Bill and Melinda Gates Money at Work

 by Susan Ohanian

He's back!

 Who knew that Jonah Edelman is alive and well--and pumping the Common Core! I stumbled on this information by way of a Tweet by Vicki Phillips, Director of Education - College Ready at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who issued two shout outs in praise of Edelman's work--a Huffington Post piece One Thing All Parents Should Know about the CommonCore, in which Edelman is humping a new film made by Stand for Children.  She'd already declared her love of the film: #CommonCore 'Building Dreams' - great video explaining #CCSS from @Stand4Children | http://bit.ly/18cUaji

We'll get back to this film.


I find it interesting that putting his foot in his mouth at Aspen in 2011  , and  bragging what a great political maneuverer he was, doesn't seem to have dimmed Jonah Edelman  and Stand for Children's bulb much at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. They continue to shovel buckets of money his way. Since 2009, the Foundation has awarded $9,267,796 to Stand for Children--for general operating expenses, to support expansion, to enable their national office to "deliver state of the art organizing programs to other states, to establish "educator panels," to organize parents and teachers in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. And to make films.

Gates gives the money and  Jonah Edelman, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Stand for Children, rightly billing itself as a neo-liberal organization, delivers.  Here's the Common Core work  Stand for Children is doing for Gates this week.  When he's not making a pitch for Stand for Children films, Edelman finds other ways to promote the Common Core, Tweeting, "Great piece on Kentucky's quietly successful implementation of the new #CommonCore standards: http://ti.me/16bl90O--this sent to the article's author, Amanda Ripley. Of course this  article  in the Sept. 20, 2013 issue of Time starts out by claiming that teachers and researchers wrote the Common Core.

Just coincidentally, Ripley,  author of Smartest Kids in the World and very hot on the corporate school deform front right now, is featured in one of 38 short videos made by Stand for Children. In it she promotes her work. Hmmm. Was this book subsidized? Ripley acknowledges that she interviewed Bill Gates, Aug. 18, 2010, and she certainly echoes his proclamations about what's wrong with US education. In the Stand for Children film she concludes  a pitch about US teachers just not being smart enough by declaring,  “When everyone has different standards, there’s no way to measure success.”

Ripley was listed as an  Emerson Fellow at the New America Foundation,  with this identifier: Ripley is working on a book about what it is like to be a child in the world's new education superpowers. Now that the book is published, New America features events, starring Ripley, Wendey Kopp,  and the Deputy Editor of  Bloomberg Businessweek.

Between 2009 and now, the New America Foundation has received $5,860,002 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Meanwhile, back with the  mid-September Edelman pitches on Twitter:

•  Easy, interactive tool to learn more about how #CommonCore will affect you:

           Common Core: What it means to you:  http://get2core.org/learn

•   One Thing All Parents Should Know [About the Common Core]

 He’s really pushing this film—sent call-out  to Co-CEO of Teach for America, to @dropoutnation, to  Lauren Bowles, a TV actress, and  to the world in general.

•  @dropoutnation I'd love your help getting eyes on our new #CommonCore video. 13K views and counting! http://youtu.be/6M9208ZrlMU

• Have you spent two minutes learning about the #CommonCore yet? http://youtu.be/6M9208ZrlMU

Edelman seems really proud of this film. It opens with a girl carrying her Pearson Common Core textbooks. Apparently at Stand for Children there’s no sense of shame.  Not even any sense of irony. None. Wouldn't you think they'd have been smart enough to find a library book for the kid to hold? Of course the strong possibility is they shot the film in a Common Core school stocked only by Pearson textbooks. 

One of the other 38 short videos features John Legend trying to sound wise. They have disabled the comments but indicate that one person like this film.

One more ugly thing about this whole Stand for Children operation. On one of their sites, they feature a map, so the viewer can click on her state and see how kids are doing. I clicked on Vermont and was told  Common Core in Vermont: 42% of Vermont's college freshmen aren't ready for college-level work and spend their tuition gaining remedial skills they should've received for free in high school.

They reallly throw in the fear:

• Arkansas:  72% of Arkansas' college freshmen aren't ready for college-level work and spend their tuition gaining remedial skills they should've received for free in high school.

But then it gets interesting:

• Mississippi:  39% of Mississippi's college freshmen aren't ready for college-level work and spend their tuition gaining remedial skills they should've received for free in high school.

• Connecticut: 81% of Connecticut's college freshmen aren't ready for college-level work and spend their tuition gaining remedial skills they should've received for free in high school.

•  New Mexico: 47% of New Mexico's college freshmen aren't ready for college-level work and spend their tuition gaining remedial skills they should've received for free in high school. 

Where are they getting these numbers?

Bill and Melinda Gates money at work.