Cover Story July 15, 2010, 5:00PM EST

Bill Gates' School Crusade

(page 5 of 6)

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When the federal government made $4.35 billion in federal Race to the Top awards available—favoring applicants that agree to link teacher pay to test score gains, increase the number of charter schools, and adopt common curriculum standards—the Gates Foundation paid for consultants to prepare applications for 24 states, as well as the District of Columbia. One of two winners announced so far is Tennessee, which had help from Gates. The state will receive about $500 million from the Obama Administration.

The Gates Foundation, which bankrolled development of the common curriculum standards, is also funding outside evaluations—by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington and the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education—of those same standards. The Boston-based business group is expected to release its report before the Massachusetts Board of Elementary & Secondary Education meets on July 21 to choose between the new standards preferred under Race to the Top and revisions to existing state criteria, considered among the most rigorous in the country.

Williams, the Gates spokesman, says the foundation frequently pays for independent assessments of its programs and doesn't seek to dictate their conclusions.

"The Gates folks are well aware of our independence and, I think, incorruptibility," says Chester E. Finn Jr., president of the Fordham Institute, a nonprofit education think tank. Still, Finn says, the alliance between the government and the country's richest foundation could discourage dissent. "I've become suspicious of the phrase 'public-private partnership,' " he says. "It comes off the tongue as an undisputed good thing. It's actually a disputed good thing."

As a private entity that doesn't answer to voters, Gates can back initiatives that are politically dicey for the Obama Administration, such as uniform standards, says Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy. In the past, states' rights advocates have blocked federal efforts for a national curriculum. Gates "was able to do something the federal government couldn't do," Jennings says.

At the same time, the rapport between the federal government and the largest private education funder is raising concerns that competing ideas are getting squeezed out. "It's like a mind meld between Arne Duncan and the Gates Foundation," says former U.S. Assistant Education Secretary Diane Ravitch, whose 2010 book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, criticizes Gates for exerting "vast power and unchecked influence" over American education. If she had access to resources like Gates', says Ravitch, she'd save parochial schools that have been effective for inner-city kids but are suffering from church cutbacks.

The alliance between the Gates Foundation and the government raises other issues, too. Drew Gitomer, a researcher with the Educational Testing Service, says the foundation may be rushing a $45 million study that involves videotaping math, English, and biology lessons by nearly 3,000 teachers in the just-ended and upcoming school years. (The project lets teachers watch their lessons—and student reactions to them—to identify effective techniques, like football coaches breaking down game film.) The foundation plans to preview its findings this fall, which could help state Race to the Top winners design teacher evaluation programs.

The study "is very much fast-tracked," says Gitomer, whose role in the study is to assess teachers. "There's a feeling this is the opportune time. In a better world, it might have been nice to pilot some of these things. There's some risk associated with moving that quickly."

Phillips says the foundation maintains "appropriate firewalls." While members of its staff testify before Congress and keep tabs on federal and state policy, the foundation doesn't lobby or influence government decisions on grants, she says. Asked whether the appointment of Brad Jupp, a senior program adviser at the Education Dept., to an advisory committee for the Gates teacher videotaping study violated the foundation's firewalls, Phillips said, "It's one of those fine lines we walk constantly." When the foundation approached Jupp, he initially expressed interest in serving on the committee, he said in an e-mail. After Bloomberg Businessweek asked Phillips about it, Jupp declined the position. He said he changed course on the advice of the department's ethics counsel.