Editorial<\/p>\n
Gates Foundation failures show philanthropists shouldn\u2019t be setting America’s public school agenda<\/p>\n
Bill and Melinda Gates talk to reporters about their foundation in New York on Feb. 22. The two are co-chairs of the largest private foundation in the world. (Seth Wenig \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n
The Times Editorial Board\u00a0 6\/1\/2016<\/strong><\/p>\n Tucked away in a letter from the Bill and Melinda\u00a0Gates<\/a>\u00a0Foundation last week, along with proud notes about the foundation\u2019s efforts to fight smoking and tropical diseases and its other accomplishments, was a section on education. Its tone was unmistakably chastened.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re facing the fact that it is a real struggle to make system wide change,\u201d wrote the foundation\u2019s CEO, Sue Desmond-Hellman. And a few lines later: \u201cIt is really tough to create more great public schools.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gates Foundation\u2019s first significant\u00a0foray into education reform, in 1999, revolved around Bill Gates\u2019 conviction that the big problem with high schools was their size. Students would be better off in smaller schools of no more than 500, he believed. The foundation funded the creation of smaller schools, until its own study found that the size of the school didn\u2019t make much difference in\u00a0student performance. When the foundation moved on, school districts were left with costlier-to-run small schools.<\/p>\n Then the foundation set its sights on improving teaching, specifically through evaluating and rewarding good teaching. But it was not always successful. In 2009, it pledged a gift of up to $100 million to the Hillsborough County, Fla., schools to fund bonuses for high-performing teachers, to revamp teacher evaluations and to fire the lowest-performing 5%. In return, the school district promised to match the funds. But, according to reports in the Tampa Bay Times, the Gates Foundation changed its mind about the value of bonuses and stopped short of giving the last $20 million; costs ballooned beyond expectations, the schools were left with too big a tab and the least-experienced teachers still ended up at low-income schools. The program, evaluation system and all, was dumped.<\/p>\n The Gates Foundation strongly supported the proposed Common Core curriculum standards, helping to bankroll not just their development, but the political effort to have them quickly adopted and implemented by states. Here, Desmond-Hellmann wrote in her May letter, the foundation also stumbled. The too-quick introduction of Common Core, and attempts in many states to hold schools and teachers immediately accountable for a very different form of teaching, led to a public backlash.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, our foundation underestimated the level of resources and support required for our public education systems to be well-equipped to implement the standards,\u201d Desmond-Hellmann wrote. \u201cWe missed an early opportunity to sufficiently engage educators \u2014 particularly teachers \u2014 but also parents and communities, so that the benefits of the standards could take flight from the beginning.<\/p>\n \u201cThis has been a challenging lesson for us to absorb, but we take it to heart. The mission of improving education in America is both vast and complicated, and the Gates Foundation doesn\u2019t have all the answers.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a remarkable admission for a foundation that had often acted as though it did have all the answers. Today, the Gates Foundation is clearly rethinking its bust-the-walls-down strategy on education \u2014 as it should. And so should the politicians and policymakers, from the federal level to the local, who have given the educational wishes of Bill and Melinda Gates and other well-meaning philanthropists and foundations too much sway in recent years over how schools are run.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not to say wealthy reformers have nothing to offer public schools. They\u2019ve funded some outstanding charter schools for low-income students. They\u2019ve helped bring healthcare to schools. They\u2019ve funded arts programs.<\/p>\n The Gates Foundation, according to Desmond-Hellmann\u2019s letter, is now working more on providing Common Core-aligned materials to classrooms, including free digital content that could replace costly textbooks, and a website where teachers can review educational materials. That\u2019s great: Financial support for Common Core isn\u2019t a bad thing. When the standards are implemented well, which isn\u2019t easy, they ought to develop better reading, writing and thinking skills.<\/p>\n And foundation money has often been used to fund experimental programs and pilot projects of the sort that regular school districts might not have the time or extra funds to put into place. Those can be extremely informative and even groundbreaking.<\/p>\n But the Gates Foundation has spent so much money \u2014\u00a0more than $3 billion since 1999\u00a0\u2014\u00a0that it took on an unhealthy amount of power in the setting of education policy. Former foundation staff members ended up in high positions in the U.S. Department of Education \u2014 and, in the case of\u00a0John Deasy<\/a>, at the head of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The foundation\u2019s teacher-evaluation push led to an overemphasis on counting student test scores as a major portion of teachers\u2019 performance ratings \u2014\u00a0even though Gates himself eventually warned against moving too hastily or carelessly in that direction. Now several of the states that quickly embraced that method of evaluating teachers are backing away from it.<\/p>\n Philanthropists are not generally education experts, and even if they hire scholars and experts, public officials shouldn\u2019t be allowing them to set\u00a0the policy agenda for the nation\u2019s public schools. The Gates experience teaches once again that educational silver bullets are in short supply and that some educational trends live only a little longer than mayflies.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Editorial Gates Foundation failures show philanthropists shouldn\u2019t be setting America’s public school agenda Bill and Melinda Gates talk to reporters about their foundation in New York on Feb. 22. The two are co-chairs of the largest private foundation in the world. (Seth Wenig \/ Associated Press) The Times Editorial Board\u00a0 6\/1\/2016 Tucked away in a … Continue reading Hard Lessons on Education<\/span>