Charts: More Evidence Gates Is "Over" Charters

Look at this new @kenmlibby analysis of the Gates Foundation's grantmaking over the past three years and you'll see something I've been talking about but no one's really paid attention to (or believed):  a sharp (49 percent) decrease in funding for charter schools.  

Some would argue that the Gates folks let their charter funding slip because the Obama folks have pushed so hard on that front.  This is not to say that the foundation is anti-charter at this point -- there are charter-related functions in several of the other Gates funded endeavors (human capital, for example).  And, to be fair there are funding fluctuations all over the place and the grant categorizations may be off in some places (advocacy is down?) 

Comments

[Jeff]

Interesting trend on direct charter funding but he also appears to have concentrated on "development" and "human capital" recently. Is it coincidental that the biggest constraint that you hear from high-performing charter operators is the scarcity of a talent pool? Perhaps he is helping iron out that problem.

[Art]

Alexander ... A claim that Gates is retreating from charter schools is hard to square with this ...

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/press-releases/Pages/high-performing-school-investments-111206.aspx

[Alexander Russo]

thanks, art -- but the push you cite is for charters and districts to collaborate, not to grow charters... that's what i meant to say in my original post, that it's not all about more charters anymore. certainly they're not turned against charters, though, or totally withdrawn from the field. one of their big five deep dive grants is to a charter collab in LA, for example. thanks

[Doug]

Charters and vouchers don't actually solve anything they just move the problem around. Do Charter and voucher proponents actually believe that more privatization will raise the NAEP or PISA scores? That is risable.