Revealed: Why Funders Can’t Change K-12 Educational Practices
L.S. Hall
We’re all familiar with the most common criticisms leveled at funders such as Gates, Broad, and Walton, and their efforts to reform public education. Critics charge that these and other foundations are on a crusade to privatize public schooling, that they stifle the voices of educators and the public, and that they have no accountability when their experiments go badly.
In a paper presented at a recent American Enterprise Institute conference on education philanthropy, education Professor Larry Cuban of Stanford University examines these criticisms. He finds the claims of a privatization agenda to be largely hyperbole that ignores the broader societal embrace of market-driven reforms. On the second criticism, Cuban finds that by pushing reforms that have the effect of greater centralization of education policy, reduced participation by educators and citizens has been an unintended consequence.
He further agrees that there is no accountability for funders when their initiatives are unsuccessful. Such concerns are legitimate, especially when applied to public education, traditionally seen as one of our most democratic institutions. Cuban points out that concerns about the accountability and influence of foundations are not new and extend as far back as 1915, when then-U.S. Senator Frank Smith branded foundations a “menace to the welfare of society.”
But amid these criticisms of education philanthropy, Cuban contends that a larger, more important, question is not being asked: namely, why are Gates, Broad, and other funders continuing to spend such large sums to improve academic performance despite such minimal results in changing classroom teaching practices and student learning?
The answer, according to Cuban, can be found in the assumptions that drive most funder-driven educational reforms, as well as the large gap that separates the perspectives of policymakers and funders who think up grand policy reforms from the perspectives of the educators who are tasked with carrying them out.
In the funder worldview, low student achievement is the result of schools with no competition, low standards, teachers unions that fight change, and administrators wedded to the status quo. So funders helped create new schools by putting millions into charter schools, developed the Common Core, and created new pipelines for educators and principals through such organizations as Teach For America and the Broad Superintendents Academy. However, these and other systemic reforms have yet to translate into broad improvements in student achievement.
Among other things, more competition doesn't work magic, as many funders have hoped. Meanwhile, the total number of students in alternative schools is small. Less than five percent of all K-12 students are enrolled in public charter schools.
This leads to Cuban’s next criticism; namely, funders’ overreliance on public policy as a means to improve education. It is understandable that foundations would choose this route. Most funders seek systemic reforms, Revealed: Why Funders Can’t Change K-12 Educational Practices - Inside Philanthropy: Fundraising Intelligence - Inside Philanthropy: