Bill gates education money

What do you get when you add up more than a billion dollars, plus a foundational but often overshadowed K subject, and multiply it by the influence of the biggest player in K education philanthropy?

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is hoping the answer will equal: Exponential change for math instruction.

The foundation will target the subject for as long as a decade, beginning with a $ billion four-year investment.

The goals: More and better trained math teachers, a new trove of engaging and effective teaching materials, and a clearer sense of how to teach a subject that many students now find dry and intimidating.

“Math helps students make sense of the world,” Bob Hughes, the foundation’s director of K education told reporters in an Oct.

17 call. “It gives them critical thinking and problem-solving skills they can use later as adults.”

Math educators are excited by the prospect of the investment. But the