Broad and Gates Funds Start $60-Million Education Effort

The billionaire philanthropists Eli Broad and Bill Gates have teamed up to create a $60-million project that they hope will catapult the need for improved public education to the top of the 2008 presidential candidates’ agendas, The New York Times reports.

Their foundations — the Broad Foundation, in Los Angeles, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle — will distribute the money.

Using the slogan “Ed in ’08,” the Strong American Schools project will include television and radio advertising spots targeted at some of the most crucial states in the election, an Internet-driven appeal for volunteers, and a national coalition of representatives in both parties.

The project will not endorse candidates, a prohibited activity for charitable nonprofit organizations. Instead it will push for stronger curriculum standards nationwide, a lengthening of the school day and year, and merit pay and other measures to improve teacher quality.

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