November 13, 2008 | Read Time: 2 minutes
As part of an announcement this week about changes in its education grant making, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is making efforts to be more open about its decisions.
On Tuesday, the foundation said it is revamping its approach to improving education. It gathered education leaders in Seattle to get candid feedback about its approach, plans to hold similar forums in other parts of the country, added material to its Web site, and has even established an e-mail address so participants can offer their ideas and criticisms in the future.
But despite these moves to make itself accessible to the public, some blog writers are concerned that the wealthy philanthropy influences Americans schools without much oversight.
Alexander Russo, a former education adviser to two U.S. senators, writes on his blog that the new effort, which includes a project to develop standards for public schools nationwide, concerns him. “I support national standards and tests, and I’m as impatient as everyone else. But Gates-made national standards creep me out a little bit,” he says.
A blog writer identified as skoolboy writes on an Education Week blog, “I’m delighted that the Gates Foundation has realized that throwing money at small schools didn’t work, but I’m not prepared to turn over the public’s interest in what is to be taught and learned to a private philanthropy, no matter how civic-minded it may be.”
But Robert Pondoiscio, director of communications for Core Knowledge, a nonprofit group that advocates for a standard curriculum for kindergarten through eighth grade, defends Gates’s involvement.
“Perhaps I’m missing something, but industry lobbyists regularly play a role in policy and legislation where they have enormous self-interest with nary a peep. If it’s ok for the insurance industry to write health-care legislation or the oil industry to craft energy policy, how could weighing in on national standards and assessments possibly be out of bounds for Gates, which has no dog in the fight outside of its reputational capital?” asks on on the charity’s Core Knowledge Blog.
What do you think? Are you concerned about the Gates Foundation’s influence in American education?
Click on the comment link below this post to share your thoughts.
