Boston, Central Falls, R.I., and Sacramento, Calif., will join nine other school systems to receive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to set up collaborative relationships with charter schools within their borders, the Seattle-based philanthropy has announced.
The initiative is intended to better integrate charters and regular public schools to create an exchange of best practices, and to ease tensions about such issues as facilities and supports. The districts still have to formally apply for the Gates funding, but they can win up to $100,000 once they do. (Editorial Projects in Education, the publisher of Education Week, also receives Gates Foundation support.)
The other districts that received Gates funding last December for similar compacts: Baltimore; Denver; Hartford, Conn.; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; Nashville, Tenn.; New Orleans; New York City; and Rochester, N.Y.
