An email about Gates' latest gargantuan investment in education appeared in my inbox today. I've now picked my jaw up off of the floor and thought I'd pass it along:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that it will invest $335 million to support effective teaching as a means to ensure all students receive the education they need to succeed in high school and beyond. Today's announcement includes $290 million in grants to support four Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching sites that have developed groundbreaking plans to improve teacher effectiveness. Another $45 million will go toward the Measures of Effective Teaching project, a research initiative that seeks to define effective teaching and identify fairer and more reliable evaluative measures.
335 million. WOW. I mean WOW. Our president, Chester Finn, mentioned to staff that this is probably the 3rd or so largest private philanthropic gift to K-12 education ever.
Their charge is clear: develop better measures of teacher effectiveness. Fantastic marching orders. Hillsborough County Public Schools, Memphis City Schools, and Pittsburgh Public Schools are among the elated recipients (and the national unions, too, who are "partners" -along with their local affiliates-- in these cities as well). This is putting the money where your mouth is. We're to see from this mountain of dollars, an "array of measures that will be viewed by teachers, unions, administrators, and policymakers as reliable and credible indicators of a teacher's impact on student achievement." I can't wait. This is exciting...More details to follow, no doubt. But sure would have been nice if Gates would have included a timeline.
By the way, this makes the latest infusion of cash by the Ford Foundation to the AFT's Innovation Fund look like itsy-bitsy potatoes. The writer of this Wall Street Journal op-ed fails to mince words about how he feels about Ford's decision here (it joins a growing list of foundations already supporting the initiative). Frankly, it's unclear how much of Ford's $100-million-kitty is being funneled to AFT coffers but the writer quips, "Here's guessing the main such innovation will be more money for everyone regardless of results."
I refuse to be that cynical about the 335 million. Then again, I didn't want to be cynical about the stimulus funding either. Rats.
