The Gates Foundation—Still Stuck Inside the Box

The thinking of the Gates Foundation, just as with so many foundations such as the Oregon Chalkboard Project, is still trapped inside the traditional box of the public school model. As a result of their inside-the-box thinking, their past efforts in tinkering with reducing school size did not amount to much. The Foundation of course wants to learn from the results and adjust its goals but its emphasis is still on improving the existing public schools.

Getting outside the box requires some big idea but for whatever reason, it is not yet ready to tackle the big ideas just yet. Instead it wants to continue its emphasis on successful high-school completion and college-readiness for disadvantaged young people; it wants to add a parallel thrust toward college completion and feature measurable targets for both. It also wants to get into developing national standards and tests to markedly strengthening education data. And of course it wants to enhance research into "what works," accelerate the development and use of education technology, and strengthen teachers across multiple fronts perhaps by performance-related pay and tenure systems.