What Is Going on in Education Philanthropy? Here Are the Currents Shaking Up the Field

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Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part series about a wave of disruption in the world of education philanthropy. In the first installment, we took stock of changes underway at major K-12 funders and how it’s impacting grantees. Here, we explore the trends in education, philanthropy and politics that are reshaping the field.

High-dollar philanthropy for K-12 education is in a state of flux, and nonprofits working in the field are feeling the consequences. Leading ed funders such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative have shifted their strategies in recent years, and several others are currently undergoing changes in leadership or reevaluating their own funding programs. Grantees are reporting funding cuts, and many are in a state of consternation about where the field is headed next.

While the diffuse nature of philanthropy makes it difficult to track funding levels in the moment, it’s clear from talking with a number of consultants, fundraisers and funders themselves that the ground is shifting in K-12 philanthropy. That’s in large part due to tough challenges facing America’s schools, both new and ongoing. Meanwhile, currents in national politics and high-dollar philanthropy alike have shaken up a once hard-charging strain of giving.

There’s no single explanation; a number of factors appear to be contributing to the current disquiet in K-12 philanthropy. But many of the people I spoke with suggested that funders are discouraged because, after years of hefty financial commitments, the needle of student achievement has moved so little. In one recent measure, National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores released in June showed an alarming decline in test scores among 13-year-olds. The scores reflected “the single largest drop in math scores in 50 years and no signs of academic recovery following the disruptions of the pandemic,” according to the Washington Post. 

These persistent struggles are, to some extent, understandable. The American school system is massive, complex and resistant to sweeping change, regardless of the size of the philanthropic investment. Schools are also still reeling from the pandemic, one of the most difficult chapters in the modern history of education. But there is some sense that major donors are frustrated and struggling to identify next steps.

“I think what we’re seeing is fatigue among some funders,” said Frances Messano, CEO of NewSchools Venture Fund. “There is a loss of hope and optimism. I think a lot of folks are wondering if their money is best put to work in other sectors on other pressing social issues at this moment.”

Nonprofit consultant Ruth Richerson made a similar point. “We are all ready to see sustained change,” she said. “Stories about positive results in a school here or a district there are encouraging, but we all want to see the conditions change so those bright spots become the norm.” 

The charter movement loses steam

Part of that fatigue may have to do with the spotty track record of charter schools. For a period during the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s, charter schools were widely considered the answer to all that was ailing public education. At the time, charters had bipartisan support; they were championed by political leaders on both sides of the aisle and by a number of megawatt ed funders. 

In her book “The Death of Public School,” Chalkbeat Editor Cara Fitzpatrick credits the charter sector’s rapid growth “to the embrace of charter schools by wealthy philanthropists like Bill Gates, Eli Broad and Sam Walton,” who deployed their foundations in support of this education model, along with other education initiatives. The Doris and Donald Fisher Fund also backed charters, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was a charter advocate, and one of Mark Zuckerberg’s first forays into philanthropy was his investment in Newark charter schools. But over time, high-profile charter scandals dampened some of that enthusiasm, as did the fact that isolated charter successes have failed to scale more widely.

University of Massachusetts professor Jack Schneider described the disenchantment of many former charter supporters. “The kinds of systemic transformation promised by many charter school boosters — that the introduction of competition into the system would lead to all schools improving — never materialized,” said Schneider, who co-authored The Education Wars and co-hosts the Have You Heard education podcast with Jennifer Berkshire. “Similarly, the claims about innovation, creative experimentation, and a thousand flowers blooming also never materialized.” Schneider acknowledged that some isolated charter networks have boosted test scores, but said that hasn’t translated into impressive long term outcomes, like college graduation, for charter students. 

At the same time, polarized U.S. politics have made bipartisan agreement on anything, including education, increasingly difficult. Many prominent conservatives have moved on from the charter model in favor of education vouchers in recent years, an approach that has the enthusiastic backing of Republican political leaders and conservative funders alike. 

“Charter schools and school choice were synonymous for more than a decade,” Schneider explained. “Now, school choice means all kinds of things, but especially vouchers. Many on the center-left, who oppose vouchers, thought that charter schools were a kind of lasting compromise between the right and the left. But for those on the right, charter schools were always a waystation on the way toward a policy mechanism that better aligns with the ideological commitment to free markets and individual choice.” 

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party today has fewer charter champions. “I’m not a charter fan,” candidate Joe Biden declared during his presidential campaign. The administration proposed rules that have angered charter backers, and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, a public school educator for two decades, has been outspoken in his support for traditional public schools, as have teachers and the national teachers unions. 

