Gates Foundation and Hewlett Foundation

Gates Foundation and Hewlett Foundation grants to the San Diego City Schools totaling $22.5 million, announced jointly at a press conference on Monday, November 12, will be administered by a private foundation rather than the Board of Education, according to information from the office of Henry Hurley, Chief Administrative Officer of the San Diego Unified School District.

The fiscal agent for the Gates and Hewlett grants will be the local Foundation for Improvement of Math and Science Education (FIMSE).. In year 2000, FIMSE gave the City Schools $2,500,000 – gifts from Qualcomm, Applied Microcircuits Corporation (AMCC), and Waitt Family Foundation. FIMSE’s director is Harry Albers, former head of San Diego State University Foundation. Superintendent Alan Bersin is one of only four FIMSE board members.

Note: When letters critical of the Gates/Hewlett grants were published in the Union-Tribune on Monday, November 12, a letter from FIMSE director Harry Albers was published on Tuesday, November 13, without identifiying his fiscal role concerning the grants.

Albers called the grants "amazing gifts" and dismissed educator and community criticism of the draconian and unmodified "Blueprint" as "educational road rage." He then slammed public education in general as "a system that has institutionalized underachievement and made it a way of life."

I wrote the U-T identifying Albers as fiscal agent for these grants. An editor called to say I could not be published because of the U-T rule about a 30-day hiatus between letters from a single individual. He asserted they had received another letter making the same point and would publish it soon. Don’t hold your breath.

The Board has not seen contractual details of the Gates /Hewlett monies. Hurley says Gates has offered $15 million total over five years and Hewlett has offered $7.5 million over two years. Furthermore, according to Mr. Hurley , this year’s "Blueprint" II is short $15 million, so that amount of the big gift will be encumbered from the get-go.

On November 13 a Union-Tribune news story by Maureen Magee alleged that the grant award is contingent on maintaining the district’s present leadership of Alan Bersin and Anthony Alvarado. I did not hear any funder say that in public at the press conference and when I questioned Hurley, he had never heard about that condition either. Maybe that’s something put out by the Superintendent, like the "steady progress" postcard he sent when student test scores were actually flat or down.

Carnegie Foundation Grant for High School Reform

This $8 million grant, awarded earlier this fall, will be used to restructure and reform our high schools. There is no parent or teacher involved in this planning for radical change in the secondary schools, though four parent "congresses" have been scheduled as window dressing over this next year.The fiscal agent will be UCSD Office of CREATE, run by Professor Bud Mehan, who coincidentally since January has been engaged in studying the Bersin/Alvarado "reforms" in our school district.

National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant

NSF has returned to us with a gift of $6 million over three years. A few years ago NSF pulled the remainder of a $15 million grant that was to support teaching elementary teachers about teaching science to kids. I believe NSF’s new grant is a quid pro quo for our having mandated the blanket use of "Active Physics," a controversial Mr. Wizard-style class required now for all 9th graders. "Active Physics" is endorsed by the NSF. But at least the Board of Education is fiscal agent for this one.

Frances O'Neill Zimmerman
November 15, 2001