Interacting with the Gates Foundation

[David Grosskopf]

Kathleen Vasquez had referred to a grant in many of the meetings
our
department head had attended; in a textbook adoption meeting, Maggie
Everett reported that this grant was said to be indirectly
responsible
for the accelerated implementation deadlines of textbook selection
and
acquisition. When I found out this was a Gates grant and that its
effects seemed so directly opposed to work I had personally done
under
the Gates Foundation’s transformation work, I wanted to know more
about it. On June 8th, I sent a letter to the senior education
program
officer.
The next day, two things happened: 1) The internal auditor of
the
School Board called to say my letter had instigated a whistle blower
policy. 2) Karen Grace and I met with the education program officer.
Summary notes from those meetings are below.

1) Blowing the whistle by rattling the purse:

June 10—conference call with Karen Grace and Kariuki Nderu, Internal
Auditor reporting to the School Board (phone: 20243).
He says the e-mail to Gates indicates a whistle blower
situation that needs to be resolved within the whistle-blower policy,
which states that the element of surprise must be minimized or
eliminated for all parties, the district hear and must be accountable
to the concerns, and that there is no retaliation towards the
whistle-
blower.
He said that Brent Jones, the Executive Director of Human
Resources
is expected to handle this, rather than the EEO (Equal Employment
Office), who used to investigate; it is now instead an internal audit
because the Superintendent is overseeing the alignment and she
reports
to the Board. Brent Jones was made aware of the issue when Kathleen
Vasquez brought him the e-mail and asked what do we do.
He listened to concerns, and enumerated them back as follows:
the
details of the grant need to be made plain, minutes from alignment
meetings need to be available, pertinent information needs to be
available, the last Gates grant is being dismantled by the new Gates
grant, and there needs to be more cooperation.
Mr. Nderu hoped we would hold off our meeting with Gates
until
someone on the Board talked to the superintendent. We said we were
going to have the meeting. He asked if someone could come, and we
said
yes, but it’s in 40 minutes.
Mr. Nderu said the following steps would occur: He would get
the
grant contract for us; he would sit with someone (on the Board?) and
iron this out, take notes; he would report back to me, to Karen, the
CFO of the School Board; and he would try to resolve open concerns.

Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 11:54 AM
To: Grosskopf, David
Cc: Tolley, Michael F
Subject: RE: Our phone call

Dear David,

I have reviewed these notes with Michael Tolley and it is my
understanding that you may have already met on June 16. I am
therefore closing out the issue and referring the issue to Michael
Tolley as it is not currently within the scope of the Internal Audit
work.

Let me know if you have further concerns, and thank you for working
with us on this issue.

Kariuki Nderu, CPA

2) Opening the Gates:

• We met with the Gates Foundation Senior Education Program
Director,
the same person who used to work with Roosevelt as a facilitator
under
the Transformation Grant as a consultant for Gates. It was a very
friendly meeting, and after two hours, partly an exchange of
information, partly a discussion of schooling, and partly a reunion
of
people who’d worked closely together in years past.
• She provided history about the evolution of the development of
the
grant.
• The new Gates Foundation work has at its center the idea that
teacher effectiveness is the real key to improving schooling.
• The grant is largely about funding research that answers the
question, How does one assess teacher effectiveness?
• The grant is also about funding alignment efforts, meaning,
efforts
that will develop consistent, predictable, centrally supported
curricula for students and allow for the artistry of delivery on the
part of the teacher.
• These two efforts support teacher accountability, because
teachers
can’t be held accountable if they’re teaching different things.