Can philanthropy ‘fix’ public education?

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Special to Philanthropy Journal

Damon Circosta

There is a battle going on in North Carolina, where I work, and across the country for the future of public education. In the fog of war, sometimes it’s tough to tell who is on what side. Everyone wants to ascend to the mantle of “champion for kids” or “reformers of education,” and everyone fervently believes their solution is the winner.

As the debate about public education has become increasingly polarized in the last decade, the sharp partisanship draws frustration from frustrated parents whose objective is to send their kid to a great school.

Meanwhile, another interesting trend continues.  Private philanthropic organizations continue to find ways to support strengthening our schools. The headlines speak for themselves: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Commits $350 Million Nationally To Help Students Succeed in the Classroom, Annenberg to Give Education $500 Million Over Five Years, and Mark Zuckerberg Giving $100 Million to Newark Schools.

For context, America spends more than $500 billion a year on public elementary and secondary education. States typically provide a little less than half, local governments about 44 percent, and the federal government contributes about 13 percent of all direct expenditures.

Philanthropists, by contrast, only spend about $4 billion annually. You need a good education to do the math, which equals just 0.008 percent of total expenditures. Though it’s a drop in the bucket, this private money is having a growing influence on public education. 

The flexibility that philanthropic dollars provide can help spur innovation in our public schools. But foundation money injected into the public school system is merely an opportunity. There are no guarantees that a grant will “fix” public schools.

In my limited experience working to fund education initiatives, here are some issues that we strive to address:

Know Your Limits
As states continue to feel the pinch of the recession, and public school funding does not keep pace with enrollment, foundations are increasingly being asked to send resources to our public schools. But as philanthropists, we must understand our place in a large, complex system. In 1972, the Ford Foundation published a critique of its own education reform efforts during the 1960s. The report observed that the foundation’s projects “underestimated the complexity of improving schools” and did not fully account for the difficulty of working with unions, community leaders and parents, or the effect of broader social conditions. Let this be a lesson for us going forward. 

Fund Innovation
Foundation funds are not large enough to the fill budget gaps left when public revenue decreases. We shouldn’t even attempt to pick up the slack when public dollars fall short. Instead, our money is best spent on programs that are experimental in nature, not plugging holes. It’s been said that foundation dollars can be the “passing gear” of society. As such we should always look to rev the engines of something new, even if it means a greater risk that we will fail.

Invest in Talent
The lion’s share of grant funding goes to pay for salaries.  We need to invest that money in talented people who are doing innovative work. There is no shortage of remarkable talent in public schools, from the classroom teacher to local superintendents. Identify those who are making a mark, support their work and pay them well enough to keep them in public schools. 

Stay Local
A scathing critique of the Annenberg Challenge in the 1990s concluded that the reason this funding was largely a failure is because the program was based on the notion that failing public schools simply needed expertise from talented and motivated outsiders. Public education is a huge enterprise in this country. Philanthropic dollars work best when they are used to identify a specific, local problem. This strategy builds greater trust between partners and foundations don’t try to bite off more than they can chew.

Be a Cheerleader
While our public education system undeniably needs reform, we must remain positive and humble. Harping on the words “failure” and “broken” is unhelpful to our efforts. Nor is it helpful to pretend that philanthropy can save the day. It might feel good to couch a grant as the “winning ticket” for a school, but it does a disservice to all of the wonderful, important things that others do for public schools. We must be the outspoken and optimistic cheerleaders on the side, sticking up for public education and believing in its success.

Bring Your Friends With You
Too often, I see grant makers get really excited about a project and then restrict the ability of other interested funders to join the effort. The best school improvement projects I’ve seen are ones that have multiple funding streams and buy-in from a broad swath of the community. If you find a project worth investing in, let your grant-making friends know they can share in the work and outcome.

There are very few institutions in our increasingly segmented society that have the opportunity to bring people together like public schools. Our government is polarized, our churches are segregated and we have even begun again to live apart from one another. If we invest in the right strategies, we strengthen an institution that democratizes and unites us. Education provides for our country’s future. It’s vitally important that we get this right.

Damon Circosta is the executive director of the A.J. Fletcher Foundation, which provides operational funding for Philanthropy Journal.

