Summit to Share Findings on BASRC, One of the Valedictorians of Nationwide Annenberg Challenge...

Business Editors/Education Writers

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 12, 2002

In coordination with the Washington DC release of a wrap-up report on the Annenberg Challenge, the nation's largest school reform effort, the Bay Area School Reform Collaborative has slated release

BASRC received $25 million from the Annenberg Foundation in 1995 and is one of only three sites to have received a subsequent grant from them. In spring 2001, BASRC received $15 million from Annenberg and $25 million from the California-based William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the nation's largest donor to the 1993-2002 Annenberg Challenge.

Between 1996 and 2001, BASRC awarded grants to 87 "Leadership Schools" and assisted them to undertake a data-based process to improve teaching and student achievement. Evaluators from the Center for Research on the Context of Teaching (CRC) at Stanford University found that BASRC "successfully promoted most of its Leadership Schools' progress on inquiry-based reform and, on the whole, these schools made greater gains on the SAT-9 basic skills assessment (California's official test) than comparable Bay Area schools." CRC's five-year evaluation, which explains the inquiry process used by BASRC schools, will be released in a Bay Area education summit in October.

BASRC executive director Merrill Vargo addressed the National Press Club this morning, noting how BASRC's ideas can benefit other k-12 public schools. CRC researchers have observed that BASRC provides a good test laboratory because its demographics parallel the Bay Area's ethnic, racial, and socio-economic diversity and because the region contains many small and medium-sized school districts, rather than one huge one. For the Annenberg report and more on BASRC and its 113 schools and 26 school districts, see http://www.basrc.org/whatsnew/press.html.

The Annenberg Challenge was announced in December 1993 at the White House by philanthropist Walter Annenberg and former president Clinton and remains the largest public/private school reform initiative in US history. Reaching more than 1.4 million students and assisting 82,000 teachers, it raised more than $1 billion in public and private funds for k-12 public schools in 35 states.