Gates Foundation Invests $20 Million In Learning Tools To Boost Common Core Curriculum

SEATTLE — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced Wednesday it would be investing $20 million to bring new national education standards into the classroom using game-based learning, social-networking and other approaches to capture the imagination of bored or unmotivated students.

The Seattle-based foundation is partnering with the nonprofit arm of one of the largest textbook publishers in the United States to create the new learning tools and offer some of the materials for teachers and school districts to use for free. It is also working with education game developers and an online public school in Florida for this project.

Judy Codding, the Pearson Foundation executive leading the course development team, said during a news conference that her organization already planned to be involved in developing new ways to help teachers adopt the new national education standards that will replace local learning goals in more than 40 states.

The partnership with the Gates Foundation offers the philanthropic side of the textbook company the money it needs to really innovate and try out new ideas that catch kids' attention, said Codding, former president and CEO of America's Choice, an education reform company acquired last year by Pearson.

"We can have all the best standards in the world, and we can have the greatest assessments, but if we don't motivate and engage kids, we can't win," she said.

The new learning tools that will be ready for teachers to use during the 2013-2014 school year will include video games that build proficiency in math, reading and science, as well as a new game platform that can be used for various subjects. Game developers and curriculum writers from around the world are involved in the project.

Wednesday's announcement also included a $2 million grant for Florida Virtual School, a statewide, Web-based school, to develop four digital classes based on the new standards. Two of the classes will be math-based and two will be literacy-based, but all will be encased within another topic such as engineering or natural sciences.

Vicki Phillips, director of the Gates Foundation's education program, said the grants announced Wednesday were only the beginning of the foundation's investment in curriculum development for the new national standards.

The foundation recently convened a meeting of game designers and curriculum writers to talk about how they can work together, and they will be working with teachers around the country to try out new ideas.

"We're learning a lot as we go," Phillips said. "It's going to be an exciting feedback loop."

She expects more nonprofit and for-profit companies will join them in the effort to design the way American kids will learn in the future.

Comments

[LoftyDreamer]

09:03 PM on 04/30/2011

For God's sake, Bill, give that $20 million to school libraries. Research shows that students who read more score higher on standardized tests. School libraries have been neglected all over the country, in some cases even eliminated. In Alabama, millions have been spent on a reading program called Alabama Reading Initiative, yet the school libraries haven't been funded (that's ZERO dollars, folks) in the past two years and will not receive funding next year either. It's insane to spend millions on a program to teach reading skills, yet neglect to fund the very school libraries that could reinforce those skills.

Bill, please, please, please, send your money to our schools' libraries. The return on your investment will be staggering.

[corwin]

01:02 PM on 05/01/2011

LD
I doubt you know who Alfred Whitehead was,but he's very good on reasoning like yours.Here's a hint.Smarter people tend to read more..Post hoc and propter hoc and those things.
Thanks to the Gates' for continuing to work to help the kids
And ,please feel free to raise money for whatever cause you espouse ,LD

[becut]

06:23 PM on 04/29/2011

Bill Gates has the majic cure for education reform.........................more of his toys, gadgets, and trinkets. Destroying public education to provide toys to children that need to grow up. These schools already purchse books, computers, supplies that kids destroy each year, because the reformers have told them teachers are responsible for their failure, and moving the chairs on the deck (to Charter Schools) will solve their problems. Not! Charters, supported by Bill Gates, will only purchase his junk much faster without any questions asked.

[becut]

06:15 PM on 04/29/2011

This non-college grad is all about Entertainment vs Education. Now his real agenda is showing:
reform education so computers can entertain them and he can provide the tools. Unless they are going to be entertained in college students won't be ready for what they really need, which is critical thinking skills. But of course someone that never finished college has all the knowledge of what it takes to make it in college.

[corwin]

01:04 PM on 05/01/2011

I don't know.He's a pretty smart guy.She was Magna Cum.They work pretty hard at helping.DO you honestly think (in your 'heart of hearts' to quote Mary Mc Carty ) that anay amount of money can influence them? Is there nothing,at long last,that can't be made into a conspiracy here?
Well, back to work

[becut]

05:29 PM on 05/01/2011

Being smart has nothing to do with it, his efforts has to do with power. "Power corrupts and abosolute power corrupts absolutely". (Baron Acton 1834–1902).

Conspiracy means plotting something illegal, his efforts are more in line with a cabal: the politics of control, take over.

[saaba]

10:26 AM on 04/29/2011

Does anyone else deeply concerned when one the Richest men in the world in now pouring money into shaping our children's future on how they should think and learn? ... a future that would have them rely heavily on his products in order to survive and in order to think?

