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MBA and graduate students from universities across the U.S. will gather to help Pittsburgh Public Schools with their reform efforts at the fourth annual Education Leadership Case Competition at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business on February 12-13, 2010.

This year's case competition will focus on one of the educational reforms of Pittsburgh Public Schools (http://www.pghboe.net/pps/site/default.asp). The case explores an initiative to help ensure that Pittsburgh Public Schools students are academically prepared to enter college and can meet the prerequisites for The Pittsburgh Promise scholarship. The Pittsburgh Promise awards up to $40,000 for college expenses to each Pittsburgh Public Schools graduate who meets eligibility criteria. Pittsburgh Superintendent Mark Roosevelt's will serve as a judge at the competition.

In addition, Pittsburgh Public Schools was recently awarded $40M from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09322/1014314-298.stm), the single largest donation ever to the school system. The grant will help fund reforms focused on maximizing teacher effectiveness. Pittsburgh is one of only five districts nationally to be awarded the grant from the Gates Foundation.

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