SEATTLE – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation says it will be investing an additional $16.8 million in Washington schools, this time to support better teaching.

Gates Foundation education grants in Washington state have totaled more than $250 million over the past five years, much of it for college scholarships for low-income students and for grants to remake large high schools into clusters of smaller academies.

While those programs will continue at various Washington schools and in six other states, this new round of grants will focus more on “improving the quality of instruction and ultimately that’s what it’s all about,” said Tom Vander Ark, executive director for education at the Gates Foundation.

Most of the new grants – $11.8 million – will pay for programs to help the more than 15,000 high school students in Highline, Bellingham, Kennewick, Nooksack Valley and Mabton school districts. The rest goes to three statewide organizations: the Partnership for Learning, the Washington Education Foundation and the Office of Public Instruction for its School Improvement Program.

Some of the districts receiving new grants have been involved in previous Gates Foundation programs, specifically the Achiever Program to restructure large high schools. Vander Ark said those districts are raising the bar and taking educational reform to the next level.