Jeff Raikes on Philanthropy

This blog post was originally published on Impatient Optimists

Jeff Raikes on Philanthropy

Welcome to my new blog series on Impatient Optimists, where I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the Gates Foundation and philanthropy. Every six weeks I’ll be posting a new blog discussing a pressing issue at the foundation or addressing some of the challenges and opportunities facing the philanthropic community. More than anything else, this is a space for a conversation. So please submit your questions, share your feedback, and let me know if there are any topics you would like to hear about.

For my first post, I want to discuss a challenge at the foundation that’s been on my mind lately. It’s called the “innovation pile up”. Let me explain.

At the Gates Foundation, we believe in the power of innovation to improve lives. That’s why over the last decade we’ve invested in one of the fattest pipelines of lifesaving technologies the health and development world has ever seen. A new, rapid diagnostic test for tuberculosis that will help reduce transmission of the disease. Better tools to enable women to plan their families. Even improved toilets that provide clean sanitation for the world’s poorest people. In all, the foundation and its partners have developed more than 100 new innovations that are available today or scheduled to be introduced by the end of the decade.

That’s the good news.

Here’s the bad news:  None of these innovations will make a difference if they can’t reach the people we aim to serve. 

Many obstacles stand in their way. Some public health systems in the developing world lack staff, training, or infrastructure to take advantage of these new tools and technologies. Regulatory agencies can be slow to approve new drugs and devices. Market forces may make it difficult to introduce these new products. Then, there are actual roadblocks. Transportation systems and roadways may be so bad – or nonexistent -- that just getting these new tools safely to the people who need them is a challenge. Finally, even if new drugs and tools arrive in remote villages, cultural practices may dissuade people from adopting them.

That’s why we need to get smarter at delivering these innovations. If we don’t, we risk not improving and saving as many lives as we could. 

At the foundation, this challenge has been dubbed the “innovation pile-up,” and solving it is one of my top priorities. As part of the re-organization of our global programs, which I outlined in my 2011 Annual Report letter, we are now balancing our research and development efforts with a greater focus on how these innovations will get delivered. Chris Elias, our new president of Global Development, brings decades of on-the-ground experience in heath and development. He is leading our work to better understand the obstacles to introducing and scaling access to new tools and technologies and how we can overcome them.

We’ve already learned a lot about effective delivery from our work on vaccines. We have a better understanding of the best funding mechanisms for new vaccines and the most reliable ways to deliver them safely to the remotest health clinics. Thanks to these efforts we are on track to significantly scale up the delivery of lifesaving vaccines in developing countries and prevent the deaths of millions of children under 5 by the end of the decade.

Now we need to build on this success and ensure other promising technologies reach the people who need them the most. We are exploring ways to integrate some of these new innovations into existing delivery systems. For example, a new, easy-to-use injectable contraceptive that would provide women living in remote areas a simple, effective family planning tool will likely be introduced through family planning programs already operating in these countries. 

Other existing innovations will require new delivery systems and business models to be successful. Consider the challenge of expanding access to a simple, lifesaving product like the mosquito coil. The spiral-shaped, insect-repelling incense has the potential to protect families from malaria-carrying mosquitoes. But the cost – even at pennies per day – remains out of financial reach for many of the world’s poorest families. Donors may be able to help drive down the costs for these families, but there hasn’t been much interest in this solution without more data on the impact of wide-scale coil use. That’s why we’re working to fill this knowledge gap by funding new research studies. We’re also exploring next-generation mosquito repellents that would last for months, cost less, and not require burning. All of these solutions will require the cooperation and partnership of governments, the private sector, and consumers to be successful.

These are tough challenges. But I’m confident we can overcome them. We now have a team dedicated to speeding up the delivery of existing innovations and finding new system delivery models for entirely new innovations. More importantly, we will be listening closely to the people who will benefit from these innovations. By understanding their needs, we can design the best solutions and most effective ways of delivering them. Working together, we will realize the full potential of these innovations, and, in doing so, help the people we serve realize the full potential of their own lives.

Jeff Raikes is the chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Click here to view the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Annual Report.