The Billionaire Fetish
The Billionaire Fetish
A billionaire solves education! When Bill Gates decided to help us, who knew his ideas would simply not be effective?
But, the Gateses have admitted that school reform is harder than they thought, and none of their efforts have worked as they had hoped. Critics go further, charging that some of their projects have harmed public schools because they were unworkable from the start and consumed resources that could have been better spent.
The idea of billionaires to the rescue is supported in the business press. Forbes recently panted over the idea that “activist tech billionaires” will be “the superheroes we need.” Some pandering academic wrote a book suggesting tech billionaires can help the world when trust in institutions is falling - and Forbes interviewed the author. Naturally, asking why major American institutions are losing credibility, or how to fix that, never entered the discussion.
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