CURMUDGUCATION: LAUSD: More Cyber-shenanigans

CURMUDGUCATION: LAUSD: More Cyber-shenanigans:

LAUSD: More Cyber-shenanigans

Karen Wolfe has continued to pay attention to what Los Angeles schools are up to, a necessary activity as LAUSD is under constant siege by folks who would like to see it dismantled and the parts used to feed the LA charter industry. The extra challenge is that many of those folks are working form inside the district itself.

Another batch of consultants heading for an LAUSD board meeting.

Witness the latest growing mess that Wolfe and others have brought into the light with a series of posts. I'm going to give you the bold strokes, but I strongly recommend that you read about this issue here, here, and here.

LAUSD has some previous experience with tech-driven fiascos. There was the ipad disaster, in which a reality-impaired faith in tech power was yoked to some insider dealing ending up in the waste of huge mounds of taxpayer money. And its district-wide student information system (MiSiS) which turned out to have no actual capabilities other than making vendors rich. People love to sell big expensive computer-driven tech systems to LAUSD because-- well, that's a customer with a lot of money.

So here's LAUSD's latest tech initiative:

Some of these seem innocuous enough. Money for phone and connectedness upgrade? Sure.Enterprise reporting-- wait? LAUSD needs to spend $8 million on a system to get reports out of data systems they already have? What the hell kind of data systems do they use that don't actually generate reports?

Learning management system? Okay, all the kids are getting these nowadays, and none of them are great, but they are largely a fact of life. Except that this one (Schoology) is touted as being a huge success in Uruguay. Fun fact: Fred Baxter was once the ambassador to Uruguay, but he was also an international investment banker before ending up on the board of Alliance, a charter chain in LA (the one fighting against unionization by teachers with the help of millions in dark moneydonations). Baxter also has had a Family Foundation that is right in there with the Broad Foundation, helping seed the ground for charters in LA through moves like paying for education coverage in the LA Times.Okay, we may be playing a little too much connect-the-dots, but in LA, as with many other hotbeds of charter-choice promotion, it's hard not to feel that there are well-moneyed wheels within other well-connected wheels. And we should note, not for the CURMUDGUCATION: LAUSD: More Cyber-shenanigans:

Teachers seek to form union at California charter school chaired by Michelle Rhee - The Washington Post

Teachers seek to form union at California charter school chaired by Michelle Rhee - The Washington Post:

Teachers seek to form union at California charter school chaired by Michelle Rhee

Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of D.C. public schools, made a name for herself as one of the nation’s chief critics of teachers unions and a prominent evangelist for charter schools, which are for the most part union-free. Now, Rhee leads a small network of California charter schools — and its teachers are seeking to form a union.

A majority of teachers at Sacramento’s St. Hope Public Schools — founded nearly 15 years ago by Rhee’s husband, former NBA star and Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson — have signed a petition asking to join the Sacramento City Teachers Association, according to the association’s John Borsos. The Sacramento local is affiliated with the powerful California Teachers Association (CTA) and the National Education Association, the nation’s largest labor union.

[Michelle Rhee takes herself out of the running for Trump’s education secretary]

Kingsley Melton, a government teacher at St. Hope’s Sacramento Charter High School, said that he and his colleagues are concerned about what he described as unsustainably high teacher turnover. As much as 40 percent of teachers leave and must be replaced each year, according to Melton, who partly blamed the uncertainty of year-to-year contracts and compensation that can fluctuate unpredictably from one year to the next. The Washington Post could not independently confirm the turnover rate.

“We’re all at-will employees, we have no rights, and our payment swings by $10,000 based on the observations of one often overworked and inconsistent principal,” Melton said. “If you’re young and planning a family, it’s very difficult to gain stability.”

Melton also said he and other teachers have not been able to get clear information about school budgets, and he hopes a contract will improve financial transparency.

