[ "If youre looking for a bold new idea for New York public
schools," wrote congressional candidate Jamaal Bowman, "how about you
just try fully funding them for once?"] [[link removed]]

'A DANGEROUS IDEA': PUBLIC SCHOOL ADVOCATES DENOUNCE CUOMO-GATES PLAN
SEIZING ON PANDEMIC TO 'REIMAGINE' NEW YORK'S EDUCATION SYSTEM  
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Julia Conley
May 6, 2020
Common Dreams
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_ "If you're looking for a bold new idea for New York public
schools," wrote congressional candidate Jamaal Bowman, "how about you
just try fully funding them for once?" _

A public school stands closed on April 14, 2020 in the Brooklyn
borough of New York City., (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

 

Public education advocates on Wednesday rejected New York Gov. Andrew
Cuomo's pledge to work with billionaire entrepreneurs like Microsoft
founder Bill Gates to "reimagine" his state's school systems once the
coronavirus pandemic subsides. 

In his daily press briefing Tuesday, nearly two months after ordering
schools
[[link removed]] throughout
the state to close and millions of children began attending classes
remotely from home, Cuomo said New York must "take this experience and
really learn how we can do differently and better with our education
system in terms of technology and virtual education."

Cuomo said the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has partnered with
the state of New York to develop a "Blueprint to Reimagine
Education."
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The Covid-19 pandemic, the governor said, offers an opportunity to
"revolutionize" New York's schools in ways that Gates, a school
privatization proponent, has promoted for years. 

"Bill Gates is a visionary in many ways and his ideas and thoughts on
technology and education, he's spoken about for years," Cuomo said.
"But I think we now have a moment in history where we can actually
incorporate and advance those ideas."

Critics including New York State Allies for Public Education, Class
Size Matters, and the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy were wary
of handing the state's education system over to Gates, who previously
launched—among other "education reform" projects—a $1 billion
initiative in three states to improve "teacher effectiveness" which
policy think tank RAND found
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"more harm than good" for students. 

"Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation have promoted one failed
educational initiative after another, causing huge disaffection in
districts throughout the state," wrote the three organizations in a
letter
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the governor. "Whether that be the high-handed push by the Gates
Foundation for the invalid Common Core standards, unreliable teacher
evaluation linked to test scores, or privacy-violating data-collection
via the corporation known as inBloom Inc., the education of our
children has been repeatedly put at risk by their non-evidence based
'solutions,' which were implemented without parent input and despite
significant public opposition."

Cuomo's announcement of his partnership with the Gates Foundation came
two weeks after the governor warned that without the federal funding
New York State needs to confront the Covid-19 pandemic, school
budgets could be cut by 50%
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year. Earlier in April, legislators passed a state budget in which
education spending was flat compared with last year's budget. 

The Education Law Center wrote
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2018 that Cuomo had spent his entire term as governor proposing
"woefully inadequate" aid increases for public school students.

Jamaal Bowman, a former middle school principal in The Bronx and a
congressional candidate in New York's 16th district, suggested Cuomo
"try fully funding [schools] for once" rather than "reimagining" them.

Other progressive advocates in the state, including longtime public
education activist and former gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon,
also spoke out against Cuomo's proposal on social media.

Education historian Diane Ravitch wrote 
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her blog that Cuomo's interest in enlisting powerful billionaires to
remake New York's public systems in the wake of the pandemic does not
end with Gates. The governor has called on former Google CEO Eric
Schmidt to advise him on "technology utilization" for schools while
former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will oversee 
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large-scale contact-tracing effort. Schmidt has also been named to
lead Cuomo's Blue Ribbon Commission aimed at "reimagining New York
State's current systems of health and education."

"The pandemic is turning into a grand opportunity for the foxes to
raid the hen house under cover of darkness," wrote
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"Parents, teachers, and students want a safe and orderly return to
real education taught by real teachers in real schools."

The governor, Ravitch added, "seems oblivious to the eagerness of
parents and students alike to return to real live teachers in real
school buildings. Parents want to return to work, students want to see
their teachers and their friends, and they want to return to their
activities and sports. Teachers want to see their students. No one but
Cuomo—and probably Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt—wants remote
learning to become permanent."

Since remote learning became commonplace across the country in March,
children's advocates have warned 
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the safety and privacy risks associated with students
spending several hours per day 
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online learning programs.  

"Since the schools were shut down in mid-March, our understanding of
the profound deficiencies of screen-based instruction has only
grown," wrote
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three groups in their letter to Cuomo Tuesday. "Along with many other
parents and educators, we strongly oppose the Gates Foundation to
influence the direction of education in the state by expanding the use
of ed tech."

"Instead, we ask that you fund our schools sufficiently and equitably,
to allow for the smaller classes, school counselors, and other
critical services that our children will need more than ever before,
given the myriad losses they have experienced this year," they
added. 

_Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams._

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