How school reform became the cause célèbre of billionaires
Bill Gates, school reformer Bill Gates (By Jeffrey MacMillan/For TWP)
Why are billionaire philanthropists at the forefront of school reform? Here’s a primer, from Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the College of the Holy Cross and the author of “Excellence For All: How a New Breed of Reformers Is Transforming America’s Public Schools.”
By Jack Schneider
Educational reform was once the unromantic province of government bureaucrats and community organizers. Today it is the cause célèbre of billionaire philanthropists.
On the one hand, this is a major triumph for school improvement efforts. Deep-pocketed donors have brought unprecedented resources to the table and, with those resources, extraordinary public attention.
On the other hand, the rise of the billionaire reformer has made school improvement an outsider’s game. Making a case for “disruptive” change, philanthropies with names like Broad, Dell, Gates, Fisher, and Walton—working either directly, or through aninfrastructure of nonprofit organizations and political action committees—have won unprecedented influence in the world of education. And in so doing, they have stigmatized state and district leadership, shown a surprising indifference to educational research, and framed school improvement as a process best pursued through common sense.
How did we get here?