[LearnMe]

01:05 PM on 04/28/2011

I have read reviews of Grand Theft Auto that discuss it as a narrative and artistic experience akin to a multilayered novel (Doctorow, Pynchon) or movie (The Godfather). “The ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive,” Malcolm X wrote in his Autobiography. Can you imagine this being said about a video game? Seth Schiesl, in the recent New York Times article “Motion, Sensitive,” can, as he suggests that the increasingly engaging experience of video games “may [bring] people closer to art.” Maybe today’s popular culture is actually making us smarter. http://learnmeproject.com/2010/12/01/the-rigor/

[daughterusmc]

09:07 AM on 04/28/2011

more games...that's what the youth need.

[I3edlam]

08:36 AM on 04/28/2011

They should be integrating meditation into schools. The reality of excessive stimulation(which I needn't mention examples of) shouldn't be catered to and promoted. It should be offset by the ability to concentrate and focus. Sports help many, many children because it's both physiologically engaging and it provides a context for focusing. Meditation can be both cerebral and physiological using techniques that are slightly different, meaning that it can cater to children's primary learning style as well as fostering capacity in secondary and tertiary learning modes. Morals might help too, as well as teaching children to delay gratification which is one of the top indicators of success later in life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_gratification

[LPH]

09:08 PM on 04/27/2011

This is a waste of money and a terrible idea.

Students who are unmotivated lack internal discipline. Once an adult "allows" this behavior then it is reinforced and the poor behavior will be extended for a long time. Imagine these kids "demanding" educational games at Harvard Law School. If you can't imagine it happening at Harvard then why imagine it in South Central LA?

Personally, this idea is cruel to the kids and will be a good teacher's nightmare. Kids will be screaming "I don't want to listen to your lecture. Where are the games?"

Bluntly, student motivation is not a teacher problem. It's a student problem. The bad behavior must be addressed and not reinforced. Period. Stop blaming the adults. Focus on the actual problem.

[Kimpeach]

07:46 PM on 04/27/2011

Gates is looking at public education to fund his next billion!

[cjaco]

07:34 PM on 04/27/2011

The reason he pushes for privatization is to close buildings and switch to online learning. No social contact, no citizen development, but billions more for himself. Welcome to venture philanthropy. What a hypocrite, especially since he is a college dropout.

[maninal2]

04:00 PM on 04/27/2011

"to help the new national education standards into the classroom."

Looks like the AP writer needs an education

[american-dolt]

03:17 PM on 04/27/2011

I don't Trust Gates.

[teacher39years]

04:38 PM on 04/27/2011

Good thinking.

[Susan Shaffer]

06:11 PM on 04/27/2011

so it is ok for him to spend his money on charitable ideas outside usa but not inside usa?

[american-dolt]

06:59 PM on 04/27/2011

Read what I said, not where your mind takes you.

[Tauna Rogers]

07:29 PM on 04/27/2011

Study deeply what Gates and the other members of the "Billionaires Boys' Club" are doing to public education with their big money. They are literally buying public education policy and very destructive policies at that. Policies which have no backing or support in credible research. The war on public education is the most underreported issue in our nation. For all intents and purposes, Gates is running the U.S. Department of Education. Consider Race to the Top, which is the outright bribery of our severly cash strapped states to implement their favored privatization policies.

So no, it is not ok. It is profoundly undemocratic, profoundly destructive of the civic and democratic purposes of public education, and flat out wrong.

[changing]

01:58 PM on 04/27/2011

How about making sure every poor kid in America has a computer first buddy? I know places where kids still have to work around library hours (ever diminising as local governments cut them)
to complete their work.

[littlechanges]

03:17 PM on 04/27/2011

You'll need to define "poor." Also, many school systems (i.e. home owning taxpayers via their property taxes) DO buy and provide free computers to low income students. Public libraries are generally open 7 days a week, from 9 - 8 p.m. weekdays, closing a few hours earlier on Saturday and Sunday. Inexpensive new computers aren't that much. One can also pick up a good, used computer - especially any name PC vs. pricier MacBook - on eBay for a song. The cost for a home computer is in the monthly internet connection, though big screen cable tv and umpteen cell phones for every family member sure seem to be an essential component of every low income home where we live.

[changing]

04:46 PM on 04/27/2011

We have hungry kids, homeless kids, and kids that need clothes. We see the real world in the public schools and it is very sad. As for libraries even many high SES communities are cuting back on library hours. Besides it is often for kids to get to any kinds of services; most don't drive.