Bill Gates
The big idea behind creation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (released in June 2010) was to standardize public education across most of the 50 United States– complete with common assessments so that states could be compared one to another.
Billionaire Bill Gates is arguably the principal funder of CCSS (see here, as well).
By September 2010, the US Department of Education (USDOE) had concluded its common-assessment contest, which involved awarding hundreds of millions of dollars to two CCSS-related testing consortia, Smarter Balanced and PARCC.
Seven years later, both Smarter Balanced and PARCC are dwindling, with PARCC taking the harder hit (see a February 2017 update here).
As of August 2017, PARCC has a new manager, New Meridian Corp.
In its updated version of the PARCC website, New Meridian has scrapped the idea of showcasing the states that are using PARCC, likely because it is difficult to sell PARCC as “chosen as the CCSS assessment for grades 3 through 8 in a whopping seven states.”
But guess who is helping New Meridian to keep PARCC on CCSS-assessment life support?
None other than CCSS’s wayback funder, Bill Gates:
Date: October 2017; Purpose: to expand the availability of high-quality assessments that track students’ progress toward college and career readiness using assessments and assessment content from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC); Amount: $1,500,000
Topic: K-12, K-12 Education; Grantee Location: Austin, Texas; Grantee Website: https://www.newmeridiancorp.org/
Interestingly enough, if one clicks on the New Meridian home page link, one can view the following information about funders:
SPONSORED BY THE CHARLES AND LYNN SCHUSTERMAN FAMILY FOUNDATION AND THE BATON ROUGE AREA FOUNDATION
No mention of Bill Gates and his $1.5 million.
Perhaps mentioning Gates in connection with yet another CCSS-related grant is bad for already-suffering business.
New Meridian has one tax form on file, for 2016. It lists contributions of $350,000 for that year. Even though the tax form identifies New Meridian as a 501c3 nonprofit and includes an EIN (81-3949146), no record of an exact ruling date for nonprofit New Meridian appears to be available even though 2017 is at an end.
As for that $350,000: The Baton Rouge Area Foundation does not include New Meridian as a grant recipient in 2016 in its 2016 annual report. Moreover, the Schusterman Foundation does not yet have 2016 grant info available.
But with his $1.5 million, Gates has left that $350,000 grantee in the shadows.
It’s what he does when it comes to Common Core financing. He’s the winner, hands down.
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Originally posted 12-30-17 at deutsch29.wordpress.com.
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I am a southern Louisiana native, career teacher, trained researcher, and author who writes books during summer break. My other two books are: A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who In the Implosion of American Public Education and Common Core Dilemma: Who Owns Our Schools?. Intriguing ed reform history.
