ERIC ED537196: Persistence, Partnership and Public Will: The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Investments in Kentucky School Reform. Principles for Effective Education Grantmaking. Case in Brief Number 2

2012·0.17 MB·English

by  ERIC

Case in Brief No.2
PRINCIPLESFOREFFECTIVEEDUCATIONGRANTMAKING
Persistence, Partnership and Public Will:
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Investments
in Kentucky School Reform
PRINCIPLESFOR EFFECTIVE EDUCATION GRANTMAKING
Discipline Knowledge Resources Effective Engaged Leverage, Persistence Innovation
&Focus Linkedto Grantees Partners Influence& &Constant
Results Collaboration Learning
“Persistence, Partnership and Public
In 1999,Kentucky became the first state to
Will” explores the sustained role the combine school funding equity with a clearer
focus on student outcomes.Legislators
Annie E. CaseyFoundation played
enacted a comprehensive reform plan—the
in Kentucky for more than a decade
Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA)—
to help create an environment in that included a new accountability system
which the state’s ambitious and focused on ensuring that all students learned
key skills and knowledge,new programs to
comprehensiveefforttoimprove
support student learning,and significantly
education for all of its students
increased funding.
would havethe time,resources and
Despite strong support from the state’s
attention needed toprove its worth.
governor and business community,Kentucky’s
sweeping school reform effort faced potential-
The case study illustrates the
ly powerful resistance.The whole structure of
importance——and challenges——of
local education—steeped for decades in
twoofGrantmakers for Education’s patronage,misspending,nepotism and anti-
eight Principles for Effective authority politics and accustomed to a class-
room regime of “time on task”as opposed to
Education Grantmaking: persistence
“outcomes”—was bound to resist change.
and engaged partners.
The goals and design of Kentucky’s efforts
wererevolutionary for the country in 1990,
and they caught the attention of the Annie
E.Casey Foundation.The foundation works
to build better futures for disadvantaged>
children and believes that changing public widely and aggressively,what it was
systems is essential to improving public already doing:provide outside pressure
welfare.Interested in expanding its grant- to maintain momentum for reform.
making in education,the foundation con- These grants helped the Committee
cluded it could learn a great deal from build its capacity and support the
working in Kentucky. law’s implementation.
The Casey Foundation recognized it was • The CEOs created a business-led commu-
nications effort to raise awareness and
going to take a long time to get changes
support for the law’s implementation,and
in every community and every school. Its
Oz Nelson persuaded the foundation to
approach set the tone for other foundations financially contribute to that effort
supporting the work. as well.This campaign was led by the
Partnership for Kentucky School Reform,
The foundation’s involvement in Kentucky which was organized initially by the
school reform came about in an unusual way: Prichard Committee,led by the CEOs
Kent C.“Oz”Nelson,who was both CEO and financed primarily by their companies.
of United Parcel Service (UPS) and chair
• The foundation,with the Prichard
of the Casey Foundation’s board in 1990—
Committee,created an independent
together with David Jones,CEO of Humana
research entity,the Kentucky Institute
Inc.,and John Hall,CEO of Ashland Inc.—
for Educational Research,to assess the
had made a substantial commitment to
implementation of KERA over time and
supportKentucky’seducationreformefforts.
document lessons learned.The founda-
Nelson invited the foundation and key
tionprovided funding for the Institute,
reformadvocates to workwith them.
and a high-level UPS executive served
The group soonagreed that private onits board.
dollars could best supportKentucky school
T
reform by buying time for the new educa-
he three parts of the strategy were
tionlaw to workand mobilizing public
intentionallyintertwined:“The Institute,the
supportfor change in schools.Theydevel-
Partnership and the Prichard Committee
oped a three-pronged strategy to leverage
wereparts of the same piece,”observed
the assets of both the corporate donors
Robert Sexton,the Prichard Committee’s
and the foundation:
executive director.Also essential to the
• The foundation provided financial strategy,noted the Partnership’s executive
support to the Prichard Committee, director,Carolyn Witt Jones,was the foun-
a10-year-old nonprofit with a historyof dation’swillingness to provide consistent
advocating for Kentucky school reform, funding for all three efforts over a sustained
good relationships with key decision- time period.“The Casey Foundation recog-
makers,and an understanding of both nized it was going to take a long time to
the content and need for school reform. get changes in every community and every
Essentially,the foundation funded school,”she said.“Its approach set the tone
the Committee to continue to do,more for other foundations supporting our work.”
T Lessons learned
he foundation’s choice to invest heavily
in nonprofit partners—rather than in the
This case study——the full text of which is
school system itself—produced one of the
available at www.edfunders.org——suggests four
most important lessons from the Kentucky
important lessons for grantmakers seeking to
school reform experience.
increase their impact:
Bruno Manno,who took over management
•Make a long-term commitment. “It’s
of the foundation’s education grants portfo- necessary to keep at it in order to see results,”
lio in 1999,said that the Kentucky experi- observed the Casey Foundation’s Ralph Smith.
ence reaffirmed the foundation’s long-term In Kentucky, persistence meant 11 years of
approach to reform of public systems and active engagement and 14 years of funding.
to creating nonprofit advocates for change: The foundation staff also paid careful
“It’s a distinct foundation strategy not to attention to keeping the board of directors
invest exclusively in public agencies because, informed about progress.
for example,department of education
•Build a broad constituency for support
leaders come and go.Rather,we try to build of your solution or project.The foundation
nonprofits that will endure…and keep focused itsinvestments on public awareness,
everybody’s feet to the fire.” advocacy and data collection efforts——
realizing, said one foundation leader, that
Although the foundation had never set
“you can’t think that you can ignoreeither
an end date for its investment in Kentucky
politicsor policy.” Ensuring deep public
school reform,the decade anniversary
support is also a strategy for maintaining
celebration of KERA in 2000 stimulated
aproject after a granthas ended.
thinking about the status and trajectory of
•Engage partners and grantees in designing
reformin Kentucky,whether the foundation
the solution.The foundation was always
was still uniquely essential to the work and
clear about its mission of supporting at-risk
what an appropriate exit should be.The key
familiesand children and itsinterest in using
questionfor foundationleaders was,“What
research and data to inform policy debates.
do we need to do to sustain the work?”
Still, it coordinated closely with the key
leadersin Kentucky who were steering the
I
n2001,the foundationproposed a school reform effort, and its grants evolved
in response to their input about what was
closing three-year commitment grant to
needed. The foundation came to be seen by
the Prichard Committee to help it develop
its partners as part of the “inner circle” for
aplan to become more self-sufficient,
debating strategy and policy proposals.
beginning with a business plan;the Ford
Foundation joined in financing this strategy. •Remain flexible.Even while it stayed true to
With respect to the Partnership for itsinitial grantmaking strategy, the foundation
Kentucky Schools,the foundation worked provided additional grants in Kentucky for
emerging projects on an as-needed basis.
with Jones to develop a strategy for apply-
This approach allowed it to meet unanticipat-
ing the researchand practice lessons from
ed needs as grantees’ work evolved and
Kentucky—particularly the need to engage
to quickly address unanticipated issues.
communities in education improvement—
to schools in other states.The foundation’s
investments in the Kentucky Institute for quate—we weren’t going to have that kind
Education Research were less successful,as of influence.But we could be influential
the institute struggled to find its niche and with maintenance of attention at the
eventually merged into the university sys- political,legislative and community levels.”
tem,and so no “close-out”grant was made.
Student achievement in Kentucky has
In deciding how to get involved in a signifi- improved significantly since the early 1990s,
cant and sustained way to support Kentucky and student test scores have increased faster
than in many other states.The foundation’s
It’s a distinct foundation strategy not to grantees are widely credited with nurturing
invest exclusively in public agencies... and sustaining Kentucky’s school improve-
ment strategy,despite sometimes fierce
wetry to build nonprofits that will endure…
opposition and shifts in the state’s political
and keep everybody’sfeet to the fire.
leadership—and most observers agree
that the Annie E.Casey Foundation’s early
school reform,Tony Cipollone—the foun- and persistent investments in Kentucky
dation’s lead staff person for this work helped build the capacity of the system
through the 1990s—envisioned a role for and public institutions to have a shot at
the Annie E.CaseyFoundation that was success.“By engaging and supporting
both limited and essential:“We believed strategic partners,the foundation’s funding
that given the magnitude of funds that full and influence have had a long-standing
implementationof KERA would require, impact,”said Carolyn Jones.
the foundation’sresources werenot ade-
Drawn from the experience and wisdom of our members, GFE’s Principles for Effective
Education Grantmaking are designed to help strengthen philanthropy’s capacity to improve
educational outcomes for all students. Our series of accompanying case studies is designed
to help donors, leaders and program staff reflect more deeply on what the principles mean
for their own grantmaking, how to integrate them into their efforts and how to improve
the results of their grants in education.
This Casein Briefprovides a synopsis of an in-depth case study and the lessons it suggests
for education funders. We encourage you to review and consider the full text of the case
study; free copies of it and others are available online at www.edfunders.orgor by calling
503.595.2100. In addition, the case studies in this series are being taught at many of GFE’s
programs, and also can be taught in individualized settings by special arrangement.
720SWWashington,Suite 605, Portland, OR 97205 503.595.2100 www.edfunders.org