The New York Times is gaga once again over America's "new philanthropists" and the giant "wealth transfer" that is said to be transforming American philanthropy. Says a recently retired investor named Michael Zaleski, "Wealth has been spread across a much greater percentage of society, so there are a lot more people, like me and my family, who can afford to be generous." Boston College philanthropy analyst Paul G. Schervish estimates that close to $7 trillion new dollars may be directed into charitable giving over the next sixteen years. He avers that today's philanthropists are more demanding-and far more involved in their giving-than yesterday's individual donors and foundations. The phrase "venture philanthropy" gets tossed around almost as often as "venture capitalism."
What does this mean for education reform? The implications could be far-reaching. We've already seen some stellar examples, people like Teddy Forstmann, John Walton, Eli Broad, Don and Doris Fisher and John Doerr, whose astute and courageous giving is helping transform the education landscape and reform debates. We also see new foundations, such as the massive Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, seeking (with mixed success) to chart promising courses in education.
Yet not all the news is good. New givers can be as misguided as old. Good money can be thrown after bad. Silly fads and passing fancies can bedazzle and seduce inexperienced donors (and their earnest but often na??ve staffers). Computers, field trips and after-school programs can absorb billions of well-meaning dollars even as children don't learn to read, their social studies curriculum contains no serious history or geography, would-be teachers are waylaid by archaic certification systems, principals lack authority over their budgets and staffs, poor youngsters are trapped in unsafe schools and a hundred other failings of the system itself go unfixed. Above all, the school establishment-aided and abetted by the philanthropy establishment that's done so much to build and sustain it-can co-opt new givers into its own blighted ideas about what constitutes "reform" and what changes are taboo.
That's pretty much what happened to Walter Annenberg, a generous and public-spirited man whose handsome benefactions to public education brought little by way of lasting change in the urban school systems that soaked up his money. (See our report cited below.) That's more-or-less the direction a philanthropist would be pointed if he turned to the Ford Foundation's "GrantCraft" project for help. (See www.grantcraft.org.) The education reform case study that it disseminates is something called Project Grad, which began in Houston with the largesse of former Tenneco CEO Jim Ketelson and, with Ford's help, has spread to other cities. It's a well-intentioned program that no doubt is doing good things for a number of children. But its underlying "theory of change" is to pump added resources and expertise into the existing school system-much like Annenberg did. That's not reform. It's better seen as compensation for the system's innate failings.
Is there a better approach? When my colleague Kelly Amis and I took up the topic of effective education-reform philanthropy in our 2001 report Making it Count (see link and ordering instructions below), we concluded that indeed there is. In fact, there are two superior approaches for the donor bent on transforming the system, not simply maintaining-or even incrementally improving-it. Not surprisingly, both work from outside the system and both also happen to be the most prominent and promising education-reform ideas in America today: the standards-testing-accountability strategy and the competition-and-choice strategy.
But that's not all we learned or all you can get. On our website (though not presently available in hard-copy) are seven terrific papers on education philanthropy from which many more lessons can be drawn. (Each can be found in HTML and PDF formats at http://www.edexcellence.net/detail/news.cfm?news_id=318 under the heading "Seven Studies in Education Philanthropy.")
When Education Philanthropy Goes Awry. Bruno Manno and John Barry describe and explain three sizable failures in education philanthropy of the "systemic" variety: the lordly Ford Foundation's own multi-decade, multi-project endeavors, which led to one mess after another (including organizational carnage and racial divisiveness in New York City); the Annie E. Casey Foundation's ambitious "New Futures" project, which produced real gains in a couple of participating cities while causing mischief and ill-will in others (but which Casey has been honest in evaluating, candid in discussing and smart about learning from); and the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, which concluded from its "systemic" efforts that it would be better advised to abandon the field altogether!
Inside Venture Philanthropy. Peter Frumkin of Harvard's Kennedy School suggests that there's less that's original and successful in "venture philanthropy" than its boosters would have us think. "To date," he concludes, "venture philanthropy remains something of an unfulfilled promise. To truly make good on the new language it has created, important breakthroughs are needed in practices that create real distance between venture philanthropy and traditional giving. For now, it is very difficult to find authentic innovations that justify the new terminology. Many of the 'investments' made by venture philanthropists look just like 'grants' made by other donors....The most egregious breaches of clear thinking have been in the area of evaluation, where the rhetoric of measurement and return has outstripped the practices that venture philanthropy has developed to date."
Philanthropy and Teacher Quality. Lew Solmon describes the Teacher Advancement Program of the Milken Family Foundation (where he is senior vice president) and sets forth the terms on which donors should proceed: "Philanthropists that want to boost teacher quality in the United States should work to help change the system of teacher employment. This includes supporting programs that enable effective teachers to progress along meaningful career paths, reward teachers for strong performance, provide ongoing opportunities for teachers to collaborate and get better at what they do, allow capable college graduates to enter the profession without being forced through myriad hoops and hurdles, and/or push the system to rid itself of ineffective teachers."
Evaluating Education Philanthropy in Action. Margaret Raymond (of CREDO, the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford's Hoover Institution) contends that rigorous evaluation is the "missing link" in effective philanthropy-a view she shares with Peter Frumkin-and explains how it can be done better.
Transforming an Education System: Milwaukee's Private Sector Catalyzes Major Change. Journalist Joe Williams provides a thoughtful case study of how business, foundation, and community leaders in Milwaukee shrewdly launched the pathbreaking education reforms for which that city is renowned.
Education Philanthropy for the 21st Century. The University of Washington's Paul Hill conducts a perceptive tour of the intersection between education reform and philanthropy. He poses three large dilemmas that the donor-reformer must resolve: how to improve individual schools without allowing the system to use them as buffers against change; how to support tangible, small-scale initiatives while also addressing underlying system-size problems; and how to invest in new ideas-and ensure that they actually get used. Then he outlines two promising strategies for capitalizing on the private sector's distinctive strengths.
The History of Philanthropy for Education Reform. Leslie Lenkowsky (now CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service) and Indiana University graduate student Emily Spencer provide a thorough and insightful survey of previous efforts to use philanthropy to improve American education, amply illustrating the familiar maxim that, by studying history, we may be able to avoid repeating it.
Indeed, the history of education reform in the United States is intimately entangled with the history of private philanthropy. Surveying the meager record of the former, one can fairly conclude that the latter has not, on the whole, been either smart or effective. If those new trillions entering into the philanthropic arena in the years ahead aren't to be wasted, at least with respect to K-12 education reform, the generous impulses of the heart must begin to be matched by the rigorous engagement of the brain.
"The Newly Rich Are Fueling a New Era in Philanthropy," by Stephanie Strom, The New York Times, April 27, 2002
"Can Philanthropy Fix Our Schools?" Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, April 2000
"Making It Count: A Guide to High-Impact Education Philanthropy," by Chester E. Finn Jr. and Kelly Amis, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, September 2001
Single copies of these and other Fordham Foundation reports (except the "Seven Studies in Education Philanthropy") can be ordered for free by calling 888-823-7474 or emailing [email protected].
