Gates Foundation's $31M for new schools
From Wed 2/26/2003 8:43 AM
With graduation rates falling, especially among minorities (55% for African-Americans, 53% for Latinos), the Gates Foundation is trying to turn things around with $31M for nine nonprofits to create 168 alternative schools according to this New York Times story (registration required):
"When millions of children are not graduating, we have a civic, economic and social disaster on our hands," said Tom Vander Ark, the foundation's education director, adding that the gift is part of a campaign to create no fewer than 1,000 new schools in the next 18 months. "We think this is the most important problem in America, but what's so frustrating is that it's invisible. Very little attention is paid to the horrendous human toll that's going on."
After climbing in most of the 20th century and peaking in the late 1960's, the national graduation rate steadily declined, settling around 70 percent in the last few years, the Department of Education says.