In response to a request for comment on the teachers’ complaints and their petition to organize, St. Hope Public Schools released a statement: “The fact the CTA has brought outside media attention to this shows that their priority is on creating national political theatrics. While that’s unfortunate, the focus of St. HOPE Public Schools will remain on students and ensuring they get the education they deserve.”

Rhee, who has served as chair of the St. Hope board since 2014, did not respond to a separate request for comment. She previously founded and led StudentsFirst, an organization that gave her a national platform to advocate for the kinds of policies she pushed for in D.C. and that drew ire from unions, such as evaluating teachers in part based on test scores, firing teachers who perform poorly and giving financial bonuses to those who exceed expectations.

St. Hope is composed of several campuses that together employ roughly 100 teachers, according to the Sacramento union, and that serve more than 1,600 children in kindergarten through 12th grade. St. Hope focuses on preparing low-income and minority children for college.

Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run, and most employ non-unionized teachers. In 2012, 7 percent of charter schoolteachers nationwide Teachers seek to form union at California charter school chaired by Michelle Rhee - The Washington Post:

Big Education Ape: Let's Hear it for Michelle Rhee one more time: Ex-California Sen. Ron Calderon to be sentenced in corruption case | The Sacramento Bee - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/10/lets-hear-it-for-michelle-rhee-one-more.html

Big Education Ape: Make America dumb again: What Michelle Rhee’s meeting with Donald Trump says about the president-elect’s education priorities - Sacramento News & Review - - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/11/make-america-dumb-again-what-michelle.html

Teachers union opens a front on former Sacramento mayor's charter schools - LA Times

Teachers union opens a front on former Sacramento mayor's charter schools - LA Times:

Teachers union opens a front on former Sacramento mayor's charter schools

eachers at a network of Sacramento charter schools founded by former Mayor Kevin Johnson are trying to unionize, citing growing discontent over the schools’ management and high staff turnover.

The four schools, which are operated by St. Hope Public Schools, are a desirable target for a union for political and strategic reasons. Although Johnson no longer oversees them, his wife, Michelle Rhee, is the chairwoman of the organization’s governing board. As the former schools chancellor in Washington, D.C., Rhee was one of the most public faces of a campaign to change how public schools are run and a favorite target of teachers unions.

On Tuesday, the Sacramento City Teachers Assn. announced that more than half of the teachers, psychologists and school counselors at St. Hope Public Schools had signed a petition asking to be represented by the union, an arm of the California Teachers Assn.

If their effort is successful, it could pose a challenge to the charter organization’s leadership. Charter schools, which are publicly funded but operate without many of the restrictions placed on traditional public schools, typically are nonunion.

It would also mean that a majority of the 15 charter schools operating within the Sacramento City Unified School District would be unionized, said John Borsos, executive director of the Sacramento City Teachers Assn.

Borsos said St. Hope teachers had periodically expressed interested in unionizing over the years, but a majority tilted in favor only in the last several months. He declined to say how many signatures the union had gathered.

“We expect we’ll inspire others to follow their lead,” he said, suggesting that staff at other charter schools might make similar attempts. “The more success we’ve had in being able to make improvements in other schools, the more likely educators who are similarly situated are going to see the benefits.”

Kingsley Melton, a teacher at Sacramento High School, which is part of the St. Hope network, said some teachers had decided to unionize after attempts to resolve disputes with the organization’s leadership failed. He said frequent turnover of teachers and administrators and a general “lack of transparency” had fueled the push.

“Our desks are old, we have to fight for resources for kids — and when we asked where the money’s going, we never get a full answer,” he said.

St. Hope officials did not respond to requests for comment. Chief of Schools Shannon Wheatley emailed staff this week to express his disappointment in what he called a “small group of employees who want to form a union.”

Wheatley told them he had worked for a traditional public school “that prioritized the needs of adults before those of children.”

