Out of five collaborative education improvement efforts funded by the Ford Foundation over the last half of the past decade, only one became a strong voice for reform at both the local and state levels, an assessment by the RAND Corp. concludes.
The one that succeeded the most is Austin Interfaith, which advocates for underserved and underrepresented students, in Austin, Texas. DC VOICE, in Washington, and Alianza Metropolitana de San Juan Para La Educación, in San Juan, Puerto Rico, also made progress, but to a lesser extent, the assessment found.
The Ford-financed study tracked progress from 2004 to 2009 in five collaboratives involving school districts and community-based organizations that were supported by the Ford Foundation’s Collaborating for Education Reform Initiative. The sites had trouble choosing school interventions that were likely to affect student performance and that could be scaled up, the RAND Corp. reports.
