Laurene Jobs Awards $10M To Pet Charter School Network of Zuckerberg, Gates

theodp writes: The XQ Institute -- a nonprofit backed by Laurene Powell Jobs (Steve's widow) -- announced the winners of its $100 million competition (Warning: may be paywalled) to rethink the American high school this week. Among the 10 lucky schools winning a $10M grant was Summit Elevate ("a new high school planning to open in Fall 2018"), part of the Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg-supported Summit Charter Schools network (HP CEO Meg Whitman is on Summit's Board). In announcing the grant, XQ praised Basecamp, Summit's personalized learning software platform that was developed by Facebook engineers, which Bill Gates has spent $1+ million on to get schools to adopt it (the NY Times characterized the Facebook-Summit partnership as "more of a ground-up effort to create a national demand for student-driven learning in schools"). U.S. education, it seems, is becoming The Game of Billionaires -- at last May's NewSchools Venture Summit, former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (now working for Jobs) was interviewed by former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education and Gates Foundation Program Director Jim Shelton (now working for Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan).

Comments

Re:Biased title

[ShanghaiBill]

Dude. If someone want to shake up education to try something new, and wants to give a boat load of money - what's not to love?

... and if they team up with some billionaires, it means their effort is more likely to be successful, and more likely to make a difference.

This looks like a smart and logical move, despite the submitters attempt to manufacture outrage.

There is a Summit HS in my city, San Jose. My kids don't attend it, but some neighbors do, and they are very happy with it.

Charter schools are parasites.

[waspleg]

They exist to turn a profit. Education should not be for profit. They are literally filter feeders and the kids get what's left over.

I work in K-12. I've seen both sides first hand including hybrids. Public schools could be better but Charters are a step back.

They're essentially the same as the privatized prisons only they can cherry pick their inmates to look better than they are while cutting as many corners as possible.

Re:Biased title

[Uberbah]

Dude. If someone want to shake up education to try something new, and wants to give a boat load of money - what's not to love?

... and if they team up with some billionaires, it means their effort is more likely to be successful, and more likely to make a difference.

A difference in de-professionalizing education and bringing teachers to the same level as barista's at Starbucks. A difference in funneling hundreds of billions in public dollars into the blood funnels of the leisure class, because already being more rich than 90% of the population combined just isn't enough for them.

This isn't something to be commended. This is a reason to break the guillotines out of storage.

Besides, have you Randian's thought about what will happen when unions are utterly crushed and every elementary school has quarterly revenue targets? What happens when the school turns a total blind eye to the constant bullying of your (naturally brilliant and hard working) John Galt Jr. because the bully's dad is a partner on the school board?

Why is that? Because billionaires are infallible?

They tend to be less fallible than non-billionaires. Bill and Mark didn't get to be billionaires by winning the lottery. They made some smart decisions, hired good people, and built successful organizations. Also, they have a lot of money, and that can sometimes help make projects successful

Bill was in the right place at the right time through pure dumb luck, created & abused a monopoly to push out the competition, and got his start through his momma's business connections. Jobs had three great runs (first and second stints at Apple, Pixar) but he is the incredibly rare exception, not the obnoxiously elitist rule.

And history repeats itself

[jenningsthecat]

U.S. education, it seems, is becoming The Game of Billionaires.

Public education as it exists in America today was instituted by the robber barons for the purpose of producing compliant, unimaginative, mentally and experientially stunted citizens to constitute an easily managed, reflexively obedient industrial workforce that would have insufficient independence and free thought to upset the long range plans and investments of the industrialists.

Charter schools supported and molded by the likes of Gates, Zuckerberg, and Jobs are just the latest manifestation of a century-old ongoing process in which the ultra-rich manipulate the minds and vocations of the rest of the population.

I strongly recommend reading Gatto's "The Underground History of American Education", (available as a PDF file here) - I found it to be an eye-opening experience. 'Sheeple' get a lot of grief here on Slashdot; Gatto's work explains why there are so many of them. You might also discover that you have a lot more in common with those sheeple than you realize - I know I did.