by Rob Shimshock Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates’ $215 million investment in education was a colossal failure, according to a report by the RAND Corporation and the American Institutes for Research. But the foundation emphasized Friday some of the initiatives “important outcomes.” The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated the funds to three public school districts in Memphis, Tennessee; Pittsburgh and Hillsborough County, Florida, reported The Washington Post. The school districts, as well as four charter management groups, provided more money, boosting the endowment to $575 million. The project aimed to implement teacher evaluation systems based on students’ test scores, as well as the input of “peer evaluators.” It was not very effective, according to the 587-page study. “Overall, the initiative did not achieve its stated goals for students, particularly LIM [low-income minority] students,” the study said. “We did not find improvement in the effectiveness of newly hired teachers relative to experienced teachers; we found very few instances of improvement in the effectiveness of the teaching force overall; we found no evidence that LIM students had greater access than non-LIM students to effective teaching; and we found no increase in the retention of effective teachers, although we did find declines in the…
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