Reporter's Notebook

Denver

Grantmakers got mixed advice last week about what their role should be in reducing disparities in achievement between minority and white students and in promoting the goals of the "No Child Left Behind" Act of 2001.

Philanthropies can do more to help increase the test scores of minority students by focusing on programs that may not relate specifically to academics, Richard Rothstein, an author and an education columnist for The New York Times , told foundation representatives gathered here for the annual Grantmakers for Education conference.

Introducing the conference theme of "Closing the Achievement Gap" at the opening plenary session, Mr. Rothstein said that such services as school-based breakfast programs and dental clinics "could very well get a bigger test-score bump than all of the pedagogy and teacher-quality initiatives...