Dear Commons Community,
In the online version of the Washington Post, Valerie Strauss, education editor for the Post, has a piece making the case that financial gifts by philanthropists may be harming rather than helping public education. She argues that the gifts are driving the path of education reform by targeting specific projects that may not be backed by sound research. A number of projects funded by the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, Walton Foundation, and the Carnegie Mellon Foundation are mentioned specifically. Her major point is that these foundations do not simply make donations but try to socially engineer what is going on in the schools without having carefully studied the impact of their involvement . To quote:
“And they [foundations] never try to explain why it is acceptable for them to donate to other causes — the arts, medicine, etc. — without telling doctors and artists what to do with the money. Only educators do they tell what to do.”
Tony
The piece above is available at:
