Bill Gates Essay

On February 26th, Bill Gates gave a speech to governors, policy makers, and business leaders from across the nation to discuss the problems with education. During that speech, Bill Gates gave a keynote address where he called American public schools "obsolete." This statement made by one of the most powerful and influential men in the world could destroy the education systems of the United States let alone destroy the education systems of the world.

Gates has spent almost a billion dollars influencing American public schools, and while his donations seem admirable on some fronts, especially in an era of increased federal demands coupled with reduced federal spending, his generosity remains problematic. When corporate leaders shape government institutions according to their needs, we move away from democracy and toward corporatism, a relative of, and arguably a indicator to, fascism. While this essay is no place for a complete analysis of American democracy and fascism, I believe a compelling case can be made for keeping corporate leaders out of our classrooms as, despite their "best" intentions, their ideology ultimately undermines the democracy our schools supposedly serve. Corporations are out for corporations, whereas democratic citizens, are out for each other.

While I agree with Gates that there is indeed a crisis in our schools, it should not be confused with any perceived crisis over achievement. Schools in wealthy neighborhood are consistently considered to be able to be better than schools in less wealthy neighborhoods. The real crisis in our schools reflects the most serious crisis in our democracy: diverse peoples with multiple voices and needs have little say in the major decisions shaping their lives. The school is but one place where this is the case.

John Dewey, an American philosopher, defined democracy as a system of associated living where individuals participate in the institutions governing them. (www.Philosophypages.com) In a democratic school system, parents, students, teachers, academics and business leaders would participate in curricular decisions. Corporatism, on the other hand, requires citizen obedience to corporate demands; individual needs are ignored. In the case of public schools, CEOs have great influence on the curriculum whereas parents have none. Individual students become products whose manufacture is subject to the ideas of the market. As our society becomes more market based, we are beginning to see stricter coordination between government and industry, another tenant of corporatism. This coordination often comes in the form of government-business partnerships, where elites from both groups decide how public institutions should be shaped and run. Ultimately, corporatism undermines the legitimacy of individual citizens and the democracy they maintain, as these elites, often unelected, make decisions for the people.

One can't help but wonder how increasing achievement will prepare students for citizenship. Arguably, the best way to improve citizenship is to send children out into the community as citizens. They might, for example, identify a pressing issue in the neighborhood surrounding their school and act collectively to change it. This, of course, is not the type of education Gates and other business leaders are after, as they need number crunchers whipped into shape by the conventionally