Alum among leaders of Gates Foundation’s K-12 education efforts

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is one of the world’s largest foundations, with an endowment of more than $36 billion to support domestic education initiatives and international health and poverty issues.

Within the Gates Foundation’s domestic efforts, Baylor alumna Stacey Childress, BA ’87, serves as deputy director of education. Childress leads the Next Generation Learning team, which invests in schools and technologies that support personalized learning for middle and high school students in the United States. As Forbes put it when they included her on their “Impact 15” list of education innovators last year, “Childress is the woman who steers where Bill Gates’ and Warren Buffett’s money is spent, at least when it comes to K-12 education in the U.S.”

[Read Childress’ blog and follow her on Twitter]

After earning her degree in English from Baylor, Childress attended Harvard Business School, and upon graduation became the first woman in school history to deliver the class day graduation address. She then became a lecturer at Harvard for the next decade, during which time, she also wrote three books on education.

Among the Gates Foundation’s successes has been the establishment of the Gates Millenium Scholars program, which provides good-through-graduation scholarships to 1,000 students each year. At least four incoming Baylor students are among this year’s recipients: Homero Cisneros and Madie Simms of Laredo; Ceron Ford of Tyler; and Cadie Hanes of Denton.

Sic ’em, Stacey and the Gates Foundation!