The Gates Foundation has a new person to run their education programme. The link to the Foundation blurb is here. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/UnitedStates/Education/Announcements/Announce-070425.htm There are currently no Gates Keepers who are expert in education. Would you like to be one? Write us at gates dot keepers dot blog at gmail dot com.

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Gates Foundation hires away Phillips
Portland schools - The superintendent's surprise departure ends a three-year tenure of hard choices, change and conflicts
Thursday, April 26, 2007
SCOTT LEARN and PAIGE PARKER
The Oregonian

Portland Schools Superintendent Vicki Phillips has accepted a job doling out $3.4 billion in school reform grants for the Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the most influential education jobs in the nation.

Phillips, 49, will leave Oregon's largest district June 30, having closed eight schools in her three-year tenure, converted dozens of others to K-8s, expanded full-day kindergarten and helped pass a local-option tax to put the district on stable financial ground.

She'll also leave some significant and controversial work still in process, including implementing a common curriculum, improving the district's poorest and smallest high schools and completing the K-8 conversions.

Phillips announced her surprise departure at a news conference called Wednesday afternoon after The Oregonian learned of her move. She broke into tears briefly as she talked about her affection for Portland. At Gates, she said, she plans to "support the place that I've come to love so dearly."

Criticism of Phillips' hard-charging style and fast-paced decision-making had increased in recent months, even as supporters lauded her willingness to make tough calls. But she said after the news conference that the darts did not factor into her decision to leave.

"I have a stiffer spine than that," Phillips said. "I care deeply about this work. This was simply a lifetime opportunity." She said she had planned to stay in Portland at least two or three more years until the Gates Foundation called her.

School board members also said there was no pressure on Phillips to leave. "Oh, God, no," board co-chairwoman Bobbie Regan said. Phillips told Regan and board co-chairman Dan Ryan on Sunday night that she had accepted the job.

Her departure is "sad, sad news for us," Portland Commissioner Sam Adams said. Phillips inherited a 10-year backlog of deferred decisions, he said.

"It's been a meat grinder of a job, and she jumped in and made some very tough calls," Adams said. "She's leaving the district in better shape than she found it."

Some fault decision

Others criticized Phillips' move. Liz Kaufman, a political consultant who led the 2004 superintendent search, said Phillips promised to stay until the student-achievement problems she inherited were solved. Test scores are up across the district, as they are statewide, but Kaufman said the progress isn't enough.

"In my opinion, she's leaving way before the job was done, possibly because she believed she couldn't make more progress," Kaufman said. "So she's shortchanging the kids. She might have a great job for herself, but it's not so great for us."

Gates, which has issued millions in grants to Portland Public Schools, received an infusion of $31 billion from investor Warren Buffett last year. Ryan said Phillips' move to Gates' Seattle office should be cause for celebration: "Do you know what it's like to have someone at the Gates Foundation who's your best friend?" he said.

Phillips' fans say she's leaving Portland Public poised to become the nation's premiere urban district, with stable finances, repaired relationships with the business community and legislators, and a staff deeply dedicated to eliminating the achievement gap among white, African American and Latino students.

But Phillips' moves generated plenty of critics, who said she rushed decisions and kept parents at arm's length.

Unfinished business

Even more neutral school activists worry about the unfinished business. High school student achievement remains stubbornly low. The district's school choice system is in need of repair. And district leaders and teachers are haggling over what's taught in classrooms.

Phillips was hired in 2004 after the district's second national search in two years. The first ended with all the candidates bowing out. The district's last nationally recruited superintendent, Ben Canada, left under a cloud and with a $260,000 severance payment that many taxpayers remember today.

"I'm saddened," said Scott Bailey, president of Community and Parents for Public Schools, a Portland advocacy group. "Clearly, she wasn't perfect, but she really brought a focus on kids and on curriculum. It's just frustrating to have some momentum, some direction, and then to have to kind of put everything on hold and go through an expletive-deleted hiring process."

Martin Gonzalez, director of the Portland Schools Alliance, said he was shocked by the news. Phillips has been a strong leader, he said, but has had a mixed record on reforming Jefferson High and on closing the achievement gap between whites and minorities.

"If we were looking at Jefferson High School as a key indicator of the success of Vicki Phillips, it's not there," he said. "Jeff is not more stable, there's not buy-in from the community that we're going in the right direction, and the scores are not there."

Foundation takes note

Phillips came from Pennsylvania, where she served as the state's secretary of education and before that as superintendent of the 11,500-student Lancaster school district.

Gates' leaders have long made it clear they consider Phillips a leading light in the field. The foundation, which rejected a grant request from Portland Public Schools before her tenure, gave the district a $9 million grant in 2005.

Phillips earns $203,000 a year in Portland. Her predecessor at Gates made about $340,000 in 2005.

As promised, Phillips has patched relationships with business and the Legislature since her arrival -- in part by involving business leaders in cost control and central-office restructuring. And Portland's chamber of commerce crowd had adopted her as one of its own: a forceful leader who dissected systematic problems, talked about them openly, then set about fixing them.

To offset Portland's school funding woes, business leaders agreed to keep paying higher business taxes and helped finance a 2006 campaign that got a five-year property tax increase passed. Sandra McDonough, president of the Portland Business Alliance, said the superintendent's credibility made the job simple. "It was some of the easiest money I've ever seen raised," she said.

McDonough and others said it should be easier to find a new superintendent this time. Phillips has improved top management, she said, the school board is stronger and funding is more stable. The board pledged to seek public input before starting its search.

Regan, the board co-chairwoman, said she badly wanted Phillips to stay. The superintendent is "singularly focused on doing what's right for kids," she said.

But the district has changed much in three years, Regan said, and may benefit from a different style of leadership: "It's a great opportunity to figure out what kind of leader we need now."

Staff writers Anna Griffin, Betsy Hammond and Ryan Frank of The Oregonian contributed to this report. Scott Learn: 503-294-7657; scottlearn@news.oregonian.com Paige Parker: 503-221-8305; paigeparker@news.oregonian.com

(c)2007 The Oregonian