Philanthropy: Gates Reverses On Risky "ALEC" Bet
Interesting to see that not that many education types seem to think it's very noteworthy (or publicly discussable) that the Gates Foundation announced on Monday that its November $377,000 grant to ALEC would be its last one. Roll Call broke the news on Monday, and since then left-leaning political sites are all over it. Schools Matter picked it up and the Center on Media and Democracy got a quote from Randi Weingarten saying she applauds the decision. But that's about it, despite the fact that Gates and ALEC are deeply involved in education issues, that the initial decision was greeted with a certain amount of controversy, and that any foundation but especially Gates making a public announcement like this is fairly unusual.
I came across the news yesterday afternoon, two days after the fact, in a Lucy Bernholz post about