Behind Grass-Roots School Advocacy, Bill Gates

A handful of outspoken teachers helped persuade state lawmakers this spring to eliminate seniority-based layoff policies. They testified before the legislature, wrote briefing papers and published an op-ed article in The Indianapolis Star.

Bill Gates’s foundation spent $373 million on education efforts in 2009, the latest year for which its tax filings are available.

They described themselves simply as local teachers who favored school reform — one sympathetic state representative, Mary Ann Sullivan, said, "They seemed like genuine, real people versus the teachers’ union lobbyists." They were, but they were also recruits in a national organization, Teach Plus, financed significantly by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

By SAM DILLON

Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/education/22gates.html?_r=1&hp