“I came to St. Hope so that I didn’t have to deal with union politics and adult issues dominating the day,” he wrote.Teachers union opens a front on former Sacramento mayor's charter schools - LA Times:

 

WAIT FOR IT

Big Education Ape: KJ and The Art of Deal Making in Sacramento - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2015/07/kj-and-art-of-deal-making-in-sacramento.html

Bill Gates Revenge: Big Education Ape Still Struggling With Technical Difficulties

Bill Gates Revenge: Big Education Ape Still Struggling With Technical Difficulties

Really NFW

How Many Public School Students Are Taught by Certified and Experienced Teachers?

How Many Public School Students Are Taught by Certified and Experienced Teachers?:

How Many Public School Students Are Taught by Certified and Experienced Teachers?

The vast majority of U.S. students in public schools are taught by certified and experienced teachers, according to data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Roughly 94%  of students were taught by a state-certified teacher in the 2011–12 school year – the most recent figures available from the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS), which includes questions about the sampled teacher’s state teaching certification.

When it comes to actual years of experience, the same survey revealed that 80% of students had a teacher with more than 5 years of experience. Specifically, 23% were taught by teachers with 6–10 years of experience, 20% by teachers with 11–15 years, 23% by teachers with 16–25 years, and 14% by teachers with 26 or more years.

NCES also looked for trends in the 2013 and 2015 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) annual report cards, which look specifically at grades 4 and 8 in math and reading. Based on that data,  92% of 4th-graders and 90 percent of 8th-graders in 2015 were taught by a state-certified math teacher – a slight dip from 2013. And about 76% of 4th-graders and about 75% of 8th-graders in 2015 had a math teacher with more than five years of experience.

Both sets of data, however, reveal that percentages differed by various school and student characteristics. For example, some students groups – in particular, Black students, Hispanic students, students in high-minority schools, and students eligible for free-or reduced lunch – were somewhat less likely to have a state-certified teacher. In general, they were also less likely to be taught by teachers having more than 5 years of teaching experience and with a postsecondary degree in the subject area in which they teach.

Source: Certification Status and
Experience of U.S. Public
School Teachers, National Center for Education Statistics

There were also apparent gaps in city schools compared to those in rural and suburban areas. In 2015, approximately 91% of 8th-graders had a reading teacher who had state certification. But the percentage was lower for students in urban schools (89%) than in suburbs (93%). In addition, in schools with high-minority enrollment (75% or more), the percentage was 4 points lower than in schools with lower minority enrollment.

The percentages for both certified and experienced teachers in both groups of data, however, did not appear to vary by student disability status, English language learner status, or grade level.

What Happens as the Teacher Shortage Deepens?

The teacher shortage that is being felt in many parts of the country has triggered concerns that states are being forced to skirt certification requirements and lower the bar on qualifications in order to fill empty slots. There is a “coming crisis in the How Many Public School Students Are Taught by Certified and Experienced Teachers?:

NYC Public School Parents: Urgent! Please contact Congress today -- urge them NOT to cut funds for class size reduction!

NYC Public School Parents: Urgent! Please contact Congress today -- urge them NOT to cut funds for class size reduction!:

Urgent! Please contact Congress today -- urge them NOT to cut funds for class size reduction!

It was just reported that Congress will vote early this week on an education budget that would cut Title IIA funds by $300 million — which are used by districts across the country to keep teachers on 
staff and prevent class size increases.


In NYC, 100% of these funds or $101 million are spent to fund approximately 1000 teaching positions. President Trump’s budget would eliminate these funds altogether for the following year.


Please write Congress today: Urge them NOT to cut Title IIA funds. Already more than 300,000 NYC students are sitting in classes of 30 or more.


As I explained in a recent piece in Alternet, districts throughout the country have already lost thousands of teaching positions since the Great Recession which were never replaced — increasing class sizes to sky-high levels.


For more on the myriad, proven benefits of smaller classes, check out our research summary here. But please write to Congress today by clicking here.



