The Gates Foundation Engages Its Critics

sam_handelman writes "The Gates Foundation responded to the critiques of its policies (previously discussed here) by inviting its critics at Education Week Teacher to a dialog on its own site. Edweek blogger Anthony Cody answered the challenge. The two sides negotiated a five-part series of post and counterpost, which can be viewed on both sites. Previous exchanges include Cody's question, Can Schools Defeat Poverty by Ignoring It?, and an answer from the Gates Foundation's Global Press Secretary, Chris Williams, Poverty Does Matter — But It Is Not Destiny. The final round of the dialog has begun, and is available for comment on the Gates Foundation's own blog. Slashdot readers may not know about Gates' sponsorship of specific edutech industry partners, such as Rupert Murdoch's Wireless Generation, and Pearson Education. Cody poses tough questions, including, 'Can the Gates Foundation reconsider and reexamine its own underlying assumptions, and change its agenda in response to the consequences we are seeing?' According to the agreement, the Gates Foundation will answer in the coming week, concluding the series."

Comments

charity

[Hazel Bergeron]

Charity is a band-aid over the wounds of capitalism.

Re:charity

[Anonymous Coward]

I see your a college freshman that's never taken an actual course in economics in your life. I am too, we should get together and form a club! Maybe we can discuss how to make things better for the class of people that aren't rich. Really work on this thing. Revolutionize how people think about their position in life, you might say. After all Capitalism is a system of oppression! Not say, a proven scientific theory with decades of incredibly complex research to back it up as a model of how wealth flows and is generated.

Re:charity

[Hazel Bergeron]

Nope - private school scholar, mathematics to postgrad, previously worked on producing accounting systems and played with larger numbers on a day-to-day basis than you will probably see in a lifetime. Founded and sold a fairly successful business during the first dot-com boom. Thought about being an actuary once, but was well-advised against it by an ex-actuary who had gone into university lecturing - did do some preliminary qualification and achieve top mark in the country that year, though.

I wouldn't claim to have the genius of some of my ex-colleagues at school and in work, but my record suggests numerical proficiency and I have been as capitalist as a person can be.

These days I'm taking life a lot easier and, among other things, in the middle of a law degree.

After all Capitalism is a system of oppression!

It's a method of exploiting laziness in the privileged which sometimes works.

Not say, a proven mathematical model with decades of incredibly bullshit research to back it up as a model of how wealth flows and is generated.

FTFY. Microeconomics can be thoroughly useful, but macroeconomics is as scientific as theology. Sure, it involves numbers and even some funny symbols, but so does astrology.

Re:charity

[Anonymous Coward]

The capitalist health care system, as implemented in the U.S.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA...he said "capitalist" and then "as implemented in the U.S. Oh shit, he made a goddamned funny

I hope you were going for ironic pun but in case you thought you were saying something intelligent to say, please allow me to stop you right there. Much of "capitalism" in the US is such in name ONLY. The insurance industry in league with trial lawyers have perverted health care in this country so badly that it is a miracle that it even functions at all. Is health care important? You goddamned right it is because if you don't take care of yourself I know damn good and well the government will be more than happy to take money out of me and my children's mouths to pay for your sorry ass to get a quintuple by-pass and then give you a SSI check for the rest of your miserable life. Since the government is going to rob me anyway, they might as well get it over with and maybe somewhere between your HSA and your fucking Obamacare, I might have a chance to get robbed a little bit less by not having to put you up for the last 30 years you have on this earth like you was another child or something.

And you call that capitalism? Yeah right, it's ROBBERY (and uncouth at least that's what my captcha thinks about it)

Re:As Steve Jobs might conclude

[Anonymous Coward]

No fuck you motherfucker. It's donut stuffing middle class SUV driving, fat and comfortable sacks of shit like you that let people like Bill Gates get away with dressing wholesale exploitation up as "charity". The B&M Gates foundation is corrupt. It has been shown to be corrupt many times yet fucks like you will argue with their very last breath (in between french fries of course) that Gates is somehow some kind of saint because his PR has told you what to believe. Fucking arrogant puke.

Re:Isn't Gates a big lib?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, before you talk about how shockingly the debt has risen in the past four years, tell us about the prior four years, and the policies from 2001-2008 that are still costing us out the wazoo.

Yeah! Our guy might be a steaming pile of smelly shit piled a mile high but your guy is a steaming pile of smelly shit piled a mile and an inch high. Two totally different things!!

Re:Isn't Gates a big lib?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. I am talking about the past four years, if you don't like that then tough.

"Today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office" Obama Feb. 23, 2009.

Stuff it. This is Obama's economy, his policies, his executive orders, his parties control of the senate and house - for two years a supermajority.

This is Obama's economy and Obama's FAIL. We are tired of the blame, it don't fly anymore drone.

It is you who is choosing to ignore facts, not I.