Rhee Details Prescription for Ailing Schools to Donors

Rhee expects that most of the funding for her teacher pay proposal, which ties big raises and bonuses to improved student achievement, will come from large national foundations heavily involved in overhauling education. In recent private meetings, multiple attendees said she identified four major foundations -- Bill & Melinda Gates, Eli Broad, Dell and Robertson -- as prepared to underwrite the plan, should it win union approval.

Chris Williams, a senior program officer for Gates, said Friday that no agreement has been struck. "We haven't made a commitment on this and we haven't had a discussion about making a commitment," he said.

Officials with Broad and Robertson said they would not comment on prospective grants. Dell did not return a phone message.

Through Hobson, Rhee declined to comment.

Major national donors often look at the level of local contributions before making decisions on grants. On July 17, Rhee went to the World Bank for a meeting of the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers, an influential network of foundations, charitable trusts and corporations that funds nonprofits and local governments. Its members include organizations that have invested millions in education over the years, including Fannie Mae, the Carter & Melissa Cafritz Foundation, IBM and the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation.

According to three attendees who asked for anonymity because they did not want to damage their relationship with the chancellor, Rhee circulated the planning document and asked local givers for an annual commitment of $7 million to $10 million, over and above the millions donated to the array of community organizations that provide tutoring, after-school programs and other services to the District's public schools.

Moreover, she said she wants private donations directed to the D.C. Public Education Fund, a nonprofit created by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. Rhee has said she wants to avoid cumbersome procurement processes and other bureaucratic tasks that would come from accepting the money directly from multiple nonprofits.

But some private donors are concerned, the attendees said, that the fund, overseen by a young former Fenty aide and a board with similarly close personal and political ties to the mayor, could lack independence and transparency. Philanthropists also expressed the worry that in an ailing economy with limited corporate dollars, Rhee's insistence on centralizing private largesse in the mayor's fund would limit traditional foundation support for the other older, smaller community organizations.