Will Bill Gates come courting me?

Parent activist Pam Grundy shared this link to a Washington Post education blog about the Gates Foundation's latest quest to "win over the public and the media to its market-driven approach to school reform."

According to Valerie Strauss's blog, a grant proposal outlines plans to build “strong ties to local journalists, opinion elites, and local/state policymakers and their staffs” and ensure "frequent placement ... in local media coverage" of stories about teacher effectiveness, performance pay and value-added ratings.

Well! I had a front-page article about Charlotte-Mecklenburg's push toward performance pay in last Sunday's paper, with another coming out this Sunday looking at value-added ratings. I'm tempted to post an address where the Gates folks can mail a big ol' check.

Seriously, this is just another glimpse of the tangled world of education reform. You've got a billionaire philanthropist not only paying to promote his vision for better schools, but sponsoring a group to drum up "grassroots" support. Meanwhile, a local mom who's moving onto the national stage is keeping an eye on such developments and alerting the local media about the plan to woo us.

I may get confused, but I will never get bored on this beat!