After Years of Failed Initiatives, Gates Foundation Keeps on Trying to Fix the Schools
You might imagine that Bill and Melinda Gates, with all their money, a large staff, and access to research would have developed a more nuanced and helpful strategy for school reform. But you’d be wrong. In their 2020 Gates Foundation Annual Letter, Bill and Melinda Gates continue to assume that academic outcomes as measured by standardized test scores and college matriculation rates can be raised by fixing the public schools.
Melinda Gates expresses humility about the capacity of mega-philanthropy to solve what she and Bill understand are complex issues challenging public schools and their students: “We certainly understand why many people are skeptical about the idea of billionaire philanthropists designing classroom innovations or setting education policy. Frankly, we are, too.” But she doesn’t give up on the Foundation’s mission to keep on experimenting: “Our goal is to help make a huge difference for all U.S. students, so we’ve pivoted most of our work… to areas where we can have more impact for more students.”
Here are examples of some of the Gates’ best known education experiments. Unfortunately, while these Gates projects affected millions of students across the United States, the effect has been harmful.
In her incisive 2011 analysis of the role of venture philanthropy in education policy, Joanne Barkan reminds us of the 2007 Gates funded report, The Turnaround Challenge—thought to be the secret for turning around so-called “failing” schools: “Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has called it ‘the bible’ for school restructuring. He’s incorporated it into federal policy, and reformers around the country use it. Mass Insight Education, the consulting company that produced it, claims the document has been downloaded 200,000 times since 2007. Meanwhile, Gates also invested $90 million in one of the largest implementations of the turnaround CONTINUE READING: After Years of Failed Initiatives, Gates Foundation Keeps on Trying to Fix the Schools | janresseger
