Next Move? Parsing What Bill and Melinda Said About Education Funding
Bill and Melinda Gates are obsessed with impactful grantmaking and evaluating the outcomes of their foundation's giving. Recently, the heads of the world's largest foundation discussed the impact of their funding activity with New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof.
The couple highlighted a number of accomplishments in the areas of global health and child mortality, but acknowledged that the billions they have poured into education reform haven't had quite the same impact.
"There's no dramatic change," Bill Gates told the columnist. "It’s not like under-five mortality, where you see this dramatic improvement.” However, Bill and Melinda Gates say they are not discouraged by this inertia and that they remain committed to sweeping change in the nation's K-12 and higher education systems.
This is significant for a bunch of reasons, not the least of which is that the Gateses still have not tapped the bulk of their personal fortune for philanthropy, as we've discussed in the past. While the Gates Foundation lists assets of $43 billion, Forbes pegs Bill Gates' personal fortune at nearly $80 billion—most of which will likely go to philanthropy eventually.
In other words, assuming that they stick with education as a major focus of their giving, Bill and Melinda Gates could have an even larger impact on U.S. education in coming decades than they have had to date. But what might that look like?
As we know all, the Gates Foundation has been pivotal in the battle over education reform for many years. Less clear, though, is the long-term trajectory of its efforts going forward. Most recently, Gates has placed an early emphasis on college- and career-ready standards, pouring tens of millions of dollars into the development of the Common Core State Standards. Despite the controversy surrounding the standards, the Common Core has been adopted in the majority of states, as well as the District of Columbia.
The funder also paid attention to years of education research showing that effective teachers are the single-most important factor in student success. Gates funded the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, studying best practices in classroom instruction in school districts across the country. Gates also provided millions to nonprofit organizations and individual school districts to support professional development for teachers and the development of teacher evaluation systems. (Here's abreakdown of Gates giving on teaching since 2008, which totaled nearly $700 million as of late 2013.)
In the past few years, Gates has largely moved away from grants to individual school systems, preferring instead to focus its grantmaking among large nonprofits with a national reach.
Assessing their mistakes in grantmaking, Bill and Melinda Gates said some of their early grantmaking activities — in all areas, not just education — were too technology-focused. This is understandable, given that Gates Next Move? Parsing What Bill and Melinda Said About Education Funding - Inside Philanthropy: Fundraising Intelligence - Inside Philanthropy: