posted on: Wednesday, March 19, 2008

by Aaron Dorfman

Paul Tough’s New York Times Magazine article ("How Many Billionnaires Does It Take to Fix a School System," March 9) guided discussion with experts about how philanthropy can best improve public education was great to see, and there were some good ideas put forth. But the experts forgot to mention what many view as the most promising approach to improving our schools. There’s a movement afoot to fund community-driven school reform from the bottom up. Foundations are increasingly funding community organizing groups who engage parents and other community residents in building power to hold local school officials accountable. They see building community power and accountability as the way to effect lasting change in complex systems. Large foundations like Gates, Ford and Mott, and dozens of smaller ones have banded together in various multi-million dollar reform efforts—and they’re getting results. We need more philanthropic support for these bottom-up initiatives, not for top-down schemes of grand design.

Julie Kohler, director of evaluation and program manager for Public Interest Projects' Communities for Public Education Reform, talked about a collaborative of funders supporting community-driven school reform in the fall 2007 issue of NCRP's Responsive Philanthropy.

Aaron Dorfman is the executive director of NCRP.