Dan Goldhaber Discusses Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Education Initiatives
Posted: 10/31/2017 (CSDE in the News)
Affiliate Dan Goldhaber, Director of the UW Center for Education Data & Research, was recently quoted in an Education Week article about The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s new focus on K-12 education. The Foundation has pledged nearly $1.7 billion towards education initiatives over the next five years, approximately 60% of which will be centered on building networks of existing schools and developing improved curricula. Regarding the Foundation’s most recent shift in focus and historical challenges in improving learning outcomes for students on a broad scale, Goldhaber said, “My sense is that the foundation has had bigger tangible impacts on affecting health outcomes around the world than they have in education, and they’ve been at it for a while.” He acknowledges, however, that this is not necessarily due to inherent shortcomings on the part of the Foundation. “I think this is just sort of the way it is. It’s hard in developed countries to change well-entrenched institutions.” The full article is available below.