FORD FOUNDATION DOING IT RIGHT!

WALL STREET JOURNAL ATTACKS URBAN EDUCATION INITIATIVE

Editorial by Molly A. Hunter

O
n Tuesday, a Wall Street Journal editorial gave voice to the ideological battle
now underway over the future of public education in the U.S. Not surprisingly,
the editorial supported silver bullet proposals and opposed real reform.
The Ford Foundation and many others support a positive, thoughtful program of reform
designed to strengthen schools educating our most disadvantaged children and deliver the
resources needed for a high quality education. With this in mind, Ford recently announced
plans to fund projects in seven cities, including our Nations largest school districts, to push for
four critical building blocks of success in education:
Excellent teaching;
Sufficient learning time;
Funding to pay for them; and
Accountability that measures more than standardized test scores.
"Improving our schools, and giving the most vulnerable young people real educational
opportunities, benefits all of us," said Ford Foundation President Luis Ubinas. "With this
initiative we want to shake up the conversations surrounding school reform and help spur
some truly imaginative thinking and partnerships."
Fords leaders are taking on the formidable challenges that many have shied away from. And
unlike many proponents of quick-fix, top-down solutions, Ford believes that parents, students,
teachers, and community leaders, as well as scholars and policy experts, are key players in
building a movement for constructive change.
Dr. Jeannie Oakes, director of Educational Opportunity and Scholarship at Ford, said the
foundation does not presume to have the answers, but believes that effective solutions are far
more likely when all the stakeholders come together instead of competing to push narrow
special interests.
"The four areas of reform on which Oakes and her team are focusing are widely recognized as
having the potential to make a significant difference in the education of all students, particularly

Education Justice at Education Law Center, 60 Park Place, Suite 300, Newark, NJ 07102
www.EducationJustice.org ~ 973-624-1815 ~ Fax: 973-624-7339 1
those who are the least well served by the current school system," noted Alison Bernstein, vice
president of Ford's Education, Creativity and Free Expression program.
"The importance of each of these areas to the future success of our young people can't be
overestimated," said Mr. Ubinas. "We can't expect young people from disadvantaged
communities to be ready for 21st century life without giving them significantly more hours and
days at school to benefit from innovative teaching and learning."
This is the hard work that can lead to stronger schools and a stronger nation.
But none of this matters to the WSJs editorial board, which continues its tradition of praising
silver bullets as the only real innovation, while getting the facts wrong on education.
Tuesdays editorial plays the Pied Pipers tune as it recommends hiring thousands of untrained
teachersgood enough only for schools educating our low-income kids, of courseand
recycles WSJs old-favorite leading edge idea -- vouchers. These WSJ-supported steps
would lead to the edge, alright -- the edge of a cliff for schoolchildren, while sending lots of
public dollars into private coffers. The newspaper continues to tout vouchers, even though they
have failed to generate results year after year in Cleveland and Milwaukee.
Wrong on the facts, WSJ proclaims that some of the worst school districts in the country
spend the most money on students. Not true. In fact, higher spending states and school
districts are higher achieving states and districts. The shame of education in the U.S. is that we
provide great education resources for some kids and lousy resources for others. Many states
fund schools at a three-to-one ratio, with their high-wealth districts spending three times what
their low-wealth districts spend, despite the higher needs of kids in low-wealth communities.
Wrong again, WSJ declares the promising but unproven KIPP charters wildly successful and
claims many charters outperform their public school peers. Some charters are doing quite well,
about 17% of them. Many more are doing no better than their peers (57%), while an
unfortunate 26% are doing significantly worse than their public school peers. And, attempts to
close or remake the weakest charters have proven extremely difficult.
Doing It Right
When the Ford Foundations initiative to bring basic educational opportunities to urban children
generates an attack drowning in misinformation from the staunchly pro-voucher, anti-public
education WSJ, it means Ford must be doing it right.
Molly A. Hunter is Director, Education Justice, the national program of the Education Law
Center.

Prepared: November 19, 2010

Education Justice at Education Law Center, 60 Park Place, Suite 300, Newark, NJ 07102
www.EducationJustice.org ~ 973-624-1815 ~ Fax: 973-624-7339 2