Over the past several decades large philanthropies have adopted aggressive approaches to education reform that scholars have labeled venture philanthropy. These efforts focused on broad changes to schooling and education policy, borrowing techniques from the venture capital world. But many foundations have recently become convinced that market forces and macro-level policymaking alone cannot drive educational improvement, particularly in areas related to classroom teaching and learning. In response, foundations have begun to design their own instructional innovations and identify providers to implement them. This paper interprets these recent efforts as early evidence of a distinct adaptation in the evolving role of philanthropies, which we dub design philanthropy. Although this approach represents an attempt by foundations to simultaneously increase democratic engagement, directly influence the instructional core, and spur educational innovation, it poses new risks for coherence, scalability, and sustainability in education policymaking.
BishopM.GreenM. (2008). Philanthrocapitalism: How giving can save the world. Bloomsbury Publishing.
3.
BleibergJ. (2021). Does the common core have a common effect?: An exploration of effects on academically vulnerable students. AERA Open, 7(1), 1–18.
4.
Bush-MecenasS.MarshJ. A. (2018). The DIVE approach: Using case-ordered meta-matrices and theory-based data displays to analyze multiple case study data. In LochmillerC. R. (Ed.), Complementary research methods for educational leadership and policy studies (pp. 33–56). Palgrave Macmillan.
5.
ChildressS.HigginsH.IshimaruA.TakahashiS. (2011). Managing for results at the New York City Department of Education. In O’DayJ. A.BitterC. S.GomezL. M. (Eds.), Education reform in New York City: Ambitious change in the nation’s most complex school system (pp. 87–108). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press.
6.
CoburnC. E. (2016). What’s policy got to do with it? How the structure-agency debate can illuminate policy implementation. American Journal of Education, 122(3), 465–475.
7.
CohenD.MoffittS.GoldinS. (2007). Policy and practice: The dilemma. American Journal of Education, 113(4), 515–548.
8.
CohenD. K.MoffittS. L. (2009). The ordeal of equality: Did federal regulation fix the schools?Harvard University Press.
9.
ColvinR. L. (2005). A new generation of philanthropists and their great ambitions. In HessF. M. (Ed.), With the best of intentions: How philanthropy is reshaping K-12 education (pp. 21–48). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press.
10.
DaruwalaI.BretasS.ReadyD. D. (2021). When logics collide: Implementing technology-enabled personalization in the age of accountability. Educational Researcher, 50(3), 157–164.
11.
ElmoreR. F. (1979). Backward mapping: Implementation research and policy decisions. Political Science Quarterly, 94(4), 601–616.
12.
ElmoreR. F. (2004). School reform from the inside out: Policy, practice, and performance. Harvard Education Press.
GreeneJ. P. (2005). Buckets into the sea: Why philanthropy Isn’t changing schools, and how it could. In HessF. M. (Ed.), With the best of intentions: How philanthropy is reshaping K-12 education (pp. 11–28). Harvard Education Press.
17.
HatchT.AhnM.FergusonD.RumbergerA. (2019). The role of external support in improving K-3 reading outcomes in New York City. Urban Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085919877932
18.
HessF. M. (1999). Spinning wheels: The politics of urban school reform. Brookings Institution Press.
19.
HonigM. I. (2006). Street-level bureaucracy revisited: Frontline district central office administrators as boundary spanners in education policy implementation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 28(4), 357–383.
20.
HubermanM.BitterC.AnthonyJ.O’DayJ. (2014). The shape of deeper learning: Strategies, structures, and cultures in deeper learning network high schools. American Institutes for Research.
21.
IvankovaN. V.CreswellJ. W.StickS. L. (2006). Using mixed-methods sequential explanatory design: From theory to practice. Field Methods, 18(1), 3–20.
22.
LagemannE. C.de ForestJ. (2007). What might Andrew Carnegie want to tell Bill Gates? Reflections on the hundredth anniversary of the Carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. In BacchettiR.EhrlichT. (Eds.), Reconnecting education & foundations: Turning good intentions into educational capital (pp. 47–71). Wiley.
23.
LindblomC. E. (1959). The science of “muddling through”. Public Administration Review, 19(2), 79–88. https://doi.org/10.2307/973677
24.
LipskyM. (1971). Street-level bureaucracy and the analysis of urban reform. Urban Affairs Quarterly, 6(4), 391–409.
25.
LipskyM. (1980). Street level bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the individual in public services. Russell SAGE Foundation.
26.
MajoneG.WildavskyA. (1979). Implementation as evolution. In PressmanJ. L.WildavskyA. B. (Eds.), Implementation: How great expectations in Washington are dashed in Oakland; or, why It’s amazing that federal programs work at all: This being a saga of the economic development administration as told by two sympathetic observers who seek to build morals on a foundation of ruined hopes (3rd ed., pp. 163–180). University of California Press.
