With Strings Attached?

Big-money benefactors are stepping up donations to
education, but their largesse often comes with an agenda. 

In recent years, philanthropic donations to education have gotten much bigger than the local restaurant’s Field Day sponsorship. In 2000, one of every seven dollars given to charity went to an educational institute, including nearly $25 billion in grants from private foundations, says the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Those foundations and institutes are often led by business leaders hoping to reshape education reform by directing their dollars to their own preferred projects. Those range from small schools to charter schools to new routes for nontraditional teachers and administrators, says Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, author of With the Best of Intentions: How Philanthropy Is Reshaping the Landscape of K–12 Education.

In return, donors often demand private sector-style accountability, including, at times, links between money and test scores. They often manage to steer education policy, using their money and their celebrity, without public input. For example, in 2004, the Walton Family Foundation contributed more than $6 million to efforts in New York to improve charter schools. It spent more than $17 million on voucher efforts or private school scholarships.
So are all of these gift horses to be turned away? Not so fast. This year, NEA leaders have been talking with the Gates Foundation and other foundations about how we can work together and how they can work with state affiliates. “This is a brand-new venture for us…with incredible possibilities,” said NEA’s Rufina Hernández.

And, of course, there’s always our favorite philanthropic organization to consider: The NEA Foundation. This year, it awarded $250,000 to Seattle Public Schools to help close achievement gaps, and it also provides individual grants to public school employees. For more information, visit the NEA Foundation .