Not content with just making school-related grants, Bill Gates and his foundation are raising their profile in government education-policy circles, according to an Associated Press analysis.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in Seattle, is offering $250,000 apiece to help states apply for grants from President Obama’s $5-billion Race to the Top education effort. Two top advisers to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Margot Rogers and James Shelton, are veterans of the foundation’s education division, and the administration has relaxed ethics rules to allow them to talk more freely to their former colleagues.

Teachers’ unions and some education groups have criticized the private foundation’s close ties to the White House, with which it shares some controversial goals, such as basing teacher pay on test results and creating more independent charter schools. Mr. Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, said his philanthropy is not a partner of Race to the Top and that “there’s no group-think” in his and the administration’s education efforts.