 NYC Public School Parents: Urgent! Please contact Congress today -- urge them NOT to cut funds for class size reduction!:

PolitiFact Florida: How not-for-profit are charter schools, really? | Tampa Bay Times

PolitiFact Florida: How not-for-profit are charter schools, really? | Tampa Bay Times:

PolitiFact Florida: How not-for-profit are charter schools, really?

Florida lawmakers who support the expansion of charter schools have adopted a single talking point to explain how the schools are managed.

Rep. Bob Cortes, R-Altamonte Springs, faced a series of questions from Rep. David Richardson, D-Miami Beach, after introducing HB 7101, one of several measures in the legislative session that would increase access to charter schools.

Like public schools, charter schools receive state funds. The key difference is they are privately managed.

Richardson was curious about the bill's provision that specifies that a charter school operator may use assets of their charter school for K-12 educational purposes in "other schools."

"These other schools, would they also have to be a not-for-profit or could they be a for-profit?" Richardson asked.

Cortes said, "They would have to be a school within their own network. So part of the charter school system itself."

"So does that mean the other schools would have to be a 501(c)(3)?" Richardson asked.

"All charter schools are not-for-profit," Cortes said.

HB 7101 passed by a 81-39 vote.

The same argument resurfaced in debate of "schools of hope" legislation that would create a $200 million fund to lure charter schools to underperforming districts. Rep. Manny Diaz Jr., R-Hialeah, said, "Under Florida state statute, a charter school is a nonprofit organization, so there is no such thing in Florida as a for-profit charter school."

The point jumped out because there have been instances of charter schools being used to benefit people privately.

Florida law technically requires charter schools to be nonprofits. But the system is largely run by for-profit companies, which Cortes left out.

Not-for-profit, or not?

Cortes cited a provision of a Florida statute (1002.33 sec 12(i)) as evidence of this claim, which mandates that a charter must organize as, or be operated by, a nonprofit organization.

A not-for-profit is a type of organization that does not earn profits for its owners.

The Florida Department of Education echoed Cortes' evidence.

Audrey Walden, the agency's press secretary, said the defining document that sets the academic, financial and organizational performance benchmarks for a charter school is determined by the local school district and the nonprofit charter school board.

The charter governing board can choose to enter into contracts with private entities to provide services and support.

"But, ultimately, performance and accountability rests with the nonprofit governing board, which, when it enters into a charter agreement with its local school district, is subject to the same Sunshine Laws and School Accountability System that pertains to all public schools in Florida," she said.

Not all charter schools operate in the same way. And sometimes nonprofit charter governing boards enter into contract with for-profit companies.

The management company does not manage the governing board; rather, it handles certain aspects of the operations of the school under a contract with the governing board.

The Miami Herald's examination of South Florida's charter school industry found several instances of for-profit management companies controlling charter schools' day-to-day operations.

The Herald found examples of charter schools relinquishing total control of their staff and finances to for-profit management companies. In Miami-Dade County, the Life Skills Center paid 97 percent of its income to cover fees incurred by a management company.

Then, the governing board of two affiliated schools tried to "eject" the management company's managers. As a result, the management company withheld money from the school and threatened to press charges against people within the school who were trying to get the money back.

The Herald also found that some owners of the management companies also control the land and buildings used by the charter school. Owners of Academica Corp., the state's largest charter school management company based in South Miami, collected almost $19 million a year in lease payments on PolitiFact Florida: How not-for-profit are charter schools, really? | Tampa Bay Times:

How Charter School Operators Enrich Themselves In Real Estate

How Charter School Operators Enrich Themselves In Real Estate:

How Charter School Operators Enrich Themselves In Real Estate

As the Trump administration plans to redirect taxpayer billions to privatize K-12 education, a scholarly article by some of the nation’s leading investigators of charter school rip-offs has highlighted how their business model is prone to fiscal self-dealing.

