Gates Foundation puts its stamp on education
Across the country, public education is in the midst of a quiet revolution.
The Washington Post
KIICHIRO SATO / AP
Bill Gates meets with Nelson Smith, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, last month in Chicago. The Gates Foundation "has influence everywhere in absolutely every branch of education," said Tom Loveless, a Brookings Institution education analyst.
TAMPA, Fla. — Across the country, public education is in the midst of a quiet revolution. States are embracing voluntary national standards for English and math, while schools are paying teachers based on student performance.
It's an agenda propelled, in part, by a flood of money from a Seattle billionaire prep-school graduate best known for his software empire: Bill Gates.
In the past 2-<133>1/2 years, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged more than $650 million to schools, public agencies and other groups that buy into its main education priorities.
The largest awards are powering experiments in teacher evaluation and performance pay.
The Pittsburgh, Pa., school district landed $40 million; Los Angeles charter schools, $60 million; and Memphis, Tenn., schools, $90 million.
The Hillsborough County district, which includes Tampa, won the biggest grant: $100 million. That has set the nation's eighth-largest school system on a quest to reshape its 15,000-member teaching corps by rewarding
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