School Gift Makes a Difference

To the Editor

Your article on the Annenberg Challenge (“What Did the Money Buy?,” May 4) overlooks the impact of the Challenge in Chicago, a city where the most successful experiment in school reform in the nation continues to achieve results.

Critics like school-reform naysayer Chester Finn will always question the role of philanthropy, but in schools where the Chicago Annenberg Challenge is funding school-improvement efforts, the percentage of students performing at or above national norms has risen by 41 percent in reading and 55 percent in math — a clear indication of the value of the programs in which we’re investing, and the importance of our presence in these schools.

A full 80 percent of principals responding to a recent independent survey reported that the Challenge is “central” or “very central” to their work. By the end of our initiative, over half of all public schools in the city will have participated in Challenge-inspired school-improvement efforts.

The Challenge has deepened parental involvement in local schools and expanded and strengthened the community of external partners working with public schools to promote improvements. In Chicago, more than 3,000 parents and 50 different agencies, from museums to neighborhood associations, have become engaged in school-improvement efforts through Annenberg programs.

What Chicago has proven is this: If you demand and invest in quality public education, you’ll get it.

For philanthropy as well as for parents, teachers, and school districts, that’s the lesson of the Annenberg Challenge.

Ken Rolling
Executive Director
Chicago Annenberg Challenge