1st Edition

The Gates Foundation and the Future of US “Public” Schools

Edited By Philip E. Kovacs Copyright 2011
    248 Pages
    by Routledge

    264 Pages
    by Routledge

    There has been much public praise for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s efforts to reform public education. However, few scholars have engaged substantively and critically with the organization’s work. While the Gates Foundation is the single largest supporter by far of "choice" initiatives particularly with regard to charter school formation, it is pushing public school privatization through a wide array of initiatives and in conjunction with a number of other foundations. What are the implications for a public system as control over educational policy and priority is concentrated under one of the richest people on the planet in ways that foster de-unionization and teacher de-skilling while homogenizing school models and curriculum? The Gates Foundation and the Future of US "Public" Schools addresses this crucial, unanswered question while investigating the relationships between the Gates Foundation and other think tanks, government, and corporate institutions.

    Foreword  Deron Boyles.  Acknowledgments.  1. From Carnegie to Gates: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Venture Philanthropy Agenda for Public Education  Kenneth J. Saltman  2. Power Philanthropy: Taking the Public Out of Public Education  Michael Klonsky  3. The Gates Foundation’s Interventions into Education, Health, and Food Policies: Technology, Power, and the Privatization of Political Problems  David Hursh  4. Marketing New Schools for a New Century: An Examination of Neoliberal School Reform in New York City  Jessica Shiller  5. Corporatism, KIPP, and Cultural Eugenics  Jim Horn  6. Disabusing Small-Schools Reformism: An Alternative Outlook on Scaling Up and Down  Aimee Howley and Craig B. Howley  7. Governing Identity Through Neoliberal Education Initiatives: "Get[ting] Schooled" in the Marketplace  Leslee Grey  8. The Gates’ Foundation and the Future of U.S. Public Education: A Call for Scholars to Counter Misinformation Campaigns  Philip E. Kovacs and H.K. Christie  9. The Giving Business: Venture Philanthropy and the NewSchools Venture Fund  Jim Horn and Ken Libby  10. Dear Bill: "Grokking’ Education  Patti Lather  11. An Open Letter to Bill Gates, Jr. (With a Message to My Colleagues)  David Gabbard  12. Why Current Education Reform Efforts Will Fail  Marion Brady

    Biography

    Philip E. Kovacs is assistant professor of education at UAHuntsville.

    Winner of the 2011 Critics Choice Book Award of the American Educational Studies Association