Race to Top: Gates Backs a Bunch of Winners
Several of the states that won grants in the federal Race to the Top competition received financial help from a well-known source: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Nine of the 12 winning applicants from a field of 47 over two rounds of the competition were given $250,000 apiece by Gates to support the crafting of their proposals, foundation spokesman Chris Williams confirmed. The contenders that benefited from that largesse were Massachusetts, New York, Florida, the District of Columbia, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, and Rhode Island in round two of the competition, and Tennessee in round one. The other three winners —Delaware, Hawaii, and Maryland—landed in the winners' circle without money from Gates.
Gates chose to help states that were in "good strategic alignment" with the foundation on key issues, Williams