News in Brief

Foundations Team Up With AFT on Projects

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Four private philanthropies—the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation—will partner with the American Federation of Teachers through its Innovation Fund.

The private-foundation contributions, in addition to the AFT’s down payment of $1 million, bring the fund’s total to $2.8 million. Money from the fund is available for local affiliates of the union to “incubate promising ideas to improve schools,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said last month.

She gave a couple of possible examples: Districts and teachers could propose a new way of evaluating teachers that would incorporate evidence of student achievement. Or they could come up with a school turnaround model akin to the Fresh Start project in Chicago or the now-defunct New York City reform initiative known as the Chancellor’s District.

The fund, announced by the union last fall, plans to make its first grants in September.

Vol. 28, Issue 31, Page 4

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