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U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan fields a question from a Paul Revere Elementary School student on May 22, 2009, in San Francisco, a
day when mayors and school district superintendents from around the state met to discuss the federal stimulus plan and what it means for cities
and school districts.
for all students. “We’re making an unprecedented
investment in cutting-edge
ideas that will produce the next generation
of school reforms,” said Secretary
of Education Arne Duncan, a former
chief executive of the Chicago Public
Schools, in announcing the fund. “The
i3 competition will provide seed money
for fresh ideas, help grow promising
programs with a good track record, and
scale up programs with proven results to
a national level.”
With the reform debate in Washington
increasingly focused on innovative
data-driven models, the Gates
Foundation ramped up its efforts in the
education area with a push for teacher
effectiveness. In June, a report funded
by the Gates, Robertson, and Joyce
foundations found that the evaluation
systems of most U.S. school districts
fail to reward effective teachers or lead
to the dismissal of ineffective ones.
Subsequently, Gates awarded a total of
$290 million to support new methods
for recruiting, evaluating, and rewarding
teachers at pilot school districts in
Florida, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee as
well as $45 million to the Measures of
Effective Teaching project to develop
and test an array of reliable indicators.
Given that its focus on teacher effectiveness
and accountability dovetailed
with the administration’s priorities, the
Gates Foundation also offered grants to
help states apply for the Race to the Top
funds for public education reform. But
support for linking teacher pay to student
test scores proved controversial for both
the foundation and the administration,
especially among teachers’ unions. Others
worried that the partnership with the
federal government could compromise
the foundation’s independence. Still,
interest in public–private partnerships
in the area of education was almost
certain to grow as additional stimulus
funding made its way through the
pipeline in 2010.
The goal of expanding access to
higher education depends on having
high school graduates who are prepared
for college, and how to achieve that was
the subject of debate from the moment
the Obama administration, early in the
year, challenged educators and legislators
to fix “an education system that
used to be . . . the best in the world, and
no longer is.” Accordingly, some $5 billion
of the approximately $100 billion
earmarked for education in ARRA was
designated for states and school districts
willing to embrace the administration’s
ideas for improving the nation’s schools.
A cornerstone of that effort, the Race
to the Top Fund, required states to meet
a series of conditions in order to boost
their chances of receiving additional
Department of Education funding. In
addition, a $650 million Investing in
Innovation (i3) Fund was announced in
October to support local efforts to start
or expand innovative research-based
programs with the potential to close the
achievement gap and improve outcomes
Related stories from
Philanthropy
News Digest:
http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/
> “U.S. Schools Failing to Assess
Teacher Effectiveness, Report
Finds” (6/4/09)
> “White House Pledges $5 Billion
to Encourage Innovations in
Education” (7/28/09)
> “Fund to Provide $650 Million in
Stimulus Money to Innovative
Education Programs” (8/25/09)
> “Community Colleges to Create
New Accountability System”
(10/8/09)
GO
> “Gates Foundation Awards
$335 Million to Improve Student
Achievement” (11/20/09)
> “Lumina Foundation Awards
$9 Million to Improve Graduation
Rates in Seven States” (11/27/09)
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