The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is looking to recover grant money from education technology company ConnectEDU, which sought bankruptcy protection in April, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In July 2013, the foundation awarded a nearly $500,000 grant to ConnectEDU to develop an interactive program to help students master literacy under the Common Core standards that many states use to guide how public school students are taught. The money came with some conditions, including a promise to only use the funds for the development of the new technology as well as a timeline requiring benchmarks to be met along the way. The grant, paid out in two installments, was set to expire this December. The project, however, got derailed earlier this year when ConnectEDU filed for chapter 11 protection, citing an estimated $33.7 million in liabilities and $17.7 million in assets. Since then, the Gates Foundation has tried to ensure that its grant money is kept in a separate account and that any unused portion will be returned to the organization, according to a court filing made this week.
