Alliance for Education Receives $2 Million Grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the John Stanford Endowment Fund

SEATTLE -- The Alliance for Education announced it has received a grant of $2 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the John Stanford Endowment Fund. The grant will support innovative educational programs and ensure the Seattle Public Schools keep pace with a changing world. The endowment is named in honor of the late Seattle Schools Superintendent John Henry Stanford who died in 1998 of leukemia. The endowment was formed to carry forward into the future Stanford's vision of a "world class, student-focused learning system" for the children of the Seattle Public Schools.

"Seattle Public Schools are fortunate to have had a leader like John Stanford," said Tom Vander Ark, Executive Director of Education for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "There is a strong commitment in this community to help all children achieve, and building this endowment will help Seattle Schools realize this vision. The Foundation is pleased to support this effort."

With the grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the John Stanford Endowment Fund currently stands at approximately $3 million dollars. John Stanford envisioned a $25 million private endowment to benefit children in the Seattle Public Schools. This endowment will serve as a permanent source of income to keep the Seattle Public Schools on the leading edge of educational innovation and ensure its schools and teachers keep pace with a changing world.

The grant was announced at a fundraising event for the Stanford Endowment at the home of Melissa and Don Nielsen. "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been so incredibly generous to education across the country, and particularly here in Washington. I am so very appreciative that the Foundation chose to support the Stanford Endowment and John's dream of helping all children achieve," said Pat Stanford, wife of the late Superintendent. Last year, the Seattle School Board adopted as a performance goal that 90 percent of District fourth graders in the year 2003 will meet the standard in reading, as measured by the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL). In honor of that bold action, and in honor of John Stanford's commitment to making "Every Child a Reader," the first round of Stanford Endowment Fund grants were awarded in the area of reading to four elementary schools in Seattle.

The Alliance for Education is a community organization working in partnership with the Seattle Public Schools to develop resources and leadership to transform education so that all children reach high academic achievement. The Alliance for Education Web site can be found at www.alliance4ed.org.