Whenever he gets depressed about education, Gates says he visits one of the more than 60 KIPP schools nationwide, where the energy is palpable and the results irrefutable. He's also proud of his foundation's support for other innovative schools like the Green Dot schools in Los Angeles, Aspire Public Schools and Hidalgo Early College in California and the Noble Street Network in Chicago. At YES College Prep in Houston, 95 percent of the students are African-American or Hispanic and 80 percent are poor. But since 2000, every student has gone on to a four-year college. One hundred percent. Conventional schools with comparable demographics face dropout rates of more than 50 percent and send only a handful to four-year colleges.

So the challenge is not to find what works for at-risk kids—we know that by now—but how to replicate it. Gates's answer is to keep funding his reform ideas in five or six states to set an example of successful "effectiveness-compensation systems." He says Washington's job is to spread best practices and help implement accountability standards. Gates is right that there's "little appetite" politically for an increased federal role in education, which is mostly a state and local matter. But maybe he can expand that appetite by helping persuade Congress to fund proven models.

Gates does seem to be weighing in on Obama's pick for secretary of education. He favors choosing from today's exciting collection of hard-charging, china-breaking school superintendents. One of those he likes a lot is Joel Klein of New York City, which is ironic considering that, as a Justice Department lawyer in the 1990s, Klein almost succeeded in breaking up Microsoft.

Klein probably won't get the job. He has strained relations with Randi Weingarten, the new head of the American Federation of Teachers, and Obama has made it clear he doesn't want to pick a fight with the unions. But Obama also knows that if he chooses a union-backed candidate such as Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford professor active in the transition, he'll have a revolt on his hands from the swelling ranks of reformers. That's why it's more likely he'll settle on a superintendent like Arne Duncan of Chicago, Michael Bennet of Denver or Paul Vallas of New Orleans, any of whom would suit Gates and other reform-minded philanthropists just fine. (I have my money on Bennet, whose new compensation system is popular with Denver teachers, if not the union.)

Rep. George Miller, the leading voice on education in Congress, told me recently that "the debate is between incrementalists and disrupters, and I'm with the disrupters." So is Bill Gates. The father of disruptive software is ready for another revolution.

© 2008