New York City, 6 November 2009: The Ford Foundation announced a new $100 million initiative to transform secondary education in urban schools across the US, saying it wants to help build the conditions and resources required to provide a great education to public school students.

The seven-year, seven-city initiative will fund projects that address four basic elements of school infrastructure that have a decisive impact on the quality of education offered to the nation's most vulnerable student populations: sufficient and equitable school financing, quality teaching, additional and more useful learning time, and meaningful accountability.

"Improving American schools, and giving the most vulnerable young people real educational opportunities, benefits all of us," said Ford Foundation President Luis Ubiñas. "With this initiative we want to shake up the conversations surrounding school reform and help spur some truly imaginative thinking and partnerships."

Dr. Jeannie Oakes, director of Educational Opportunity and Scholarship at Ford said the foundation's initiative would focus on New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Denver. “The foundation is working with a wide range of local partners in these cities - parents, teachers, students, community organizations, and local funders - all of whom are working hard to bring about sustainable change in their public schools,” she explained.

Viable public transport
remains a pipe dream
London, 6 November 2009: A cross-government report on the state of transport in England’s cities has found that public policy has not kept up with the growth of urban areas and the unchecked car economy has been to their detriment. Furthermore recent efforts to encourage cycling and walking in England’s cities has failed to discourage the use of cars, even on short journeys.

The November 2009 report suggests that while over-reliance on cars has been to damaging to health for those living in English cities, viable public transport remains a pipe dream. It argues that increased obesity and reduced air quality are most likely to be the long-term effects of such deficits in public transport provision, rather than congestion.

The Department for Transport report, The Future of Urban Transport, argues that 80 per cent of the English population live in cities and towns and that cities are the driver of the national economy. Therefore travel within cities is of primary importance to national economic success: “This report shows that transport is vital to the success of urban areas, but that currently it causes considerable harm. New policy will need to consider the broad finding that congestion is not the only, or most important transport cost in urban areas. Evidence suggests many of the harms from urban transport will continue to grow unless action is taken. Consequently a choice will have to be faced between continuing to allow car growth to continue increasing congestion and further reducing the attractiveness of alternatives; or making public transport, cycling and walking more accessible so they are more frequently chosen.”

The report, while not binding on government, suggests that Labour ministers have belatedly accepted the need for investment in England’s city transport systems, after a decade of under-investment and cancelled improvements. The Conservatives, who look poised to take power following the election next year, have in recent years flirted with the idea of allowing more English cities to introduce light rail schemes into their congested city centres. However, most of these commitments were made during times of more buoyant public finances and the party’s spokesmen are now signalling the high likelihood of centrally-imposed spending restrictions on local government and no further funds for any new projects.
 
Separately, the UK government's transport secretary Andrew Adonis has become the latest Labour figure to back the introduction of more elected mayors to English cities and towns: "I think we should be looking seriously at introducing elected mayors across Britain... Ken Livingstone did as much as any other figure in the last 10 years to bring about public service reform... We created the mayoralty, gave him the opportunity to mobilise Londoners and the democratic legitimacy necessary to introduce big reforms like the congestion charge. I believe that if we had elected mayors in other major cities of Britain, they could bring about similar change."