<p>I think the Gates Foundation has pretty much been a proponent of “Do something! Anything!” in the education sphere, and that has included significant privatization as one of the options. See [Investment</a> to Accelerate Creation of Strong Charter Schools - Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation](<a href=“http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Media-Center/Press-Releases/2003/06/Investing-in-HighQuality-Charter-Schools]Investment”>Investment to Accelerate Creation of Strong Charter Schools | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) </p>
<p>That was a decade ago. They seem to have backed off that some – as has most of the rest of the world – as the data have been mounting that the average charter school is no better than (and sometimes worse than) the bad district public school it replaces. Their current focus seems to be on tools that any school can use, public, private, mixed.</p>
<p>texaspg – If you don’t think Bloomberg and Rahm Emanuel have nationwide impact in the education sphere . . . then you need to drink MORE of the the right-wing Kool-Aid.</p>
<p>The federal government is really something of a marginal player in education, except for the unfunded mandates of NCLB (or whatever they call it now), special ed, and nondiscrimination law. In terms of actual influence, Bloomberg (and Joel Klein, his handpicked superintendant for most of his mayoralty) have had enormous impact almost everywhere.</p>
<p>But as for Arne Duncan – part of the Education Department’s Race To The Top strategy was requiring states to eliminate barriers to opening new charter schools and expanding the enrollments of existing ones.</p>