The article by Preston C. Green, Bruce D. Baker and Joseph O. Oluwole has the dense title, “Are Charter Schools the Second Coming of Enron?: An Examination of the Gatekeepers That Protect Against Dangerous Related-Party Transactions in the Charter School Sector?” But its analysis is striking, comparing corporate management practices at five large schools to the financial shell game that occurred at Enron, the Texas-based energy conglomerate that imploded a dozen years ago.

On the surface, Enron was in the energy business. But behind closed doors, it was engaged in an array of dubious investments and transactions that helped its top executives amass wealth. The charter schools cited in their report similarly present a public face of being alternative public schools. But their founders also used an array of financial tactics, especially involving school real estate deals, to become rich by diverting millions from their classrooms.

Nationwide, 43 states and the District of Columbia have 6,800 charters serving 2.9 million students. They comprise 6 percent of K-12 public school enrollment, which has increased six-fold in the last 15 years. When states approved the first charters in the 1990s, the idea was to nurture locally accountable experimental schools. However, since then a K-12 privatization industry has emerged that is dominated by companies seeking to create regional or national brands, akin to any other corporate franchise. These larger charter operations tend to have non-profit and for-profit arms, which can mask an array of complicated financial relationships.

The charter industry’s largest operations often are run by what’s called educational management organizations, EMOs, which “now control 35-to-40 percent of the industry with an estimated 45 percent of charter students,” the scholars said. These sophisticated operations can attract private investors because they can use their status as schools to get large tax breaks, which, in turn, are applied to a range of profit-making ventures that have nothing to do with educating under-served communities.

“Charter schools attract investors because of the potential for new revenue streams,” the authors said. “For instance, the New Market Tax Credits (NMTC) program provides investors the How Charter School Operators Enrich Themselves In Real Estate:

Major weaknesses of New Orleans charter schools have been laid bare - Salon.com

Major weaknesses of New Orleans charter schools have been laid bare - Salon.com:

Major weaknesses of New Orleans charter schools have been laid bare

Louisiana state standards are among the lowest in the nation, and the charter school lobby is only making it worse

New Orleans is the nation’s largest and most complete experiment in charter schools. After Hurricane Katrina, the State of Louisiana took control of public schools in New Orleans and launched a nearly complete transformation of a public school system into a system of charter schools. Though there are spots of improvement in the New Orleans charter system, major problems remain.

Many of these problems were on display in New Orleans when the NAACP, which last year called for a moratorium on charter schools until issues of accountability and transparency were addressed, held a community forum in New Orleans on charters.  The New Orleans hearing, which can be viewed here, featured outraged students, outraged parents, and dismayed community members reciting a litany of the problems created by the massive change to a charter school system. The single most powerful moment came when a group of students from Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools took the podium and detailed the many ways the system has failed and excluded them from participating in its transformation.

“We really wanted to share what happens in our schools” writes 18 year old Big Sister Love Rush in an article on the challenges the students face. “How the few permanent teachers we have work so hard for us, how so many classes are ran by short term substitutes, how food runs out at meal times, and how we worry if our school’s reputation is good enough to support us in getting into the college or careers we want.  We shared how we face two hour commutes to and from school, are forced to experiment with digital learning with systems like Odyssey, are punished for having the wrong color sweater, or how we worry about being able to attend a school that will give us the education we need.”

In summary, the NAACP heard that they charter system remains highly segregated by race and economic status.  Students have significantly longer commutes to and from school.  The percentage of African American teachers has declined dramatically leaving less experienced teachers who are less likely to be accredited and less likely to remain in the system.  The costs of administration have gone up while resources for teaching have declined.  Several special select schools have their own admission process which results in racially and economically different student bodies.  The top administrator of one K-12 system of three schools is paid over a quarter of a million dollars.  Students with disabilities have been ill served. Fraud and mismanagement, which certainly predated the conversion to charter schools, continue to occur. Thousands of students are in below average schools. Students and parents feel disempowered and ignored by the system.

