The photographic essay in this year’s annual report focuses on teachers, the primary instruments of education, an important concern of the Foundation since its inception. The significance the Foundation has placed on education is illustrated by grants of almost$27million to support the Cleveland Municipal School District (CMSD) and its students over that period and more than $95 million overall to education. While we have become increasingly focused on policy and funding at the state level, the Foundation also has been involved with all aspects of Cleveland’s public schools. For example, under the leadership of David Bergholz, our former executive director, the Foundation was involved in significant efforts on both the state and local levels that led to the takeover of the school system by the mayor.

It is a fitting year for a focus on teachers as the Ohio Grantmakers Forum, a broad statewide group of funders chaired by David Abbott, the current executive director of this Foundation, presented a report in December of 2006,“Education for Ohio’s Future,” assessing the current status of schools in Ohio and presenting a plan for future developments. The report reinforces the importance of a number of issues that have been long-standing concerns of the Foundation, including scholarships, preschool education and teacher and principal training. It highlights a number of areas that have special significance in the current environment in which education is being increasingly considered in a global context, including the continuing achievement gap between white and minority students, the need for accountability at all levels and the need for more competitive public education to ready students for postgraduate education and the work world.

As a Foundation, we will continue to address many aspects of these education issues and hope that, working with the current administrations in Columbus and in Cleveland, we can be part of positive change. Three areas of our particular concern are flexible schools, excellent teachers and meeting the needs of the whole student. We recently made a $150,000 grant to help create excellent new CMSD schools that will offer students with a range of needs and abilities educational choices and the content they need, as well as environments conducive to good education. This follows grants we have made to break down schools into a series of smaller schools to increase flexibility and meet the needs of individual learners. Our second important goal is to produce excellent teachers as there is evidence that high quality teachers who believe students can learn are able to raise students to higher levels of achievement. We will be working to establish a model for developing good teachers who know content and who learn from teaching placements what good teaching is while they are developing their abilities to do it. And finally, we will continue to work to meet the needs of the whole student—not just academic learning, but health and other needs as well.

In 2006, the Foundation took another step in its continuing mission of increased accountability by commissioning a Grantee Perception Report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy. This process, which we have been through before, led to a thorough review of the way we operate and reforms in the way we go about fulfilling our mission. A summary of the report’s findings is on our website, at www.gundfoundation.org.

At the end of this year George Gund IV became a Trustee-candidate. We welcome him to the Board of the Foundation.

Geoffrey Gund, President and Treasurer of The George Gund Foundation