David Safier

I always keep an eye on what the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doing in the education arena. They spend a hell of a lot of money, so they're real players, which makes their giving patterns important. But I also sense that they have no political agenda. Bill Gates wants his legacy to be, he changed the world for the better. He's not satisfied being the guy who made gazillions by selling computer software. Since the Foundation is trying to do good regardless of which education camp supports their efforts, and they have lots of money to get things done, what they say and do tells a lot about what might work in the real world.

In remarks at last week’s gathering, Mr. Gates said the foundation had seen success with some of the small high schools it helped create through its emphasis on that school improvement strategy, but that much of that work did not deliver the academic gains the foundation had hoped for.

“To be successful, a redesign requires changing the roles and responsibilities of adults, and changing the school’s culture,” Mr. Gates said. “You can’t dramatically increase college readiness by changing only the size and structure of a school.

So now the Foundation plans to focus more of its energies on "teacher effectiveness." That means trying to identify what makes for effective teaching, but it also means finding ways to "retain and compensate teachers based on their effectiveness, and help ensure that high-quality teachers are place in schools that need them the most."