Gates Money and Common Core– Part IV

This post is a continuation of a series I am writing on Bill Gates’ funding specifically for the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). In my first post, I examined the Gates bankroll of the CCSS foundation organizations and to both national teachers’ unions and other influential groups. In the second post, I considered organizations influencing state education departments and local districts and that have accepted Gates money for promoting and implementing CCSS. My third post investigates the departments of education and school districts that have taken Gates money specifically for CCSS implementation.

And now, for my fourth installment: Universities that have accepted Gates money earmarked for CCSS implementation. Sixteen universities did so, for a total of  $17.6 million:

DePaul University  $248,343

George Washington University  $259, 895

Harvard University  $557,168

Massachusetts Institute of Technology  $3,004,132

Michigan State University  $650,000

New York University $40,282

Purdue University  $1,453,832

Regents University of California, Los Angeles  $942,527

Stanford University  $2,292,500

University of Arizona  $3,416,901

University of Florida  $250,000

University of Kentucky Research Foundation  $1,000,000

University of Michigan  $1,999,999

University of Missouri, Columbia  $249,826

University of the State of New York  $600,000

University of Washington Foundation  $610,819 

(Detailed Gates funding information for this post is available here: Gates Money to Universities for CCSS)

Note: Not one Gates grant to these universities was for piloting CCSS in order to see how well it worked prior to implementation.

One grant does mention the word “pilot”– not to test CCSS but to develop CCSS “professional development”:

University of the State of New York

Date: November 2011
Purpose: to develop, pilot, and evaluate innovative approaches to Common Core-aligned professional development for teachers
Amount: $600,000

Yet another grant mentions “surveying.” However, the goal is to report on CCSS implementation:

The George Washington University

Date: July 2013
Purpose: to support the Center on Education Policy’s continuing efforts to survey, analyze, and report on state and school district efforts to implement the Common Core State Standards
Amount: $259,895

One grant– the over-half-million Gates paid Harvard– incorporates CCSS into a privatization package to be promoted by the online publication, Education Next:

Harvard University

Date: July 2013
Purpose: to support Education Next’s work in four critical areas: Common Core standards and assessments, digital learning, teacher effectiveness, and charter schools
Amount: $557,168

Gates is buying reform from Education Next, a publication that in its hypocrisy outright lies about its privatization bent by declaring itself “partakers of no program, campaign, or ideology”:

Mission Statement In the stormy seas of school reform, this journal will steer a steady course, presenting the facts as best they can be determined, giving voice (without fear or favor) to worthy research, sound ideas, and responsible arguments. Bold change is needed in American K–12 education, but Education Next partakes of no program, campaign, or ideology. It goes where the evidence points. [Emphasis added.]

In this post, the “evidence points” to Gates’ wallet. In fact, Education Next executive editors Frederick Hess and Michael Petrilli are also associated with the American Enterprise Institute and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, respectively– both of which have accepted millions in Gates funding as detailed in my first post of this series.

Several of the universities accepting Gates money have done so in order to develop CCSS curriculum.  This raises the question of the blurred line between “standards” and “curriculum.” If Gates is going to also pay for CCSS assessment (which he does), he must purchase curriculum upon which to build the assessment. Thus, in funding CCSS development, curriculum, professional development, and assessment, Gates is purchasing the entire education enterprise.

I document the Gates purchase of CCSS development, curriculum, professional development and assessments in my previous three posts. This fourth post is no exception regarding Gates’ goals of CCSS consumption of traditional public education. At the university level, Gates is purchasing both curriculum and professional development.

Here several universities are committing to Gates-funded curriculum:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Date: August 2013
Purpose: to support an online, game-based learning experience for reading and writing aligned to Common Core literacy standards
Amount: $115,000

Date: December 2011
Purpose: to develop Cosmos, a multiplayer online game, aligned to the Common Core State Standards and Next Generation Science Standards for high school students
Amount: $2,889,132

Michigan State University 

Date: April 2013
Purpose: to support an implementation study of the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics
Amount: $650,000

New York University 

Date: May 2010
Purpose: to convene leaders in education and commercial gaming, develop game standards for developers, and improve games as learning vehicles by aligning Common Core Standards, design principles, and assessment
Amount: $40,282

Purdue University 

Date: July 2010
Purpose: to further develop the Purdue Online Writing Lab and align its resources to the Common Core State Standards
Amount: $1,453,832

University of Arizona 

Date: June 2012
Purpose: to produce content to illustrate the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics
Amount: $3,416,901

I previously noted Gates’ University of the State of New York “pilot” for professional development. And now, for some Gates-financed professional development in Michigan:

University of Michigan

Date: March 2012
Purpose: to build resources to help teachers develop their practice and teach the Common Core State Standards
Amount: $1,999,999

Gates has it covered. US public education is his for the buying.

I have had some commenters write that just because Gates is paying for CCSS doesn’t mean he is buying the Will of the People.

To them I say, read all four of my Gates posts in rapid succession.

Then perhaps you might see the Bill picture.