US Microsoft founder, Co-Chairman of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, poses for a ... [+]
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a grant of $900,117 to the Reason Foundation. The award’s stated purpose is “to ensure that State funding adequately and equitably supports the pursuit of improved educational outcomes for low income, Black and Latinx Students.”
The Reason Foundation is a think tank whose stated purpose is to advance “a free society by developing, applying, and promoting libertarian principles, including individual liberty, free markets, and the rule of law.” They use “journalism and public policy research to influence the framework and actions of policymakers, journalists and opinion leaders.” They favor limited government and market-friendly policies.
The Gates Foundation has long pushed policies in education, including the financing of the ultimately-unsuccessful small schools initiative and widespread influence in the creation and implementation of the controversial Common Core State Standards.
According to the Gates database, they have never before given a grant to the Reason Foundation. The two are not an obvious match; in fact, Reason was highly critical of the Common Core initiative that Gates spent millions to promote.
Reason’s approach to education has emphasized choice, particularly school vouchers. Over the years they have cranked out papers to support these market-based policies, though these papers have not met with enthusiasm from education policy analysts, who have used phrases like “carefully selected examples intended to support a particular perspective,” “off the rails,” “not a credible policy document,” “little more than a polemic,” and “reckless and irresponsible.”
It is not clear what the actual project behind this grant might be. Search the Reason website for “low-income students” and it turns up many articles about how school choice and voucher programs would improve school for these students. The same for a search for “Black students.” (”Latinx students” does not appear on the website at all.)
The grant language is also interesting in that it suggests that Reason’s program is not about establishing a program, but about finding ways to influence the path of state funding. The end result of this may not simply be about spending Gates money, but about spending taxpayer dollars as well.
The Gates Foundation declared in 2017 that it would spend $1,7 billion to improve public schools (on top of $3.4 billion previously spent). 85% was aimed at public schools with the remaining 15% aimed at charter schools. Some of that was targeted at schools in poor communities. Their focus has been on public schools and charter schools (which they view as public schools also).
While $900K is a drop in a multi-billion dollar bucket (though it’s a hefty amount for Reason, whose most recent 990 form shows total 2019 revenue of $16 million), this new grant does seem to represent a change from the usual Gates public school direction. The Reason Foundation has not expressed interest in improving public schools, but in moving students away from the public system through school vouchers and other choice mechanisms.
Neither the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation nor the Reason Foundation responded to emails requesting further details about the grant. The grant is dated September, but neither organization has announced it publicly. Both folks on the right who disdain Gates meddling and folks on the left who fear Libertarian anti-government tinkering will have to wait to see where this new partnership is headed.
