Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Commits $335 Million to Promote Effective Teaching and Raise Student Achievement

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced that it will invest $335 million to support effective teaching as a means to ensure all students receive the education they need to succeed in high school and beyond. Today’s announcement includes $290 million in grants to support four Intensive Partnership for Effective Teaching sites that have developed groundbreaking plans to improve teacher effectiveness. Another $45 million will go toward the Measures of Effective Teaching project, a research initiative that seeks to define effective teaching and identify fairer and more reliable evaluative measures.

The Intensive Partnership grants will support the effective teaching plans of Hillsborough County (Fla.) Public Schools, Memphis (Tenn.) City Schools, Pittsburgh (Pa.) Public Schools, and The College-Ready Promise, a coalition of five public charter school management organizations in Los Angeles: Alliance College-Ready Public Schools, Aspire Public Schools, Green Dot Public Schools, ICEF Public Schools, and Partnerships to Uplift Communities.

“We are convinced that in order to dramatically improve education in America, we must first ensure that every student has an effective teacher in every subject, every school year,” said Melinda French Gates, co-chair of the foundation. “These communities have shown extraordinary commitment to tackling one of the most important educational issues of our time. We must do everything we can to understand what makes teachers effective and cultivate those qualities across the profession, in every school and classroom, so that all students can benefit.”

The foundation announced a year ago that investments in effective teaching would be a critical component of its education strategy, a decision based on a well-established body of evidence that shows teachers are the most important school-based factor in student achievement. Researchers have noted only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as across classrooms within the same school, underscoring the impact of teachers on student learning.

“Decades of research and our own grant making provide clear evidence that supports the growing consensus among policymakers and parents alike that teachers matter most when it comes to student achievement,” said Vicki L. Phillips, Director of Education, College-Ready, at the foundation. “Today’s investments will help these districts and school networks—and in time, all districts—develop better systems to identify and reward great teachers, make sure the highest-need students have access to the most effective teachers every year, and give all teachers the support they need to improve.”

The announcement of the Intensive Partnership grants culminated a yearlong competitive application process that brought together school district, school board, and local teacher union leadership to develop comprehensive and innovative reform plans. Each of the selected communities demonstrated a broad-based commitment to raising student achievement, with an emphasis on reforming how teachers are recruited, evaluated, supported, retained, and rewarded. They also represent a mix of large and mid-size urban school systems with diverse populations.

For information on the investments announced today, please visit: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/education.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Guided by the belief that every life has equal value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, it focuses on improving people’s health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, it seeks to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. Based in Seattle, Washington, the foundation is led by CEO Jeff Raikes and Co-chair William H. Gates Sr., under the direction of Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett.

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