Georgia State Professor: Gates Has Spent $2.3 Billion on Common Core | Truth in American Education

Georgia State Professor: Gates Has Spent $2.3 Billion on Common Core | Truth in American Education:

Georgia State Professor: Gates Has Spent $2.3 Billion on Common Core

Filed in Common Core State Standards by Shane Vander Hart on March 18, 2014 • 0 Comments

Jack Hassard, Professor Emeritus at Georgia State, provides evidence that Gates has spent $2.3 billion on the implementation and advocacy of the Common Core.  Writing at the Art of Teaching Science in an article entitled “Why Bill Gates Defends the Common Core,” Hassard writes:

Why is Bill Gates so concerned about those that have taken on Achieve’s Common Core State Standards?

The answer is that the Gates Foundation has invested about $2.3 billion into the Common Standards and related efforts.  Please read ahead.

In public speeches, Gates has called out those who try to interfere with the implementation of the Common Standards.   When Gates first used his billions to reach out to eduction, there was some glimmer of hope.  The Gates Foundation idea of funding smaller high schools appeared to be a plausible conception.  But things changed, and as we’ve seen, someone with a lot of money can influence organizations in ways that ordinary classroom educators can not.

Soon the Gates Foundation began to fund efforts that, in my view, undermined the work of professional teachers.  Gates own simple conception of “measuring” student learning, has been accepted by many politicians and state education bureaucrats.  Test the students when they come into your class.  Test them when they go out to summer play.  Subtract the scores, and there you have it.  A measure of what student learned.

He continues:

College-Ready Grants: $2.3 Billion

But the truth is that the Gates Foundation has provided much more money than the