With the Best of Intentions
How Philanthropy Is Reshaping K-12 Education

Edited by Frederick M. Hess

From the Gates small school initiative to the Annenberg challenge to the Broad prize for urban education, philanthropic giving has played an increasingly prominent role in recent years in education reform efforts across the United States. Yet while we recognize that philanthropic organizations influence education in countless ways, we know strikingly little about the extent, dynamics, and results of their efforts. This lack of knowledge calls out for urgent attention of total K-12 spending, it has a disproportionate impact in shaping reform agendas and promoting cutting-edge efforts to improve schools and classrooms.

With the Best of Intentions aims to fill this gap, offering lively perspectives on the role of philanthropy in K-12 education. It opens by surveying the current landscape in philanthropic giving to education, then examines the major goals of recent philanthropic efforts: building new schools, supporting troubled districts, promoting school choice, and advancing educational research and policy. The book concludes by looking at some of the major lessons--for educators, philanthropists, policymakers, and community leaders--of philanthropic contributions to schools and school systems.

An informative and multifaceted volume, With the Best of Intentions is also full of debates and controversies. It will be of interest to scholars, policymakers, and education and community leaders--as well as to the philanthropic community itself.

Praise:

“Hess’s compilation provides a thoughtful, reasoned, and frequently pointed examination of K-12 philanthropy, a sector accustomed to accolades and sheltered from the impulsiveness of the ballot box. This volume invites the sincere reflections and heated discussions that are urgently needed among policymakers, educators, and the philanthropic community as educational philanthropy increasingly seeks to improve our nation’s schools.”
--Stefanie Sanford, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

“This is a groundbreaking volume for education reformers and philanthropists. The wealth of research presented here surveys the landscape, raises critical questions, and illuminates the challenges for us all to consider as we strive to change public education and provide all children with the schools they deserve.”
--Wendy Kopp, Founder, Teach for America

Highlights from Inside:

• A New Generation of Philanthropists and Their Great Ambitions
• Why Philanthropy Isn't Changing Schools, and How It Could
• The "Best Uses" of Philanthropy for Reform
• How Program Officers at Education Philanthropies View Education
• Philanthropy and Urban School District Reform
• Philanthropy and Labor Market Reform
• Choosing to Fund School Choice
• Grantmaking for Research, Policy, and Advocacy
• Lessons Learned from the Inside
• The International Dimension
• Strategic Giving and Public School Reform
  

About the Editor:

Frederick M. Hess is Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute and Executive Editor of Education Next. He is the editor of Urban School Reform: Lessons from San Diego and the coeditor of A Qualified Teacher in Every Classroom, both published by Harvard Education Press.

Contributors:

Kendra Bischoff, Richard Lee Colvin, Peter Frumkin, Jay P. Greene, Jane Hannaway, Bryan C. Hassel, Wendy Hassett, Frederick M. Hess, Stephen P. Heyneman, Lynn Jenkins, Dan Katzir, Leslie Lenkowsky, Tom Loveless, Donald R. McAdams, Andrew J. Rotherham, Amy Way