The Alliance Wants Results (or So It Would Seem)

The Times had this article today about the Alliance wanting to focus on helping low-income students. This is a fairly short article without a lot of fleshing out but it is striking for what it says...twice. From the article (italics mine):

"But the alliance struggled with a poor relationship with the previous School Board and began to lose members of its board who believed there should be more accountability to make sure donations were accomplishing goals.

With a new School Board, new superintendent and a host of new initiatives in the works, D'Amelio said it's a good time for the alliance to rethink its philanthropic work and impose a bigger focus on results."

And it's fine if donors ask, "Where's the beef?" It sounds a lot like the City wanting more results from the Family levy and changing how the money is given out. I would think if the district is doing the SE Initiative and the Alliance is going to put more resources towards these efforts, it's reasonable to expect to see some change. But schools can't do it all. Is there the will within these communities to support these efforts and back it up at home? What will it take to create change?

UPDATE: Dan D. provides a link to the PI story in his comment. Reporter Jessica Blanchard provides this additional information:

"A new Educational Investments Task Force, made up of School Board members and community representatives, will help decide where the money is invested."

It might be worth investigating how they will pick the Task Force.

Comments

dan dempsey said…
Covered also in the PI by Jessica Blanchard.

Here is a Link to the Sound OFF

in Response to a Jessica Blanchard article at the Seattle Post Intelligencer on:

Top Seattle fundraiser for schools changes its course
The Alliance for Education, a major fund raiser for Seattle Public Schools, is changing the way it passes along money.

My Sound OFF contains the following excerpt:

Perhaps the Alliance for Ed can be the "Two by Four" whack in the head these folks so sorely need.

Then perhaps 50% of recent high school graduates will not be placing into math classes at or below the equivalent of High School Math I at Seattle Central and other Seattle Community Colleges. Good Luck to the Alliance for Education on changing this misdirected waste of time effort and dollars. How can anyone pay for decision-makers this bad?
Anonymous said…
The link to the Madrona neighborhood was fascinating. If it is true that newspaper people read this blog, perhaps the republishing of that fiasco (awarding a principal who drove out the neighbors) requires the Alliance to defend their new stance in the next day's news. Surely their PR folks knew that after the breakfast and award was announced, they would have to follow with some sort of pep talk. WASL factory mentality from the Alliance (even though the WASL is slowly shriveling up due to its uselessness) won't stop the Alliance! Why do we allow a foundation which was originally set up to COLLECT money donated to individual schools become a major part of the policy and grantwriting sector for our schools? Why doesn't the Seattle PTSA hire someone to collect its funds and let the Alliance chase dollars that follow district goals?

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