AIM for Better Odds! (The Vacuum Filleth)

Better Odds

The Gates Foundation aims to increase the number of D.C. college graduates.

Friday, March 23, 2007; A16

CONSIDER THE awful odds facing a D.C. student who goes to school east of the Anacostia River. The chance of graduating from high school is 1 in 3. And if the student somehow beats the odds and does graduate, the chance of earning a college degree is 1 in 20. Those odds, and the lives of hundreds of young people, will be bettered because of a bold new program that typifies the best of public-private partnerships.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced that it will invest nearly $122 million in a scholarship program for students in six schools in Wards 7 and 8. Under the D.C. Achievers program, more than 2,000 students in the next 15 years will get college scholarships of up to $10,000 a year for a maximum of five years. The program will start this spring with the selection of 175 juniors from Anacostia, Ballou and H.D. Woodson senior high schools, Friendship Collegiate Academy Charter School, Maya Angelou Charter School and Thurgood Marshall Academy Charter School.

More than money is involved. The program will select candidates not through standard testing but by measuring factors such as resilience and commitment to education. Those selected will receive academic support and mentoring. The program has proved successful elsewhere and even has had the effect of improving the performance of students not selected for the program. (By way of disclosure, Melinda Gates serves on the board of the Washington Post Co., and Washington Post Co. Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Donald E. Graham chairs the board of a scholarship program that will help administer D.C. Achievers.)

Understandably, much of the excitement about the plan has centered on the huge amount of money the Gates Foundation is willing to commit to the city's troubled schools. It's important, though, not to lose sight of the central fact that no amount will ever be enough unless the schools change, parents get involved and students are prepared to work. Thankfully, the program takes this into account. City and school officials have signed a memorandum of understanding to undertake certain improvements. All are reforms that the District has promised to carry out in any event as part of the master education plan developed by Superintendent Clifford B. Janey. That plan in turn forms the academic basis of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's strategy for a school takeover, now before the D.C. Council.

The Gates Foundation deservedly gets credit for its contributions to education locally and nationally. That doesn't let the rest of us off the hook. After all, six schools are just a drop in the bucket of places where children deserve more.