Bill Gates helps with achievement in Atlanta

Atlanta enjoys long relationship with Gates FoundationBy Gracie Bonds Staples and Kristina Torres


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

4:45 p.m. Saturday, May 8, 2010

The lack of philanthropic support for Atlanta Public Schools surprised Beverly Hall.

What she did about it demonstrates how corporate beneficence can be less about money than it is about belief. The school system just introduced 29 new examples.

Soon after Hall became superintendent in July 1999, she began reaching out to local organizations and businesses as well as national groups like the Wallace Foundation. She also called the Gates Foundation, making a pitch about funding an effort to break up Atlanta’s high schools into smaller learning communities.

She was met with a polite no. The foundation had funded such work nationally but officials said they were interested in assessing that work, not starting new programs. Hall turned once again for help locally, this time from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation.

As the system set about moving ahead with what the superintendent calls its “high school transformation” program, the Gates people called back to acknowledge the progress. In October 2005, the foundation awarded Atlanta a $1.4-million planning grant for the program. A month later, they announced a $10.5-million implementation grant to help expand the program citywide.

“I think the fact that we had gone ahead carried some weight with them,” Hall said this week. “We had made a case and still moved forward.”

That move forward was the beginning of a long relationship the school system has enjoyed with the Washington state-based Gates Foundation, established by Bill and Melinda Gates. It is also being credited with Atlanta's strong showing recently in the annual Gates Millennium Scholars competition, which just honored 29 students from Hall's system.

Foundation officials are careful to note they have no special relationship with the city. They do not provide funding for the sake of helping individuals. Rather, they say they fund programs they believe can help children move ahead in school, graduate and enroll in college.

“We don’t have an Atlanta initiative or anything like that,” said Chris Williams, spokesman for the foundation. “We’re focused on investing in programs that work, not cities.”

Although the foundation isn't just handing over money, its work in Atlanta has touched several facets of the system and has been a kind of lifeline in turbulent economic times.

“We‘re most appreciative,” Hall said. “With the budgets being slashed at every level, it becomes increasingly important for schools to receive philanthropic support.”

The foundation’s benevolence in Atlanta, however, isn’t just limited to the Atlanta Public Schools. In fact, Williams said Gates has awarded grants to a total of nine school districts, including Memphis, Pittsburgh and Hillsborough County (Tampa) in Florida.

“We have been working with all of these districts for over a year now,” he said. “Our relationship with Atlanta is special in that it is one of a handful of districts that we think are on the leading edge when it comes to work they’re doing in effective teaching.”

Early this week both Fulton and Gwinnett County public schools indirectly benefited from the foundation’s benevolence when it funded a $15-million grant project headed by Harvard University.

The districts were chosen along with four others to participate in a two-year program designed to determine what makes teachers effective in the classroom. The project also will study how well students perform in college.

In addition to covering students’ academic costs for any major and for as many years as it takes them to graduate, Gates scholars receive academic support, mentoring and leadership training, which is crucial to low-income minority students who are often the first in their families to not just attend college but graduate high school.

This year, 50 metro Atlanta seniors successfully made it through the stiff competition with the Atlanta Public Schools garnering 29 of those slots, the most for any district in the nation.

The school system’s strong showing was the result of an initiative the United Negro College Fund, the program's administrator, launched in 2008 to increase the number of eligible students.

For years, students from Atlanta schools applied for the full-ride scholarships but, when taken with the more than 20,000 other applications received each year, theirs weren't considered competitive.

“We were seeing strong students come through but they weren’t presenting applications in ways that would make them competitive so we came up with a plan to work with school districts to help them work with the students they considered strong candidates,” said Larry Griffith, vice president of the program.

After talks with district officials and then-Mayor Shirley Franklin, Griffith said they began holding workshops with students to help prepare them for the rigorous application process and with school counselors and other staff so that they could provide the mentoring students would need to market themselves appropriately.

Trina Scott, a counselor at Carver Health Science & Research, has participated in the specialized training since the initiative was launched two years ago.

The two-hour training, she said, covers everything from helping students tell their stories in the most compelling way to choosing the best person to write letters of recommendation and hitting the send button on their computers no later than 11:59 p.m. January 11, the deadline for submitting the application.

In addition to the training, banners were hung at the school touting the scholarship. Instead of “Got Milk” posters, “Got Gates” posters populated the walls.

Carver Principal Darian Jones said schools are encouraged each year to identify students with a grade point average of 3.3 or above as early as the junior year to apply for the scholarship and to hold meetings with them and their parents.

At Carver, he said, Gates alumni were invited to come and talk to perspective scholars about their experiences, to give them the extra incentive to complete the application. They even shared their essays to use as guides.

“They tell them they don’t have to stand in financial aid lines like other students because everything is paid for,” said Scott.

Students were encouraged to begin writing their essays over the summer.

“We tried to be much more intentional and it paid off,” said Jones.

Out of the 13 Carver students who applied, he said, five were named finalists.

One of them, Briahna Head, 18, said that while the tips she received to shore up her essays helped, the nomination and letter of recommendations she received from her AP biology teacher and mentor were the winning pieces of her application.

"They believed in me," she said.

Hall said she appreciates the supports the system has received for this and other programs.

“We‘re most appreciative,” Hall said. “With the budgets being slashed at every level, it becomes increasingly important for schools to receive philanthropic support.”

Hall said Gates’ support in Atlanta has helped in other ways, including with an “early college” program and with learning how to use resources better as budget cuts play havoc with planning. In February, Gates announced a three-year, $10-million grant for an Atlanta program to increase teacher effectiveness.

A contributing factor to that continued support is likely the system’s stable leadership. Hall has led the system now for nearly 11 years, a notable achievement given that the average tenure in urban school systems is 3 1/2 years.

“The revolving door of urban superintendents creates an unstable environment,” Hall said. “If you want a return on your investment, you want to make sure someone is there to see it through.”

Gates box:

Scholars and their parents will be honored at a 6 p.m. ceremony Thursday at Atlanta City Hall.

Recent Gates awards to Atlanta agencies and schools:

Atlanta Public Schools, $10 million to "Effective Teacher in Every Classroom" initiative.
Fulton County and Gwinnett public schools, $15-million project grant designed to raise student achievement and improve teacher quality. The project is being administered by Harvard University.
Emory University School of Nursing, $8 million to improve maternal and newborn survival rates in rural Ethiopia.
Lyrasis Inc., $128,472 to improve technology access in libraries serving low-income patrons and establish sustainable local funding to support the ongoing provision of this service.
University of Georgia Foundation, $331,678 to among other things support Georgia for the staff time needed to provide data for statewide matching and reporting of post-secondary outcomes.