The Walton Family Foundation gave out more money for education reform last year than any other year in its history, and a big chunk of it ended up in Denver.
Organizations here, from individual schools to influential nonprofits, got just shy of $8 million of the $159 million in education-reform dollars the foundation awarded in 2011 — more than many of the nation's largest cities, including those that are home to some of the nation's most troubled schools.
Only Los Angeles, with $9.6 million, and Washington, D.C., with $8.3 million, got more total grant money than did Denver groups.
The goal of the Arkansas-basedWalton Family Foundationis to increase "the quantity and