Earlier this week, I told you about a new Gates/Broad Foundation initiative to bring education to the forefront during the upcoming elections. Well, it turns out that it’s true -- and that it was first reported in a squib in US News:
Job No. 1: Fixing Public Schools
Sen. John Kerry isn’t the only rich guy campaigning against the woes of education. But Microsoft’s Bill Gates and KB Home’s Eli Broad, along with their combined foundations, are doing it with more diplomacy and fewer insults. We hear that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation have teamed to make public education the “it” topic in the 2008 race. And the big-time philanthropists are doing it in campaign style, with ads in Iowa and New Hampshire that begin right after Election Day. Their pollster, Frank Luntz, tells us that the nation is hungry for a solution to poor schools and would welcome a push to force all 2008 candidates to present a fix-it plan.
Based on how long it took to get a response out of them, the Gates folks don’t seem like they’re ready to say much more than that. Maybe they’re still annoyed at me for breaking the news that Tom Vander Ark was leaving.