Funding: Gates "Deep Dive" Winners Finally Surface

The secretive folks at the Gates Foundation has been playing cat and mouse for months about which districts applied for -- and were finalists in -- the so-called "deep dive" teacher effectiveness initiative.  But there's no hiding it when you're giving out big bucks after having put districts through the wringer.  These administrators want to party! Well, no, not really (well...).  Anyway, the news is getting out:  

Memphis City Schools to sign pact for $90 million from Gates Foundation
Boards of education in Hillsborough County, Fla. (Tampa); Pittsburgh; and a consortium of charter schools in Los Angeles signed agreements with the foundation this week.

Gates Foundation awards $40 million to city schools
The district would be one of the Gates Foundation's four "intensive partnership sites" for teacher-effectiveness initiatives nationwide.

Hillsborough School Board unanimously approves $100M Gates grant
The finish line is in sight for the Hillsborough County School District, which agreed Tuesday to accept a $100 million teacher effectiveness grant if the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation offers it.

No word on whether this helps or hurts a district's chances of getting RTTT or i3 funding or how the streams will be coordinated if a district gets funding from all three.