March 5, 2009 | Read Time: 2 minutes
A closely watched fight about the future of the public school system in the District of Columbia.continues to raise questions about the role foundations should play in assisting education.
Several anonymous foundations have pledged $200-million to help D.C. schools. But the money is contingent upon the district’s superintendent, Michelle A. Rhee, hammering out a labor agreement with the teachers union that gives the city the ability to reward high-performing individual teachers with increased pay and to quickly remove underperforming ones.
The Washington Teachers’ Union has said it is uneasy with the foundations’ involvement, saying teachers’ pay should not depend on philanthropic money. Half of the money committed by the donors would support salaries, while the rest would pay for teacher training and other efforts.
This week The Washington Post reported that Ms. Rhee said a financial consultant’s report shows that the city could sustain the salaries once the five-year grants end. A spokeswoman for the chancellor declined to provide copy of the report to the Post, saying it is confidential.
Ms. Rhee has also declined previously to name the prospective donors publicly. The Post said they are likely to be the Bill & Melinda Gates, Broad, Michael & Susan Dell, Robertson, and Walton Family foundations.
None of the grant makers have confirmed if they are the ones behind the controversial pledge.
Jim Horn, an associate professor of education at Cambridge College, in Massachusetts, and a frequent critic of some of the foundations potentially involved in the D.C. school effort, writes on his blog School Matters that the entire plan is a bad idea.
“All of it is happening in D.C. without anyone knowing which misanthropists are behind this scheme, or which puppet masters they have hired to move Rhee’s hand while she does their dirty work — not that she is not relishing her own performance,” he writes. “Talk about the soaring heights of non-transparency!”
What do you think of the role the foundations are playing in the efforts to improve D.C. schools? Should the foundations remain anonymous? Click on the comment button below to share your views.
