Bill Gates, the nation's superintendent of schools

How will the Gates Foundation do? Thus far, it has invested $1 billion to persuade school districts to break up large high schools into small schools of 500 or fewer students. About 1,500 small high schools have been created with the foundation's largesse. Last year, Bill Gates told the National Governors Assn. that "America's high schools are obsolete." Our high schools, he said, "cannot teach our kids what they need to know today," especially the advanced skills in math, science and technology required in the modern workplace.

It is certainly true that many American high schools are too large, especially in urban areas, where some enroll more than 2,000 adolescents and many students get lost in the crowd.

However, the Gates Foundation's plan to promote small high schools has also run into unexpected obstacles.

The foundation aims to promote higher standards and closer relationships between students and teachers, and indeed, according to the foundation's own evaluations, students in the new mini-schools have better relationships with teachers, do somewhat better in English and have better graduation rates than those in large schools.

However, the same evaluations also show that students in the small schools are learning significantly less math than their peers in the big schools.

Some districts that took Gates' money to downsize their schools are now backtracking. The Denver school district, a pioneer recipient of Gates funding, got $1 million to convert its 1,100-student Manual High School into three mini-schools in 2001. As a consequence, electives were cut back, as were advanced placement courses, foreign language courses, choir, debate and athletic teams. As college-bound students, athletes and other disgruntled pupils transferred out, enrollments at the Manual mini-schools plunged by nearly 50%, along with student achievement and the graduation rate. Denver closed the small schools this year, and Manual High School is being reconsolidated.

In light of its experiences, the Gates Foundation seems chastened and apparently has recognized that curriculum (what students are taught) and instruction (the quality of teachers) may be no less important than school size. Perhaps, with its deep expertise in technology, the foundation will think about investing in the development of innovative, interactive software to transform the teaching of mathematics and science in the nation's classrooms, from kindergarten through grade 12. And, by establishing an endowment fund, the foundation could safeguard the future of urban Catholic schools, which have been a gateway to the middle class for so many poor and working-class children.

With the ability to hand out more than $1 billion or more every year to U.S. educators without any external review, the Gates Foundation looms larger in the eyes of school leaders than even the U.S. Department of Education, which, by comparison, has only about $20 million in truly discretionary funds. The department may have sticks, but the foundation has almost all the carrots.

In light of the size of the foundation's endowment, Bill Gates is now the nation's superintendent of schools. He can support whatever he wants, based on any theory or philosophy that appeals to him. We must all watch for signs and portents to decipher what lies in store for American education.