July 25, 2002 | Read Time: 2 minutes
A decision by three Pittsburgh foundations to suspend grant making to the city’s embattled public-school district has drawn mixed reactions from foundation officials and education advocates.
The Grable Foundation, Heinz Endowments, and Pittsburgh Foundation, which together have given the school district nearly $12-million over the last five years, said this month that they would indefinitely suspend grant making to the district, withdrawing pledges totaling more than $3-million and halting future considerations until improvements to the system are made.
The foundations said that discord among school officials has led to what they describe as a “sharp decline of governance, leadership, and fiscal discipline” in the district.
Announcement to the Press
Foundations regularly evaluate grants and relationships with charities, sometimes canceling or suspending grants until certain conditions are met. But usually such decisions are made privately. In Pittsburgh, the three foundations held a press conference to announce the withdrawal of their money.
Supporters of the move praised the three foundations for taking action to both protect the integrity of their grants and spur changes in the school system’s management.
Critics, however, said that by publicly airing their concerns about the system and withholding money from it, the foundations were making the schools’ problems worse.
The foundations “chose an arrogant and harmful path,” said David Bergholz, executive director of the George Gund Foundation, in Cleveland, who spent a dozen years involved with the Pittsburgh public schools when he worked at a local community-development organization. “You can decide not to make the grant anymore, but why are you calling a press conference and essentially punishing the system?”
Officials from the three foundations said that grants could be restored if enough progress is made in improving how the system is run. And they have offered financial support to an effort announced last week by Pittsburgh’s mayor to establish an outside committee to study the city’s schools and recommend changes.
“It’s not the foundations walking away from the district,” said Maxwell King, executive director of the Heinz Endowments. “It’s the foundations, seeing so much at stake, and exhausting other possibilities, trying to highlight issues and catalyze efforts to improve things.”
Other Aid Jeopardized
The foundations’ decision means that more than $3-million in approved, but unpaid, grants will be put on hold. Most of that money would have gone to the schools’ reading and writing program, called Literacy Plus.
But the move could cost the school system much more. The district receives matching grants from the federal government contingent on its foundation support, and other private funds may decide to withhold their money, too. Even though private support amounts to a small fraction of the system’s total annual spending of $700-million, foundations often pay for teacher-training programs, technology support, and innovative projects that typically don’t attract government money.
