Editor's Note: This is our weekly news roundup of education-related events nationwide and in our launch regions, compiled by one of our amazing interns. 

DC Metro:
+ Performance pay considered (Washington Post)
+ Sixth graders do what they can to 'green' their school(Washington Post)
+ Where there are poor neighborhoods, there are inexperienced teachers (Washington Post)

Detroit:
+ Final list of Detroit school closings to be announced next week. (Detroit Free Press)
+ Former NBA great Dave Bing elected mayor.  Schools should be his top priority, says Freep (Detroit Free Press)

New York: 
+ Chancellor Klein bans hiring from outside the system (NY Times)
+ Issues persist with placement of Kindergartners (NY Times, NY Times)
+ More NY students meet state standards (NY Times)
+ HS students to help Middle School students (InsideSchools.org)

Editor's Note: In addition to promulgating updates about The Generation Project and our charitable work, we want this blog to serve as a place where donors and citizens can stay abreast of the latest developments in schools, education, and philanthropy. Our philosophy is that the more informed you are--and the more you're thinking about issues in education--the more likely you'll be to make a difference. With that in mind, here is our weekly news roundup of education-related events nationwide and in our launch regions, compiled by one of our amazing interns:

Yesterday, Rhee said that revised budgetary projections for the D.C. school system were forcing her to scale back her original proposal.  Interestingly, though, much of the money for her wage proposal didn't even come from public funding.  As the Washington Post reports, Rhee's wage proposal was to be financed for four years via a consortium of private funders, at which point the D.C. schools would have taken on the responsibility for the increased wages.  The list of funders that was leaked to the Post read like a veritable who's who of philanthropists: Dell, Gates, Broad, Robinson.  Thus, not only was the Rhee proposal a bold move away from a lockstep, tenure-based compensation model, it was also an extremely interesting foray into public-private partnerships in education reform.

Rhee said yesterday that the private funding for her proposal remained intact, but, given the economic crisis, she had become uncertain as to whether the District could shoulder the increased cost of teacher salaries after the first four years.  Although Rhee is going to submit a revised proposal, it now looks like the chancellor might not be able to (depending on your perspective) a) create a respected class of highly paid inner-city teachers, or, b) smash America's proud institution of teacher tenure.  Still, I hope that Rhee's proposal will be remembered as a historic  private-public collaboration for the benefit of educational reform.  It's becoming increasingly obvious that state and local governments don't even have the money to maintain their current systems, let alone make expensive reforms.  And the revised stimulus package suggests that the federal government is probably not going to swoop in and rescue beleagured school districts, after all. But a lack of government funding doesn't mean that educational reform has to come to an abrupt halt.  Private donors have funded some interesting ventures in public schools during the past few years--witness, for example, the Kalamazoo Promise, which provides free college tuition for kids who attend the Kalamazoo Public Schools.  If beleagured school districts are going to continue down the path of educational reform, they probably are going need money to do so.  And with the state and local government rapidly falling short on funds, it's up to those Americans with funds to spare to act in the best traditions of American philanthropy and invest now in the future of this country.