Posts Tagged ‘public education’

Bill Gates Learns to Give… Better

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

bill-gates-thinker.jpg
(photo credit: Steve Jurvetson)

Or, maybe, “Bill Gates learns to give to learn to teach so kids can learn?” Or something like that…

What we’re getting at here is that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, by far the biggest charitable foundation in the world, has given away billions of dollars total, and hundreds of millions to education, however, they’ve had little measurable impact in the last ten years on the one thing they were really trying to change – how many kids from disadvantaged neighborhoods are going to college.

Luckily, the last 10 years in schools have taught Bill Gates something – that he needs to learn more! Taking an idea from the private sector and applying it to education, the Gates Foundation thinks that a little R&D is exactly what the educational system needs to come up with innovative solutions to its big problems. And that’s where he’s going to put his money now.

It turns out that the business world and non-profit world aren’t so different. A lot of what we do spending and growing our money has real impact on society and the environment, and things we do in one are of our financial lives can apply to other areas in new and cool ways.

It’s not always just about giving more, but about learning to give better.

Governors In It To Win For Their Schools

Friday, November 13th, 2009

The Obama Administration is encouraging state-level education reforms with the inclusion of $4.35 billion “Race to the Top” incentive built into the federal stimulus.

  • Race to the Top is a federal grant that ties teacher and principal salaries to student test scores, adopts internationally benchmarked academic standards, improves lowest-performing schools, creates systems to track students long-term, and allows for the inclusion of more charter schools.
  • Although considered small by Washington standards, the grant is propelling state legislators to make changes so that their states are eligible for the funding.
  • In October, Governor Schwarzenegger (of California) signed a bill that links teacher pay to student test performance, after calling a special legislative session in August.

Facts & Figures

  • The United States educates an estimated 50 million students every year.
  • If distributed to each and every student, Race to the Top would provide an addtional $87 per year.
  • Grant distribution begins in January 2010.

Best Quote

“They don’t want to be on the losing side of this. Everybody wants to be the education governor, but nobody has asked them to prove it in the past several years. This year the onus is back on them.” – Charles Barone, Democrats for Education Reform