Eddie Rodriguez, the Executive Director of the REACH program I co-founded, drafted this letter which unfortunately wasn’t sent in time:

 

To the editor:

 

I read with interest your article, "Scholarly Investments," about the hedge fund community's support of charter schools, which I applaud.  UFT President Michael Mulgrew is mistaken, however, when he asserts that "these people are finally stepping up to support education."  As the former president of Brooklyn's District 15 school board, a DOE attorney and now as Executive Director of Rewarding Achievement (REACH), a hedge-fund-supported effort to improve academic rigor and give scholarships to thousands of low-income, minority students at regular public schools, I've seen up close the NYC financial community's remarkable support for high poverty schools.

 

Take, for instance, the Fund for Public Schools, which has raised more than $230 million to support the bold efforts by Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein to fix our city's broken schools.  Or consider REACH, which is the brainchild of hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, and has been funded to the tune of nearly $5 million over its first two years by the Pershing Square Foundation, which is affiliated with hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management.   

 

Over the past two years, REACH has supported more than 10,000 students and their teachers and given cash scholarships totaling nearly $2 million to more than 2,000 high-achieving students at 25 regular public inner-city high schools and six Catholic schools in NYC, with an additional $1+ million going to the schools and educators.  And here's the hedge fund twist: the awards to both students and schools are based on performance, namely when students pass rigorous Advanced Placement exams.  The program is working: in 2009, REACH students passed 19% more AP exams than in 2008.  In raw numbers, 718 more low-income and minority students (a medium-sized school!) took AP exams in 2009 compared to 2007, the year before REACH launched, with 228 more passing.

 

Now that's something we can all applaud: 718 more low-income, college-ready students.

 

Eddie Rodriguez

55 Exchange Place, Suite 501

New York, NY  10005

(212) 233-8969 x149

 

The writer is executive director and co-founder of Rewarding Achievement (REACH), a project of the Council of Urban Professionals, a non-partisan, nonprofit organization representing and advocating for the social, civic and economic interests of urban professionals. CUP develops diverse business and civic leaders, empowering them to exert influence, achieve their individual goals, and create collective impact.