District Administration - March 2012 - (Page 72)

The Single Largest Education Donor Comes With Controversy President Barack Obama with Melinda Gates and Education Secretary Arne Duncan at Logan International Airport in Boston in March 2011. The trio went to Boston to visit the TechBoston Academy, which opened in 2002 with a grant from the Gates Foundation. Melinda and Duncan, right, at the academy. critical places— in think tanks, on Capitol Hill and in the [Obama] administration,” he says. “You’ve got to believe that was conscious. Nobody could be that lucky. Somebody sat down and said, ‘How do you influence federal policy decisions?’” That’s potentially troubling to the National Education Association (NEA), according to a written statement from President Dennis Van Roekel. “Clearly, the philanthropy role in education is expanding, and no other organization has made a bigger commitment to education,” he says. “For everyone who hopes to make a meaningful and long-lasting commitment to education through philanthropy, you must be sure to include the educator voice in your planning and implementation.” Team Gates Jake Neuberg, co-founder and CEO of Revolution K12, which has helped 72 March 2012 implement teacher evaluation systems in more than 1,000 schools, some of which received Gates Foundation money, sees various positive impacts from the foundation’s work. “Gates brings a number of very positive things to K12 education,” he says. Besides money, Gates brings “smart, experienced people who are willing to do some real basic, firsthand research [into what makes teachers effective] in a way that hasn’t been happening in K12 as much as it could, Neuberg says. Shalvey says the Gates Foundation has recruited influential and talented educators, and lost plenty of them, as well. Some include Jim Shelton, assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement in the U.S. Department of Education, and a former Gates program officer; and John Deasy, Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent and prior deputy director of education for Gates. “It’s not surprising that Arne Duncan would look to Jim Shelton. It’s not at all surprising to me that the foundation looked to John Deasy when he was in Prince George’s County (Md.), and not surprising that LAUSD would seek someone like John out. Individuals come to the foundation with influence from their own body of work, and then bring that to the next place they go.” Gates’ level of influence, particularly with regard to issues like teacher evaluation and charter schools, greatly troubles Diane Ravitch, New York University education professor and author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Undermine Education (2010). “In a time of austerity, a foundation as large as Gates has immense leverage with its discretionary dollars,” says Ravitch, a former U.S. assistant secretary of education, in an emailed response. District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - March 2012

District Administration - March 2012
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Inside the Law
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Research Center
CIO News
Building an Ed Tech Dream Team
Are you Ready for Common Core Math?
A Crystal Ball for Student Achievement
The Single Largest Education Donor Comes With Controversy
Models of Education Reform
Noteworthy Books
New Products
Going Mobile
Professional Opinion

District Administration - March 2012