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philanthropists doled out $684 million in private grants from 2000-08 to organizations involved in reforming the teaching profession.

biggest chunk of the money — 38 percent — went to teacher recruitment

22 percent was spent on professional development

Since 2000, the foundation has poured some $5 billion into education grants and scholarships.

One of the foundation's main initial interests was schools with fewer students.

designed to—and did—promote less acting up in the classroom, better attendance and closer interaction with adults.

Schools practicing this new culture of learning don’t t have to be invented. As pointed out by my colleague, Daniel Petter-Lipstein, the new culture of learning takes place in thousands of Montessori classrooms every day, as noted in his marvelous article, “Superwoman Was Already Here“ “The Montessori method cares far more about the inquiry process and less about the results of those inquiries, believing that children will eventually master–with the guidance of their teachers and the engaged use of the hands-on Montessori materials which control for error–the expected answers and results that are the focus of most traditional classroom activity.” Ironically, Bill Gates himself is a product of the Montessori system, so he should be intimately familiar with it.

Those donors include Bill Gates ($892,000), who is leading the charge to evaluate teachers, principals and schools using students’ test scores

National Association of Charter School Administrators ($50,000)

Robbins Foundation ($500,000), which finance charter expansion

failing schools can already be shut down by school districts under the No Child Left Behind law

parent trigger simply takes the option provided to the school board and hands the power to the parents

According to Cathy N. Davidson, co-director of the annual MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competitions, fully 65 percent of today’s grade-school kids may end up doing work that hasn’t been invented yet.

better question is whether the form of learning and knowledge-making we are instilling in our children is useful to their future.”

What she recommends, in fact, looks much more like a classical education than it does the industrial-era holdover system that still informs our unrenovated classrooms.