinnPost, November 1, 2021, https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2021/11/support-the-page-amendment-but-lets-not-pretend-we-can-educate-ourselves-out-of-inequality/?hilite=neil+kraus.
the “skills gap” narrative: The foundation appears explicit about its research bias, noting, “We will support research, communications, and policy analysis efforts that highlight the importance of doubling the number of young people who earn a postsecondary credential.” That is, Gates appears to fund research aimed at supporting its preformulated conclusion that the U.S. labor market requires a vastly better-educated workforce. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Postsecondary Success, 2009, https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/documents/postsecondary-education-success-plan-brochure.pdf.
“mission to help”: Sara Rimer, “Gates Grants Aim to Help Low-Income Students Finish College,” New York Times, December 9, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/education/09gates.html; “Measuring Up 2008,” National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, 2008, 2, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED503494.pdfhttps://web.archive.org/web/20090613023059/http://cew.georgetown.edu/mission.htmlhttps://web.archive.org/web/20201203174944/https://cew.georgetown.edu/about-us/https://web.archive.org/web/20201203165447/https://cew.georgetown.edu/about-us/faqs/https://cew.georgetown.edu/about-us/.
“requiring at least a two-year”: Jacques Steinberg, “More Employers to Require Some College, Report Says,” New York Times, June 14, 2010, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/education/15degree.html.
“about two-thirds”: Anthony Carnevale, Nicole Smith, and Jeff Strohl, Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018, Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University, June 2010, https://cewgeorgetown.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/fullreport.pdf.
“point of numbness”: Goldie Blumenstyk, “By 2020, They Said, 2 out of 3 Jobs Would Need More than a High-School Diploma. Were They Right?,” Chronicle of Higher Education, January 22, 2020, https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/the-edge/2020-01-22.
high school equivalent: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, Data, “Occupations That Need More Education for Entry Are Projected to Grow Faster than Average,” Table 5.2: “Employment, Wages, and Projected Change in Employment by Typical Entry-Level Education,” n.d., https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/education-summary.htm.
underemployed: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Economic Research, “Underemployment Rates for College Graduates,” table, n.d., https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/college-labor-market/index.html#/underemployment.
“the great equalizer”: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Postsecondary Success.
“cradle to career”: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, “Road Map Project,” May 2013, https://docs.gatesfoundation.org/documents/BMGF_RoadmapProject_SIO_062413_r4_onln.pdf.
reverse-engineered: Elkind, “How Business Got Schooled in the War over Common Core.”
“redesigning financial aid”: Simon and Mershon, “Gates Masters D.C.—and the World.”
“labor-market success”: Elizabeth Warren, “The College Transparency Act of 2017,” May 15, 2017, https://www.warren.senate.gov/files/documents/2017_05_15_College_Transparency_One_Pager.pdf. Note: This language is virtually indistinguishable from the foundation’s own rhetoric from at least as far back as 2009: “Many colleges have little access to real-time knowledge if and when their students are beginning to drop out. Administrators have inconsistent access to data that ensure their programs are aligned with labor market demand. Students make critical choices about where to go to college and what to major in with little data about program quality or graduates’ success. Without better data, educators, students, and policymakers lack the information they need to make good decisions that will support and reinforce a commitment to completion.” Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Postsecondary Success.
equity and justice: Valerie Strauss, “Congress May Create Massive Program to Collect College Student Data,” Washington Post, April 4, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/04/04/congress-student-data-collect-privacy/; Scott Jaschik, “House Approves College Transparency Act,” Inside Higher Ed, February 7, 2022, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/02/07/house-passes-college-transparency-act.
CHAPTER 10: WHITE MAN’S BURDEN
paintings and photography: National Portrait Gallery, Portrait of Bill and Melinda Gates, Object no. NPG.2010.83, https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/photos/bill-and-melinda-gates-portrait.
Board of Regents: Robin Pogrebin, “New Chairwoman Poised to Reform Smithsonian,” New York Times, September 21, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/arts/22muse.html; “Patty Stonesifer Elected Chair of Smithsonian Board of Regents,” Smithsonian Institution, September 22, 2008, https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/patty-stonesifer-elected-chair-smithsonian-board-regents. Note: Freedom of Information Act requests to the Smithsonian returned extremely heavily redacted documents that failed to delineate how much the National Portrait Gallery had paid for the Gateses’ portrait or who had first proposed a portrait of them. The unredacted portions of the document do not cite Stonesifer as having any role in the decision. The National Portrait Gallery reports that the commission was decided upon in May 2008, a time when Stonesifer was on the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents. She became the chair a few months later. Also notable: Even after she left her CEO position at the Gates Foundation, she remained a senior adviser there.
“on a safari”: Melinda Gates, “The Story of How Melinda Gates Met Bill Gates,” Interview, Salesforce, December 1, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqsFbzTcpdc.
even their own wine expert: Joss Kent (as told to Charlotte Metcalf), “Travel Safaris,” Spectator, July 18, 2009, https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tx14f54M4J4J:https://reader.exacteditions.com/issues/5493/page/44&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-b-1-d.
“But it’s really not at all trite”: Gates, “The Story of How Melinda Gates Met Bill Gates,” 2:50.
“capitalistic societies”: Melinda French Gates, Interview by Becky Quick, CNBC, April 24, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Xs5RF7qBk. Note: A 2021 survey by the Alliance for Democracies found that 44 percent of people, from 53 different countries, said they see the United States as a threat to their democracies. Some of the strongest sentiments about the United States came from the poorest nations. “Global Poll: Despite Grim Views of Democracies’ Covid Response, People Around the World Want More Democracy,” Press Release, Alliance of Democracies, 2021, n.d., https://www.allianceofdemocracies.org/initiatives/the-copenhagen-democracy-summit/dpi-2021.
“That’s really unsafe for the baby”: “Administrator Samantha Power at Global Child Care Infrastructure Event,” USAID, April 28, 2022, https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/apr-28-2022-administrator-samantha-power-global-child-care-infrastructure-event.
“This is the clearest illustration”: Geneva Health Files (@filesgeneva), Twitter, April 29, 2022, https://twitter.com/FilesGeneva/status/1520154341264572416; Themrise Khan (@themrise), Twitter, April 30, 2022, https://twitter.com/themrise/status/1520308825303179266.
practice of hegemony: Analysis of Gates Foundation’s charitable grants based in part on World Bank classification of high-income countries. “World Bank Country and Lending Groups—World Bank Data Help Desk,” n.d., https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups.
“phantom aid”: “Phantom Aid: Money Allocated to Countries That Ends Up Funding INGOs,” Global Health Justice (blog), n.d., https://depts.washington.edu/globalhealthjustice/category/phantom-aid/.
McKinsey consultant: John Aglionby, “EthioChicken: Ethiopia’s Well-Hatched Idea,” Financial Times, March 15, 2018; “Joseph Shields,” LinkedIn, n.d., https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-shields-5338009/. Note: Gates’s $12 million in donations to EthioChicken and its investor, Flow Equity, oddly, don’t go to Ethiopia. They go to Mauritius, a renowned tax haven. The company did not respond to press inquiries.
“very little knowledge”: Peter Buffett, “The Charitable-Industrial Complex,” New York Times, July 26, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/opinion/the-charitable-industrial-complex.html?_r=0.
