New direction for Gates Foundation aims to build on progress in L.A. schools
A new direction for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — and millions in new funding — will make their presence felt in Los Angeles schools as a result of grants announced Tuesday.
The L.A. district and others across the country hope to benefit from a foundation effort to build on what already is helping to keep students on track toward graduation.
It’s not as sexy or laser focused as the foundation’s past sweeping strategies, but that’s partly the point.
“We’ve come to understand how important context is,” said Bob Hughes, director of K-12 education for the foundation. “One size doesn’t fit all.”
The Seattle philanthropic institution is known for spending billions in pursuit of “the big idea” to transform public education. And even those billions don’t capture the extent to which the foundation has leveraged its influence to campuses in every corner of the country.
One such effort was to refashion large, impersonal middle and high schools into smaller academies. The results, in terms of improved student achievement, overall were lackluster. Later came a teacher-effectiveness initiative, which some critics and supporters characterized as a mission to find and fire bad teachers. Once again, the results were disappointing in terms of improving outcomes for students.
Such conclusions were made after schools and school districts across the country reshaped themselves based on the concepts. In many cases, they were forced to do so by new state and federal policies and laws.
The latest approach — and its initial $92 million in grant money — emphasizes networks of schools that can work together and learn from one another. In many cases, the foundation Continue reading: New direction for Gates Foundation aims to build on progress in L.A. schools
