By — Kyla Calvert Mason Kyla Calvert Mason Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/15-years-education-reform-taught-bill-melinda-gates Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter What 15 years in education reform has taught Bill and Melinda Gates Education Oct 7, 2015 12:00 PM EDT Fifteen years ago, the legislation to create No Child Left Behind was just being written, the country’s first charter school was turning eight years old and the Common Core was years away from becoming an idea. The landscape has shifted dramatically since then, when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation first appeared on the country’s education scene. In that time the Gates Foundation supported reforms like breaking large high schools into smaller learning communities, which it later abandoned because improvements from the effort weren’t big enough. The group has studied what it takes to be an effective teacher and put its weight behind controversial efforts to remake systems for evaluating teachers. Now it’s focus has turned, in part, to the role technology can play in tailoring education for every child. In Seattle today, PBS NewsHour’s Gwen Ifill talks with Bill and Melinda Gates at the Gate Foundation U.S. Education Learning Forum, which you can watch in the player above. They’ll explore lessons they’ve learned from 15 years working in education, what keeps them excited about efforts to improve seemingly intractable problems in American schools and where the Foundation’s data-driven efforts could turn next. Tonight on the NewsHour, viewers can see a one-on-one follow-up between the couple and Ifill. By — Kyla Calvert Mason Kyla Calvert Mason
Fifteen years ago, the legislation to create No Child Left Behind was just being written, the country’s first charter school was turning eight years old and the Common Core was years away from becoming an idea. The landscape has shifted dramatically since then, when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation first appeared on the country’s education scene. In that time the Gates Foundation supported reforms like breaking large high schools into smaller learning communities, which it later abandoned because improvements from the effort weren’t big enough. The group has studied what it takes to be an effective teacher and put its weight behind controversial efforts to remake systems for evaluating teachers. Now it’s focus has turned, in part, to the role technology can play in tailoring education for every child. In Seattle today, PBS NewsHour’s Gwen Ifill talks with Bill and Melinda Gates at the Gate Foundation U.S. Education Learning Forum, which you can watch in the player above. They’ll explore lessons they’ve learned from 15 years working in education, what keeps them excited about efforts to improve seemingly intractable problems in American schools and where the Foundation’s data-driven efforts could turn next. Tonight on the NewsHour, viewers can see a one-on-one follow-up between the couple and Ifill.