White House Hires Gates Foundation’s Policy Officer

Is the White House looking for ideas from the foundation world?

Yesterday the Bush administration announced it hired John P. Bailey, a former senior policy officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to be special assistant to the president for domestic policy. At the Seattle-based foundation, Mr. Bailey focused on ways to improve public schools.

The jump from Gates to a government job, especially one in a Republican administration, is unusual. The Gates Foundation is better known for hiring former White House staff who served under Democrats. For example, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the fund’s president for global development, was deputy chief of staff for President Clinton, and David Lane, who leads Gates’s advocacy efforts in Washington, served as the head of the White House’s National Economic Council under Mr. Clinton.

What do you think? Will Mr. Bailey’s appointment help lead to closer collaboration between the Bush administration and foundations? Click on the comments link below this post to share your thoughts.