Gates Addresses Difficulties Of Education Reform.

The Washington Post (10/8, Layton) reports that Microsoft founder Bill Gates, speaking at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s headquarters in Seattle this week, said that “trying to improve education is harder than work on global health,” quoting him saying, “When we come up with a new malaria vaccine, nobody votes to undo our malaria vaccine.” However, he said that “politics makes changes to K-12 education much less predictable.” Gates and his wife Melinda “pledged to continue pumping resources into the Common Core State Standards in K-12 math and reading as well as efforts to improve teacher quality and personalize instruction.”         Liana Heitin writes at the Education Week (10/8) “Curriculum Matters” blog that Gates “recommitted the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to its current work in supporting the use of high academic standards and helping teachers improve through evaluation systems that provide useful feedback.”         Bill, Melinda Gates Discuss Politics Of Common Core. PBS NewsHour (10/8) aired an interview with Bill and Melinda Gates on the education policy aspects of the 2016 presidential campaign, especially as concerns the Common Core Standards. Bill Gates lamented that the “facts about Common Core are often obscured,” and touted the standards for improving college readiness. The conversation addressed how the standards originated with governors and state schools chiefs, but were pulled into the debate over Federal control over education. Other topics include charter schools and the debate over testing.