“Unfortunately, our foundation underestimated the level of resources and support required for our public education systems to be well-equipped to implement the standards,” Desmond-Hellmann wrote. “We missed an early opportunity to sufficiently engage educators – particularly teachers – but also parents and communities, so that the benefits of the standards could take flight from the beginning.
“This has been a challenging lesson for us to absorb, but we take it to heart. The mission of improving education in America is both vast and complicated, and the Gates Foundation doesn’t have all the answers.” It was a remarkable admission for a foundation that had often acted as though it did have all the answers.
But the Gates Foundation has spent so much money – more than $3 billion since 1999 – that it took on an unhealthy amount of power in the setting of education policy. Former foundation staff members ended up in high positions in the U.S. Department of Education – and, in the case of John Deasy, at the head of the Los Angeles Unified School District. .
Philanthropists are not generally education experts, and even if they hire scholars and experts, public officials shouldn’t be allowing them to set the policy agenda for the nation’s public schools. The Gates experience teaches once again that educational silver bullets are in short supply and that some educational trends live only a little longer than mayflies.
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