Taking a significant step toward supporting district-level changes, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation last week announced a $21 million grant to help the Chicago school system overhaul teaching and learning in high school classrooms. The effort, which is to start in the fall with 14 schools is slated to reach about half of Chicago's high schools when fully phased in by the 2008-09 academic hear. It is designed to bring greater standardization and quality to the high school curriculum in participating schools, which will choose from two or three curricular options, depending on the subject. The four-year grant comes as the Gates Foundation, disappointed by some of its early efforts at creating smaller, academically rigorous high schools and "learning communities"--at a cost of some $1 billion in grant money since 2000-has broadened its emphasis to related district-level changes. That expansion is aimed especially at improving the quality of curriculum and instruction.