Can philanthropy fix our schools?

The best-known model for large-scale private giving to foster educ. reform is Walter Annenberg's $500 million gift to U.S. public educ. in Dec. 1993, mainly to fund challenge grants in the nation's 9 largest cities. These programs ended with the school year, 1999-2000. Believing that the experiences of those cities could provide valuable lessons for future attempts at school reform driven by private giving, this report studies 3 cities experiences with the Challenge: NY City, Chicago, and Philadelphia. It concludes that Annenberg didn't accomplish what he had hoped -- the system was largely unresponsive.