Gates pours millions in new grants to change teaching profession
(Andrew Harrer/BLOOMBERG)
The Gates Foundation is spending millions of dollars in new grants that will further its already vast and controversial influence on public education. After spending hundreds of millions of dollars to to develop teacher assessment systems, it is putting many millions more into that issue, as well as into the creation of new online “adaptive” courses, the implementation of the Common Core standards, and more.
The foundation has plowed billions into K-12 reform in the last decade or so (first creating small schools and then teacher evaluation systems that used student test scores) but also in recent years has expanded into higher education. Recent articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education detailed the nearly half a billion dollars the foundation has spent to help remake the higher education into one that Gates prefers, which is focused on getting more students degrees faster through technology and what is called “competency-based learning,” and which is wrapped around an accountability system based on testing.
Foundation grants in July include those for teacher evaluation, development and the creation of new “standards” for the profession. Several school districts won multimillion-dollar grants, including one for $10 million to “support the Denver Public Schools in finding, growing and keeping talented educators in the district to ensure their students have an effective teacher in every classroom every year.” The National Education