Philanthropy gets in the ring - Education - AEI

Philanthropy gets in the ring - Education - AEI: The big shift
Clearly evident is a growing emphasis on three things: advocacy, research, and efforts to upend structural constraints. Although, historically, most foundation giving has focused on programs and practices (e.g., professional development or a new reading program), new efforts have taken to heart the lesson of leverage. A thicket of new advocacy groups now exists to mobilize parents, organize champions of charter schooling or merit pay, and challenge the more traditional powers (like teacher unions and school board associations). Research, most notably the Gates foundation’s $400 million Measures of Effective Teaching project, has started to refine, justify, and build a comfort level with dramatic changes in established policies. Pioneering efforts to upend tenure, remove barriers to charter schooling, or build out data systems create proof points that can reassure skeptical policy makers and offer replicable models.