Kevin Hall, the CEO of the Charter School Growth Fund, disagreed with the assessment that the charter movement is flagging. “There's more than 3 million students in charter schools,” he pointed out. “Enrollment continues to grow and new schools continue to open, even in places like California and New York City, where that's really hard to accomplish. And there are charter schools opening in Texas, Idaho, Colorado and Arizona. I think that one of the fundamental ideas behind public charter schools is continuing to take hold: the idea that parents should have a lot more ability to choose where to send their child, and that their preferences actually matter. I think that's important and I think that's not going away.”

Hall also brushed off the notion that funders as a group are backing away from charter schools, pointing to regional funders in many states, and also to major charter backers like Bloomberg Philanthropies, which has made a massive investment in this education model. And, of course, other funders like the Walton Family Foundation and the Ballmer Group continue to support charter schools. 

But the failure to scale and the politics around charter schools appear to have left many funders casting about for a new direction. 

“Give me the one pager”

As major education funders like Gates and CZI have narrowed the focus of their education giving, other, newer funders have failed to step in to take their place, according to philanthropy consultant Alex Johnston, the founder and president of Building Impact Partners, and this has left a major vacuum. Johnston said some of the funders he talks to are reluctant to take the plunge into the education sector because it is perceived as so complicated and difficult to get a handle on.

“What I hear from donors and from philanthropy advisors when I talk about supporting education is, ‘give me the one pager, like I can get a one pager on climate,’” Johnston said. “Even though climate is a huge problem, donors like the causal chain, they understand the science and they see how they can make a difference. They don’t see the same with education. The thing I hear from donors is, ‘How can I know that my money is making a difference on the issues I care about? I want to have metrics and milestones and feedback that tells me I'm on the right track. I'm not afraid to take on big issues, but I don't want to sort of put money against something and have no idea how it's going for 10 years.’” 

Climate change is a complex problem, as are any number of other crises a new wealthy donor might take on. While that field has seen an influx of billionaires entering the space, it’s faced its own funding challenges due to that complexity. But these days, the path to fixing K-12 education may be even muddier in the eyes of a donor.

“When it comes to climate, there is an impact-based rallying cry for people to get behind,” said Messano. “In education, we don't have a clear-cut, strategic rallying cry that feels relevant, and we have been operating in different factions around tactics. Support for charters for a long time was a rallying cry, but we haven’t unified behind an approach for this moment.” 

Philanthropy also operates on a timeline that often doesn’t align with complicated problems like education, which has so many challenges and moving parts. Nicole Rodriguez Leach, executive director of Grantmakers for Education, has worked in philanthropy for years and has often observed this misalignment. 

“Some funders make grants to organizations in exchange for a promise of progress toward a set of goals, or deliverables, within one, two, or some other limited number of years. In education, the effects of program interventions or policy advocacy can take much longer than a typical grant’s time horizon… I’ve seen there is often a mismatch between grant terms, expectations and what is feasible.”

In fact, philanthropy consultant Alex Johnston believes there are many ways that funders can make a difference in education, and he tries to show them how. He points, for example, to recent revisions in reading curriculum that are having tangible results.

Jack Schneider suggests that education philanthropy should approach the work with less sweeping goals. “I remain pretty skeptical about the whole idea of systemic transformation being led by philanthropists, who, even with their billions, don't have even one percent of the resources that we put into public education every year,” he said. “I think the vastness of the system is something that people have a hard time wrapping their heads around. [Our national education budget amounts to] the better part of a trillion dollars every year. You throw a billion dollars at that, and what is that going to accomplish at the system level? By contrast, I do think philanthropy can make an incredible positive difference on a school and even on a school district level, or by seeking to create some new tools that would be free and open source for educators.”

Brooke Stafford-Brizard believes that this may be what we’re seeing now: ed funders choosing different, narrower lanes to strengthen schools and boost student success. Stafford-Brizard, who was formerly CZI’s vice president for research to practice, left the organization after it made cuts in its education program; she recently joined the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as vice president for innovation and impact. 

“System change is so complex, and learning that there is no silver bullet is a learning. So organizations are deciding, ‘OK, we need to focus on this one space, regardless of how big or small we are. Let's figure out how we are together more than the sum of our parts and how we complement each other as a field.’ I have enormous optimism around the willingness and the appetite across philanthropy to find ways to to communicate, to understand how we complement each other, and work toward collective impact.”

Wishful thinking, deeper problems

There was a time when wealthy donors cherished the notion that a quality education for all would ultimately vanquish poverty and other social problems. That faith has been shaken as the extent of our social problems became clearer, and more pronounced, in recent years. The divide between rich and poor in the U.S. has only grown, and the pandemic put a spotlight on vast disparities in everything from food access to healthcare. 

“One of the pillars of systemic education reform has been wishful thinking about our ability to remedy things like social and economic inequality through education,” said Jack Schneider. “In fact, I think the evidence points to the causal arrow running the other way: that our best shot at improving education is in addressing underlying social and economic inequality.”

