The Gates Foundation came out with a report this morning admitting that their heavy-handed, and expensive, focus on teacher evaluation was a failure.

The report’s authors suggest that maybe other factors were more important for students which, of course, just about any teacher could have told Gates before the money was spent (see The Best Places To Learn What Impact A Teacher (& Outside Factors) Have On Student Achievement).

I guess the Foundation knew this report was coming earlier this year when they said they were going to end their funding of teacher evaluation efforts (see Gates Say They’ll Focus More On Poverty Alleviation – That’s Better For Everybody!).

But it doesn’t give me much confidence in their Big New Thing (see Uh Oh – Bill Gates Has A New Big Ed Idea).

You can learn more about the evaluation report at:

‘An Expensive Experiment’: Gates Teacher-Effectiveness Program Shows No Gains for Students is from Ed Week.

The Gates Foundation bet big on teacher evaluation. The report it commissioned explains how those efforts fell short. is from Chalkbeat.

This Twitter “thread” is interesting:

I’m adding this info to The Best Resources For Learning About The Role Of Private Foundations In Education Policy.