BEST Initiative Launched to Improve Urban Schools and Their Communities

The 21st Century School Fund has launched the Building Educational Success Together (BEST) initiative to turn school buildings in urban communities into assets for educational success and community development and preservation. In its announcement of the initiative, BEST explained that it will work to: involve local communities in facility planning; make schools useable by their neighborhoods; ensure effective management and maintenance; and secure stable funding.

Now in its first year, BEST is focusing its initial efforts in Washington, DC, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, and Newark, Paterson, and Trenton, New Jersey.

BEST is a collaboration of the 21st Century School Fund, the Education Law Center (New Jersey), the KnowledgeWorks Foundation, the National Clearinghouse for Educational Facilities, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group, and Mark Schneider at SUNY, Stony Brook. The BEST initiative itself is funded by the Ford Foundation.

Prepared September 18, 2002