TEXAS AFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE--THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2009 San Antonio Alliance Wins Grant From AFT Innovation Fund   The AFT Innovation Fund is the first union-led, private foundation-supported effort that provides grants to AFT affiliates nationwide to develop bold education innovations in public schools. The initial $3.3 million secured for the fund comes from AFT and five prominent private philanthropic foundations. Texas AFT is proud to report that one of the first of these competitive grants has been awarded today to our affiliate in San Antonio ISD, the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel led by President Shelley Potter.   "These projects are designed by teachers and their unions, and include school and community partners--a vital combination that gives these new ventures the potential to be sustainable and improve student outcomes. That's the real promise of these exciting initiatives," said AFT President Randi Weingarten. She added: "We're public school entrepreneurs who want to push the envelope to improve student learning."   The AFT Innovation Fund recipients' projects vary--including fresh ways to evaluate, pay, and recruit teachers—but the thread running through all of them is collaboration. "This is bottom-up reform at its best," Weingarten said.   The initial funding for the AFT Innovation Fund comes from the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, as well as from AFT.   "Teachers play an enormously powerful role in the push for education reform--they are closest to the challenges and to the solutions in our schools," said Fred Frelow, program officer for education and scholarship at the Ford Foundation. "We hope that these awards will encourage teachers and their partners to take bold, new approaches to teaching and learning. Their ideas and innovations will help us all think creatively about how to improve the quality of education for all our students."   Barbara Byrd-Bennett, chair of the AFT Innovation Fund advisory board and chief academic and accountability auditor for the Detroit Public Schools, said: "These projects show teacher unions' willingness to think creatively and collaboratively about improving student and teacher performance. They hold great promise for education reform in their school districts and around the country."   The San Antonio Alliance, with the help of its grant from the AFT Innovation Fund, will take the lead in engaging business, parents, community groups, and educators to transform schools into in-district charters--using models such as community schools or two-way bilingual schools, for example, in order to offer parents and students more high-quality educational choices in the city. This initiative will use a wide range of data--on housing patterns, economically depressed neighborhoods, health factors, urban flight and, of course, educational needs--to plan with community and business partners. The Alliance also is working with area groups to develop sophisticated marketing campaigns to promote the city's public schools.   The AFT Innovation Fund's other first-wave grants are as follows:   --The ABC Federation of Teachers in Los Angeles County, California, will move decision-making for ten high-need campuses from the district's central office to the campus level to meet each school's particular needs. --The Broward Teachers Union in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, will develop a new compensation plan for education professionals based on multiple measures of student learning. --The Illinois Federation of Teachers will design and pilot a new collaborative contract-negotiating model for charter schools. --The New York State United Teachers and Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals will undertake a joint effort to create a meaningful teacher-evaluation system supported by an expanded Peer Assistance and Review program. --The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers will use its grant to create ten new community schools providing wrap-around services for students. --The Saint Paul Federation of Teachers in Minnesota will develop CareerTeacher, a new grow-your-own approach to teacher recruitment.   A request for proposals for the next wave of Innovation Fund grants is expected to be issued early in 2010.