It's easy to read past some stories about the Walton Family Foundation's grants and gifts to benefit education in this state. Stories of that sort seem to come out monthly. We suspicion some of our copy editors keep the headlines in type.
But We the People would be wrong, not to mention ungrateful, to take the Walton Family Foundation for granted. What it's doing is not only important work, but maybe the most important work.
Yet again, Arkansas' Newspaper has reported that the foundation gave another $10 million grant to the UofA, this time to fund a new training and recruitment academy. The purpose is to train teachers to go to work in those school districts with an unusually high number of poor children. And what could be more important? Charter schools are a great hope for the poorest communities. But so are well-trained, focused, inspired teachers in the traditional schools, on which this particular grant will focus.
Attracting the best teachers to high-poverty school districts is a challenge. But not one that can't be overcome. Especially when good folks--such as those at a particular foundation we could mention--decide that mastering that challenge is worth every effort.
Editorial on 12/11/2017