The birthing of the charter system occurred in 2005 when the community was displaced by Katrina.  Control of the public school system was taken away from a board which had an elected majority of African American officials and was given to the white majority board of the state system.

The first casualty of the abrupt change was the termination of the South’s largest local union and the firing of over 7000 most African American female teachers. Attorney Willie Zanders told the NAACP of the years of struggle for those teachers which, though initially successful, ended in bitter defeat years later. The city’s veteran black educators were replaced by younger, less qualified white teachers from Teach for America and Teach NOLA.

The change to charters reduced the percentage of black teachers from 74 percent to 51 percent. There are now fewer experienced teachers, fewer accredited teachers, Major weaknesses of New Orleans charter schools have been laid bare - Salon.com:

What you should know about school vouchers | Newsday

What you should know about school vouchers | Newsday:

What you should know about school vouchers

THE BOTTOM LINE

Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos remain committed to privately managed school choice funded by public tax dollars, despite a sordid racial history, opposition from the civil rights community, state constitutional problems, and the proven failure of the approach to help students.

President Donald Trump has proposed cutting after-school programs for young children as well as grants and federal work-study programs for college students. But his most significant attack on public education may be his pledge to spend $20 billion on market-based school choice, including charter schools and vouchers.

Conventional voucher policies exist in 16 states. Taxpayers in those states help pay private-school tuition for about 175,000 students each year. Education savings accounts that let states circumnavigate constitutional language against public funding for private and religious organizations are used in 17 states and generate another 250,000 vouchers annually.

Before the public embraces Trump’s plans to create even more vouchers, there are important things it should know about the voucher concept’s origination.

Milton Friedman, a University of Chicago economist and apostle of free-market fundamentalism, believed corporations should be able to profit from education. In 1997, he wrote an article arguing that vouchers were “a means to make a transition from a government to a market system,” to enable “a private, for-profit industry to develop” and ultimately abolish public schools.

In 1955, Friedman also wrote that he didn’t believe in government-sponsored integration of schools. Southern politicians agreed and used vouchers to create what were called “segregation academies” for whites only.

Proponents of school vouchers overlook this history and frame vouchers as a “limited” approach to help poor children in cities — even claiming they are a civil right.

The political argument that market-based school choice is the answer for long-standing inequalities in the American education system is at odds with the positions of most national civil rights organizations. The NAACP and Urban League agree that vouchers, in the words of a civil rights leadership conference report, “siphon away all-too-limited public education funds and fail to provide protection from What you should know about school vouchers | Newsday:

If You Can't Get Ann Coulter as Commencement Speaker Which Right Wing Fruitcake Do You Call (hint BD) | theGrio

Bethune-Cookman University selects Betsy DeVos as commencement speaker | theGrio:

If You Can't Get Ann Coulter as Commencement Speaker Which Right Wing Fruitcake Do You Call (hint BD)

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will deliver the commencement address at Bethune-Cookman University’s graduation on May 10, the school’s Office of the President confirmed Monday.

Rumors had been swirling that DeVos would address the undergraduate students.  One alum  even started a Change.org petition to stop her from speaking.

The Office of the President told theGrio.com an official statement would be sent out later Monday.

DeVos’ confirmation did not come without controversy. The vote divided the Senate in a 50-50 split and eventually required Vice President Mike Pence to cast break the tie. Since she was officially confirmed, DeVos has been met with protests and demonstrations during her national tour visiting schools.

*Update*

Bethune-Cookman University has released the following statement regarding Betsy DeVos’ commencement speech:

The Honorable Betsy DeVos will be the keynote speaker for B-CU spring 2017 commencement ceremony on May 10thlocated at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach (101 N Atlantic Ave). Secretary DeVos is the 11th U.S. Secretary of Education and serves as an education policy advocate for students across the country. Over the last three decades, DeVos has devoted her career in support of the opportunity for a quality educational experience for students.

