Business Week profiles Gates Foundation

Interesting article about the Gates Foundation's experience with small school reform over on BusinessWeek online: Bill Gates Gets Schooled

Visits to 22 Gates-funded schools around the country show that while the Microsoft couple indisputably merit praise for calling national attention to the dropout crisis and funding the creation of some promising schools, they deserve no better than a C when it comes to improving academic performance. Researchers paid by their foundation reported back last year that they have found only slightly improved English and reading achievement in Gates schools and substantially worse results in math. There has been more promising news on graduation rates. Many of the 1,000 small schools the Gateses have funded are still new, however, and it's too soon to project what percentage of their students will finish school and enter college, also a foundation goal. The collapse of Manual High [Denver case study from article] is an extreme case, but one that points to a clear lesson: Creating small schools may work sometimes, but it's no panacea.

The couple says the setbacks don't mean they have squandered the $1 billion the foundation has spent so far. Instead, they view their crash course as research and development for educators nationally who are trying to sort out what works and what doesn't. The Gates record shows that besides creating a more personalized setting, it's vital to hire motivated and qualified teachers and institute tougher academic standards.

This article takes a slightly different tack from the other articles I've read about the recent changes in Gates Foundation funding. In other articles it sounded like they were taking the focus off of small schools led by dynamic individual and focusing on other more data-driven and scalable types of reforms. Here it sounds like they are still committed to the small school idea, but realize that it is more difficult to make it work than just putting kids in a small school setting. Without the academic rigor and institutional support to develop a viable school community, the best efforts of the most dynamic, idealistic individuals can go for naught.

Let's hope the people charged with revisiting San Francisco's small schools effort are paying close attention.