20-fold increase in standardized testing coming with Gates Foundation's "Common Core":

[Igel]

5. Presumably because he can figure out what works and what doesn't.

Regardless of what theory says.

However, he's a naif. I think he's recently come to realize this. You can do all kinds of nifty research and get trash data if you don't know what you're doing or if you're on a mission. You make bad assumptions, you run multiple trials and select just those that fit your theory, you don't have good controls and you wind up with glowing data. "Glowing data" sounds great, but in hindsight it often turns out to be radioactive.

So Gates helped the entire "push for data-driven results", without really caring about the quality of the data.

Most education reform for the last 30 years has been a waste of money. We continue to proudly push money into the python and assume that everything that comes out the other end are eggs that'll prove fertile.