Washington Post | March 11, 2014
By Valerie Strauss
The American Federation of Teachers, which has won millions of dollars in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will no longer accept foundation money for its Innovation Fund. Union members have expressed concern about the poor implementation in many states of the Common Core State Standards, one of the initiatives in which the fund invests.
AFT President Randi Weingarten said at the recent SXSWedu conference in Austin that she would ask her executive council to approve a five-cent raise in dues to make up for the money that the nation’s second largest teachers union would have received from the Gates foundation for its Innovation Fund.