Green Dot provided the initial funding for Parent Revolution, though as of 2010 it no longer received funds from the group. It now receives the largest share of its funds from the Wasserman, Walton and Gates foundations.

14 percent on teacher preparation

less than 10 percent for everything else

University of Georgia researchers who did the analysis

Teach for America

$213,444,431, or 31 percent of the total

doesn’t include at least $150 million it received from foundations and the U.S. government in the past year, which is outside the scope of the report

2. Academy for Educational Development, $59,063,000 3. Northwest Educational Service District 189, $45,012,830 4. Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, $21,561,106 5. The New Teacher Project, $17,955,680 6. University of California at Santa Cruz, New Teacher Center, $16,642,730 7. Teacher Advancement Program, $15,480,625 8. National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, $12,401,350 9. Philadelphia Foundation, $10,000,000 10. Teachers Network, $9,441,402

1. Carnegie Corp. of New York, $81,969,575 2. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, $78,167,363 3. Annenberg Foundation, $36,725,000 4. Michael and Susan Dell Foundation, $25,401,978 5. Broad Foundation, $24,554,869 6. Joyce Foundation, $23,773,256 7. Lilly Endowment, Inc. $21,224,576 8. Milken Family Foundation, $20,700,625 9. Ford Foundation, $17,581,716 10. Stuart Foundation, $14,459,666

What is different today, the report notes, is the “convergence between the philanthropic sector and federal policymakers,” which is a polite way of saying that Duncan’s Education Department has the same agenda as many of the philanthropists (and Duncan has in fact hired key aides from the philanthropic community), which is a polite way of saying that, in the opinion of many, Duncan’s department is in the thrall of billionaires who are using their wealth to set and direct the country’s education reform agenda.

federal government will provide New York State with $113 million in grants over five years to increase “public school choice options,”

money will provide start-up financing for new charter schools, particularly those for high-needs students; support the replication and expansion of charter schools that are already successful; and help to turn around the state’s worst public schools

Regents Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch

we have to abandon it

since 2002, the federal Department of Education has provided $400 million every year to states for implementing NCLB assessments—which amounts to $4 billion over 10 years. But that’s just the federal portion for NCLB required tests. The actual cost is much higher.

These billions of dollars have also led to other costs that cannot be measured. They have been used to direct resources in schools to preparing for tests and managing reporting, for example. This means schools have lost opportunities to consider other forms of activities that may be more beneficial to their students.

most serious and well-documented costs are the loss of opportunities for students to have access to a broad range of educational experiences as well as the opportunity to develop the ability and skills that truly matter in the 21st century such creativity and global competence.

among poor children there are also more frequent changes in family income, housing, caretakers, food security, and so forth. That is, the instability in the scores of middle-class children is expected to be even greater among lower-class children.

federal government tried to assess young children once before, when it mandated a test to assess the effects of Head Start. The government spent millions of dollars to develop the National Reporting System (NRS) to assess 4-year-olds in Head Start programs. But the NRS was a complete failure.

overall impact of the intervention, particularly the measure we care most about—whether you go to college—it didn't move the needle much

Instead of trying to buy systemic reform with school-level investments, a new goal is to leverage private money in a way that redirects how public education dollars are spent.

he'll have a tough sell with teachers unions, which give lip service to more-stringent teacher evaluations but prefer existing pay and promotion schemes based on seniority—even though they often end up matching the least experienced teachers with the most challenging students.

Mr. Gates's foundation strongly supports a uniform core curriculum for schools

sees common standards as a money-saver at a time when many states are facing budget shortfalls. "In terms of mathematics textbooks, why can't you have the scale of a national market?

"Behind this core curriculum are some very deep insights. American textbooks were twice as thick as Asian textbooks. In American math classes, we teach a lot of concepts poorly over many years. In the Asian systems they teach you very few concepts very well over a few years." Nor does he see the need for competition among state standards.

Mr. Gates is particularly fond of the KIPP charter network and its focus on serving inner-city neighborhoods

Mr. Gates is less enamored of school vouchers.

honestly, if we thought there would be broad acceptance in some locales and long-term commitment to do them, they have some very positive characteristics."

"We haven't chosen to get behind [vouchers] in a big way, as we have with personnel systems or charters, because the negativity about them is very, very high."

Gates Foundation's approach to education reform—more evolution, less disruption