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation seems to have reached a similar conclusion about the direction of the causal arrow. The foundation has increased its economic mobility investments, which it described in a recent funding announcement: 

“We know that education is the key to creating opportunities to climb the economic ladder and we have spent years working to improve the U.S. education system from kindergarten through college. But research also shows that education alone is not enough to guarantee that everyone will have access to opportunities or experience long-term, equitable economic outcomes. It’s unlikely philanthropy will make much headway against poverty in the U.S. as long as the immense gap between rich and poor continues to grow — and funders continue to do so little to address the structural factors that allow that to happen..” 

According to Bob Hughes, the foundation’s director of K-12 education, his team coordinates and shares information with the Gates’ economic mobility team. “We’re very much in sync and trying to kind of learn from one another, as we view education and economic mobility as two sides of the same coin,” he said. 

The Ballmer Group’s funding also recognizes the link between education and economic mobility, as its website makes clear: “K-12 Education grants seek to reduce and eliminate inequities that shortchange student achievement by strengthening both the in-school academic experience as well as wrap-around and afterschool support.” 

While it’s good news that more funders are tackling poverty and underlying systemic issues, they have their work cut out for them here, too, with a growing gap between the rich and the poor, flawed tax policy, inequitable school financing and persistent school segregation.

Riding out the storm

“I think that what we’re facing right now is a crisis of optimism and energy,” said Richard Barth, the president of the Robertson Foundation. 

Barth, the former CEO of the KIPP Foundation, has worked in education for the last 35 years. Since he joined Robertson in 2022, he has spent a lot of time in conversation with funders and leaders working in the foundation’s three program areas: education, medical research and environment. He pointed out that funders don’t expect immediate solutions or silver bullets when it comes to complicated problems like climate change or Alzheimer’s disease. In both areas, there is an understanding that trial and error are an essential part of the process. 

“We're not giving up on Alzheimer's. We're not giving up on the world melting,” he said. “But there is a sense of discouragement when it comes to education and I don’t think it’s warranted. I think it's important to start bringing people together to say, let's get honest about what we did accomplish, what we didn't, and that this is a learning journey. Giving up on our kids — that’s not an option.” 

For nonprofit leaders like Sharhonda Bossier, CEO of Education Leaders of Color (EdLoC), it’s hard to know how things will shake out or how to plan for the future. “I wish I could say exactly what is happening right now,” she said. “I’ve asked people who have been in this work longer than I have whether this is part of a typical cycle in philanthropy. Do we just need to batten down the hatches and plan to ride out the storm for the next two years? Folks seem to think this is uncharted territory, that this feels like a pretty seismic shift, and that the education philanthropy landscape will not look the same going forward.” 

Bossier has reached out to funders to find out more about their thinking but hasn’t received many answers. “I haven’t seen anyone put the talking points aside and try to connect with the people really doing the work, and acknowledge that this is having a significant impact on the sector,” she said. 

If education funders are pulling back, their timing probably couldn’t be worse. U.S. school districts will face a serious funding shortfall when federal COVID relief dollars end in the fall, a fiscal cliff that promises to create even more problems for schools struggling to hire and retain teachers and serve struggling students. At the same time, many nonprofits, including education nonprofits themselves, received emergency government funding during the pandemic and are now seeing those dollars disappear.

“Many nonprofits received paycheck protection dollars and funding from other federal programs that helped them continue to operate,” Alex Johnston said. “The irony is that many of them are doing the best work they’ve ever done, but now they are operating at a level that is beyond their current funding base.” 

It’s also a bad time for funders to step away because schools are still reeling post-pandemic. Is it really a surprise that test scores are lagging after students — not to mention parents, teachers and administrators — experienced the trauma of a global pandemic? Conservatives who are pummeling public schools for everything from the books students read to how history is taught also criticize them for pandemic-related school closures, glitches in remote learning and mask mandates. But these attacks overlook the many ways that teachers and administrators put themselves at risk to show up for students and families during the pandemic. Schools themselves showed up, too. In many areas, public schools served as neighborhood hubs, providing meals, computers, tech support, vaccines and other services, highlighting the important role schools can play in strengthening communities. 

As conservatives step up their assaults on the very notion of public education — with some notable successes — advocates worry about a simultaneous flagging in major philanthropies’ commitment to public schools as a common good that benefits everyone. “Public education is one of the last remaining mandatory public goods for children and families; it is a cornerstone for a multiracial democracy,” John Jackson, Schott Foundation president and CEO, pointed out in a recent opinion piece. 

Frances Messano hopes education funders will renew their commitment and that new funders will step in to join them. “We need patient capital to keep up the really good work that’s being done in so many places,” she said. “Many funders these days are supporting climate and working to strengthen democracy, and these are important issues. But supporting our young people to become the future problem solvers our society needs through education is ultimately the best way to solve big problems like these.”