McLaughlinM. W. (1991). Learning from experience: Lessons learned from policy implementation. In OddenA. R. (Ed.), Education policy implementation (pp. 185–196). State University of New York Press.
29.
MehtaJ.TelesS. (2012). Jurisdictional politics: A new federal role in education. In HessF. M.KellyA. P. (Eds.), Carrots, sticks, and the bully pulpit: Lessons from a half-century of federal efforts to improve America’s schools (pp. 197–216). Harvard Education Press.
30.
MilesM. B.HubermanA. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2nd ed.). SAGE.
31.
NewmannF. M.SconzertK. (2000). School improvement with external partners. Consortium on Chicago School Research.
32.
NGLC Team. (2013). Press release: Fourth wave of next generation learning challenges to invest $12 million for new schools within grades 6-12. Next Generation Learning Challenges.
33.
O’ConnorA. (1999). The Ford Foundation and philanthropic activism in the 1960s. In LagemannE. C. (Ed.), Philanthropic foundations: New scholarship, new possibilities (pp. 169–194). Indiana University Press.
34.
O’DayJ. A.BitterC. S. (2011). Improving instruction in New York City: An evolving approach. In O’DayJ. A.BitterC. S.GomezL. M. (Eds.), Education reform in New York City: Ambitious change in the nation’s most complex school system (pp. 109–130). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press.
35.
PressmanJ. L.WildavskyA. (1974). Implementation: How great expectations in Washington are dashed in Oakland; or, why It’s amazing that federal programs work at all: This being a saga of the economic development administration as told by two sympathetic observers who seek to build morals on a foundation of ruined hopes. University of California Press.
36.
RavitchD. (2016). The death and life of the great American school system: How testing and choice are undermining education. Basic Books.
37.
ReckhowS.SnyderJ. W. (2014). The expanding role of philanthropy in education politics. Educational Researcher, 43(4), 186–195.
38.
ReckhowS. (2013). Follow the money: How foundation dollars change public school politics. Oxford University Press.
39.
RiehlC. J.EarleH.NagarajanP.SchwitzmanT. E. (2018). Following the path of greatest persistence: Sensemaking, data use, and the everyday practice of teaching. In Nicole BarnesH. F. (Ed.), Cases of teachers’ data use (pp. 30–43). Taylor & Francis Group.
40.
ScottJ. (2009). The politics of venture philanthropy in charter school policy and advocacy. Educational Policy, 23(1), 106–136.
41.
ScottJ.DiMartinoC. (2009). Public education under new management: A typology of educational privatization applied to New York City’s restructuring. Peabody Journal of Education, 84(3), 432–452.
42.
ScottJ.JabbarH. (2014). The hub and the spokes: Foundations, intermediary organizations, incentivist reforms, and the politics of research evidence. Educational Policy, 28(2), 233–257.
43.
SklairJ.GlucksbergL. (2021). Philanthrocapitalism as wealth management strategy: Philanthropy, inheritance and succession planning among the global elite. Sociological Review, 69, 314–329.
44.
SmithM. S.O’DayJ. (1990). Systemic school reform. In FuhrmanS. H.MalenB. (Eds.), Politics of Education Association yearbook 1990. Taylor and Francis.
45.
SongM.YangR.GaretM. (2019). Effects of states’ implementation of College- and Career-Ready Standards on student achievement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Toronto, ON, Canada.
46.
SpillaneJ. P.ReiserB. J.ReimerT. (2002). Policy implementation and cognition: Reframing and refocusing implementation research. Review of Educational Research, 72(3), 387–431.
47.
TalbertJ. E. (2011). Collaborative inquiry to expand student success in New York City schools. In O’DayJ. A.BitterC. S.GomezL. M. (Eds.), Education reform in New York City: Ambitious change in the nation’s most complex school system (pp. 131–157). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press.
48.
Tompkins-StangeM. E. (2016). Policy patrons: Philanthropy, education reform, and the politics of influence. Harvard Education Press.
49.
Tompkins-StangeM. E. (2018). Too big to fail: “Big bets” and constructive failure at the Gates Foundation. In GreeneJ. P.McShaneM. Q. (Eds.), Failure up close: What happens, why it happens, and what we can learn from it. Rowman & Littlefield.
WeickK. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations (Vol. 3). SAGE Publications.
52.
WohlstetterP.SmithJ.GallagherA. (2013). New York City’s children first networks: Turning accountability on its head. Journal of Educational Administration, 51(4), 528–549.
53.
XuZ.CepaK. (2018). Getting college-ready during state transition toward the common core state standards. Teachers College Record, 120(6), n6.
54.
YinR. K. (2016). Case study research and applications: Design and methods (6th ed.). SAGE Publications, Inc.