Much like Dr. Bethune, Founder of Bethune-Cookman University, Secretary DeVos 

Bethune-Cookman University selects Betsy DeVos as commencement speaker | theGrio:

Racism in Philanthropy: Effective Practices for Grantmakers | Schott Foundation for Public Education

Racism in Philanthropy: Effective Practices for Grantmakers | Schott Foundation for Public Education:

Racism in Philanthropy: Effective Practices for Grantmakers

“Now more than ever before, philanthropy must apply a racial justice lens to its grantmaking and other community engagement efforts. And we must look inside our own walls to be sure we’re practicing what we preach,” said Edgar Villanueva, Schott Foundation vice-president of programs and advocacy.

“We must also be honest and come to terms with the power dynamics that exist between philanthropy and community-based nonprofits that can contribute to barriers to authentic engagement.”

So began a brave and open conversation during our April 21 webinar, “Racism in Philanthropy: Effective Practices for Grantmakers,” which brought together

• Chris Cardona, program officer, philanthropy at the Ford Foundation
• Carly Hare, national director and coalition catalyst of Change Philanthropy
• Michael McAfee, president of PolicyLink

The hour sought to begin a broader dialogue challenging philanthropies to examine themselves as they encourage communities and organizations to achieve racial equity. Foundation staff and board members are overwhelmingly white, and the origins of philanthropy in the United States involve wealth creation at the expense of and to the detriment of people of color. In addition, internal practices at foundations often perpetuate inequities.

“We are 100 years into organized philanthropic institutional giving,” Hare instructed. “And that legacy was built in a time frame that did not consider racial justice, social justice, community engagement as a high priority.”

“So we’re navigating that system and there are many of us in the field working as change agents to shift conversations, opportunity, dialogue and really have some opportunities to speak truth to power.”

Cardona offered that grantmakers need to be mindful of our contribution to the problem while using these problems as motivation to improve: “We need to recognize that the very institutions in which we work are part of the problem,” he said. But rather than be paralyzed by anxiety and guilt, recognition of philanthropy’s power and privilege, “should be a motor to propel this work forward.”

McAfee encouraged foundations to not conflate charity and transformation. The former means giving without regard to driving change, and he noted that many philanthropies operate from a charitable perspective but get frustrated because they’ve not been intentional about wanting to see systemic changes in the communities they fund. He also said foundations needed to be transparent about not always knowing what is required to move equity work forward and they need to embrace the fact that sometimes our constituents will not be happy with the tough decisions that must be made. But above all, “Our leadership voice has to be able to put race, class, gender and all of these intersections at the center in the work.”

Each speaker highlighted the importance of addressing biases and inequities of our internal operations. Cardona, for example, pointed out that there is a lack of understanding of the role of implicit bias in hiring and grantmaking. Hare echoed this idea, recommending that philanthropists do an internal analysis of policies around hiring, participation, grantmaking, and community engagement. She said there is a discomfort in addressing the topics of white supremacy, privilege, and access in philanthropy.

There is clearly a need for more discussion about race and ethnicity in philanthropy, but more than just talk is required to produce change. We need action. McAfee explained that language and frames have become the end product instead of the accelerant, but “people in Flint are still afraid to drink the water… Let’s stop being intoxicated by the frame and move results to scale.”

Hare suggested being honest about what our own organizations can, cannot and simply will not do. She said organizations have the power to set these boundaries. When it comes to the lack of diversity within our institutions, Cardona said we “need a mix of perspectives and lived experiences to make wise decisions.” McAfee’s call to action was a reminder of the transformation we can create, if we challenge ourselves, look at internal flaws, and constantly improve. “Philanthropy must own its power to set civic agendas,” he said.

What do you think? Share your thoughts about race and philanthropy on Twitter using #GrassrootsEd. Click here to tweet about this webinar.

Racism in Philanthropy: Effective Practices for Grantmakers | Schott Foundation for Public Education: