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Editorial by Molly A. Hunter

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 educationalopportunities, 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 farmore 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

O

FORD FOUNDATION DOING IT RIGHT!

WALL STREET JOURNAL ATTACKS URBAN EDUCATIONINITIATIVE

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8/9/2019 Wall St Journal Editorial

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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

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 anddays 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 theyhave 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

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