Criminal Defense

EDITOR'S NOTE - An occasional look at how behind-the-scenes access is acclimatized in Washington.

%byline(By LIBBY QUAID and DONNA BLANKINSHIP%)

%bytitle(Associated Press Writers%)

%endtag(%)

WASHINGTON (AP) - The real secretary of education, the joke goes, is Bill Gates.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been the better player by far in the academy ameliorate movement, spending around $200 actor a year on grants to elementary and secondary education.

Now the foundation is demography unprecedented steps to access apprenticeship policy, spending millions to access how the federal government distributes $5 billion in grants to overhaul public schools.

The federal dollars are unprecedented, too.

President Barack Obama persuaded Congress to accord him the money as allotment of the economic stimulus so he could try new account to fix an apprenticeship arrangement that best accede is failing. The foundation is offering $250,000 apiece to advice states apply, so continued as they accede with the foundation's approach.

Obama and the Gates Foundation share some goals that not anybody embraces: paying agents based on apprentice test scores, amid other measures of achievement; allotment schools that operate independently of local academy boards; and a set of accepted academic standards adopted by every state.

Some altercate that a clandestine foundation like Gates shouldn't accomplice with the government.

"When you aggregation up with the government, you accommodation your adeptness to be critical of the government, and sometimes you accommodation your adeptness to do controversial and maybe unpopular things with your money," said Chester ! E. Finn Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an apprenticeship anticipate tank. The institute, is amid the abounding that have received money from the Gates Foundation.

Another affair is that as a clandestine foundation, Gates doesn't have to disclose the capacity of its spending like the government does.

The big teachers' unions altercation some of the goals shared by Obama and the foundation. They say apprentice achievement is much added than a score on a connected test and that it's a mistake to rely so heavily on allotment schools.

"Despite growing affirmation to the contrary, it appears the administering has decided that allotment schools are the abandoned answer to what ails America's public schools," the National Education Association, the largest teachers' union, said in comments about the admission competition submitted to the Education Department.

The NEA added: "We should not abide the ailing focus on connected tests as the primary affirmation of apprentice success."

The American Federation of Teachers submitted agnate comments. Together the unions have 4.6 actor members.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan welcomes the foundation's involvement.

"The added all of us are in the game of reform, the added all of us are blame for dramatic improvement, the better," Duncan said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Duncan's close amphitheater includes two above Gates employees. His chief of staff is Margot Rogers, who was special assistant to Gates' apprenticeship director. James Shelton, assistant deputy secretary, was a affairs administrator for Gates' apprenticeship division.

Rogers said she abutting the administering because she was inspired by its goals for allowance kids graduate from high academy and accomplishment college.

The ad! minister ing has waived ethics rules to acquiesce Rogers and Shelton to accord added freely with the foundation, but Rogers said she talks infrequently with her above colleagues.

Bill Gates said his foundation is not the government's accomplice in the new admission program, which the government has called the "Race to the Top."

"It's no secret the U.S. apprenticeship arrangement is failing," Gates said. "We're doing all kinds of abstracts that are different. The Race To The Top is activity to do abounding altered ones. There's no group-think."

Gates stepped away aftermost year from his daily role at Microsoft, the software company he co-founded, to focus on the assignment of his foundation.

Vicki Phillips, the Gates Foundation's administrator of education, said it originally offered advice to states and academy districts that it was alive with and that are in agreement with abounding of the foundation's goals. She said the foundation shares Obama's priorities and sees itself as allotment of a beyond ameliorate effort.

The foundation's rising profile comes as the recession has gutted state and local budgets, which absorb added money on apprenticeship - roughly 35 percent - than anything else. Many states and districts can't keep all their agents on the payroll, let abandoned absorb money on a high-stakes appliance for federal money that includes some 44 pages of rules.

In Minnesota, added than a dozen apprenticeship department staffers are alive with consultants from the McKinsey & Co. all-around consulting close to adapt the state's application, using about $250,000 in Gates Foundation money, spokesman Bill Walsh said.

When the foundation offered to advice states administer for the admission money, it initially offered the $250,000 to abandoned 15 states.

Officials in other states complained when they lea! rned of the plan. The governors and chief academy officers groups apprenticed the foundation to expand its offer, and it has now agreed to advice any state that meets eight criteria, including a charge to the accepted standards accomplishment and the adeptness to link apprentice abstracts to teachers.

The foundation additionally is allowance some districts that are eligible for a share of the money if they are alive in partnership with nonprofits such as the Gates Foundation.

Not all the states are willing to altercate the advice from Gates or their applications for the federal grants. In added than half a dozen states, apprenticeship admiral did not acknowledgment buzz calls gluttonous interviews about the applications.

Those who receive money from the Gates Foundation often are reluctant to talk about their assignment for abhorrence of abashing their benefactor.

---

Blankinship appear from Seattle. AP Education Writer Justin Pope contributed to this address from Charlotte, N.C.

---

On the Net:

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: http://tinyurl.com/cmoqox

Race to the Top: http://tinyurl.com/nz6a5t

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn added about our Privacy Policy.