Gates, ALEC, and Tennessee Miracles

Roll Call has a story this morning on the Plutocracy's attempts to crawl of out of sight from the Web spotlight that is now shining on their corporate coddling of the fascist outfit, ALEC.  And yes, Gates is among those to look shocked and say wh. . .?  This comes only after $375,000 was paid for lobbying and lawyering and bill writing in the area of anti-teacher and anti-public school activity in states like Tennessee, now Ground Zero in the war against public education.

The foundation, run by the co-founder of Microsoft Corp. and his wife, contributed more than $375,000 to ALEC in the past two years and was the target of an online petition launched today by the liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee that garnered more than 23,000 signatures in a matter of hours.

“We have made a single grant, narrowly and specifically focused on providing information to ALEC-affiliated state legislators on teacher effectiveness and school finance,” said Chris Williams, the spokesman, noting that the foundation was never a dues-paying member. The foundation advocates for global health initiatives and efforts to reduce poverty.

Just a few days ago the"news source," Chattanoogan.com, changed a few words in corporate-run State Achievement District press release that announced the bidding has begun on charterizing of Tennessee's public schools, beginning with those with the poorest students and, thus, the lowest test scores.  The "Achievement" District became a new entity in early 2010, thanks to legislation passed with the help of ALEC and Gates.  The CEO of the Achievement District is the Commissioner of Education, Kevin Huffman, whose goals are the same at the TFA cult that still controls him. 

The Race to the Top grant of $501,000,000, written by Gates Foundation employees or former employees and judged by the same crew,  will allow for the bottom 5 percent per year of schools to be taken over each year by corporate charter companies, who bring their own unique brand of penal pedagogy to Tennessee's most vulnerable children. 

With this new influx of out-of-state corporate reform school bottom feeders, there is a big, big promise that they are making: to move the lowest 5 percent of schools into the top 25 percent of schools within five years.  From Chattanoogan.com the State Achievment District:

The nation’s top school operators are competing for the opportunity to open schools in Tennessee.  In an effort to ensure the lowest performing 5 percent of schools in the state will perform among the top 25 percent within five years, Tennessee’s Achievement School District is working to expand existing, high-performing charter schools as well as attract new operators that will provide transformational educational opportunities for students in the state.  Achievement School District (ASD) received applications from school operators to begin serving Tennessee students as soon as the 2013-2014 academic year.

Obviously, the KIPP corporate reform school model will be in operation: minimal enrollment of special education, ELLs, disabled, and any children of any parents who are not accepting of total control, total compliance, and test prep factory learning. 

Tennessee is quickly approaching the point when Schools (will not) Matter, for any potential good, anyway. 

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