Can Philanthropy Fix Our Schools? Appraising Walter Annenberg's $500 Million Gift to Public Education
April 1, 2000
Case Studies:
New York City by Raymond Domanico
Philadelphia by Carol Innerst
Chicago by Alexander Russo
Afterword by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Marci Kanstoroom
Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction: An Unprecedented Challenge, by Raymond Domanico
- A Small Footprint on the Nation's Largest School System, by Raymond Domanico
- Grant Brings High Hopes, Modest Gains to Philadelphia School Reform Effort, by Carol Innerst
- From Frontline Leader to Rearguard Action: The Chicago Annenberg Challenge, by Alexander Russo
- Afterword: Lessons from the Annenberg Challenge, by Chester E. Finn, Jr. and Marci Kanstoroom
- Bibliography
Foreword
When, in March 2000, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $350 million gift aimed at improving our nation's schools, it made headlines. Their gift overshadowed a $100 million gift to buttress primary school reading in Mississippi, which was announced in January by James Barksdale, the former president of Netscape. Indeed, it seems that scarcely a week goes by without some major donor disclosing his (or her) intention to shower lots of money onto K-12 education in the hopes of making it better.
With all of these philanthropic dollars pouring into education, it's time -- indeed, it's past time -- to ask what is known about how much good these dollars do.
The best-known model for large-scale private giving to foster education reform is Walter Annenberg's $500 million gift to U.S. public education, unveiled with much hoopla and many accolades in December 1993. Ambassador Annenberg's gift combined remarkable personal generosity and civic-mindedness with brave, ambitious words about improving American education. The biggest chunk of the gift was used to fund challenge grants in the nation's nine largest cities. These Annenberg Challenge programs are to end with the current school year, 1999-2000. Believing that the experiences of those cities could provide valuable lessons for future attempts at school reform driven by private giving, we commissioned case studies of three communities' experiences with the Annenberg Challenge.
The authors of these reports take a clear-eyed, honest, and dispassionate look at what happened in New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia. What they find is that Walter Annenberg didn't accomplish what he had hoped. While students in some schools surely benefited from this unprecedented private generosity, the system as a whole was largely unresponsive. Our conclusion is that the main reason these grants didn't accomplish more was because the essential idea on which they were based -- that what public schools most lack is expertise and that talented and motivated outsiders working with the system can provide this -- is itself erroneous.
Three talented investigators looked at the Annenberg Challenge grants:
Raymond Domanico is senior education advisor to the Metro New York Industrial Areas Foundation, a network of community organizers working to organize parents for school improvement. (The views expressed in this paper are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of the Industrial Areas Foundation.) Ray has studied the public education system in New York for over twenty years from a variety of perspectives (including director of data analysis for the New York City Board of Education, director of the Center for Educational Innovation at the Manhattan Institute, and executive director of the Public Education Association). He can be phoned at 516-978-3576 or e-mailed at Rdomanico@mindspring.com.
Carol Innerst is a Pennsylvania-based freelance writer and researcher specializing in education issues. She was formerly an education reporter for the Washington Times and the Philadelphia Bulletin. To contact her, e-mail InnerstC@aol.com or call 717-764-2283.
Alexander Russo is an education writer and consultant whose clients have included the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future as well as the National Association of State Boards of Education. He has also served as legislative policy advisor to Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and as an English teacher. To contact him, e-mail awwrusso@aol.com.
The Thomas B. Fordham Foundation is a private foundation that supports research, publications, and action projects in elementary/secondary education reform at the national level and in the Dayton area. Further information can be obtained from our web site (http://www.edexcellence.net) or by writing us at 1627 K St., NW, Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20006. (We can also be e-mailed through our web site.) This report is available in full on the Foundation's web site, and hard copies can be obtained by calling 1-888-TBF-7474 (single copies are free). The Foundation is neither connected with nor sponsored by Fordham University.
Chester E. Finn, Jr., President
Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
Washington, D.C.
April 2000