In 1950, the Sisters of Mercy opened Mercy Junior College in Tarrytown, New York for younger members of their order. In 1961, with financial assistance from the Rockefeller family, they relaunched it as a private 4-year institution for women at a new complex in Dobbs Ferry. From 1911 onward, however, the Rockefellers had a complex relationship…

In this speech, Hursh shows how public education in the United States is undergoing profound changes. Education policy has been hijacked by the unelected and unaccountable corporate reformers who aspire to overhaul the education system through a corporate model of privatization and market competition. They aim to privatize education through…

The Robert Bowne Foundation (RBF), which published "Afterschool Matters" from 2003 to 2008 and continues to fund the journal and related projects, is closing in December. "Afterschool Matters" sat down with Lena Townsend, executive director, to talk about RBF's legacy and continuing influence on literacy work in afterschool…

While policy-makers and researchers in the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) often seem to speak different languages, overwhelming research evidence on how quality ECEC can play a key role in alleviating the effects of disadvantage can be extremely relevant for policy-makers. In this article, we focus on how philanthropic…

This paper applies the lens of recent literature on neoinstitutionalism and institutional entrepreneurship to understand the stages of growth in a new community Literacy Coalition. It explores the interactional, technical and cultural phases of institution building identified in other case studies as they emerge in this community study. Finally,…

The rise in the influence of and spending by educational philanthropists and foundations over the past two decades, especially in the area of market-based reforms, such as charter schools, vouchers, and merit pay, is evident across the United States. Largely due to philanthropic investments, relatively new educational intermediary organizations…

For the last decade, in districts big and small, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has emerged as the largest private funder of educational efforts. This began with an initiative around small schools in the early to mid-2000s, mostly abandoned now, and has gained traction in the past few years in areas such as teacher evaluation, the Common…

Public-private partnerships aren't new in higher education. But, in 2012, some especially compelling financial reasons accelerated development of public-private partnerships between public universities and private entities in their communities. Public institutions have never been under more pressure to find alternative sources of revenue to help…

The latest wave of reform in urban schools, led by the venture philanthropists, has made a great deal of change, without much progress. Foundations with a venture philanthropy bent, like the Walton Family Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Broad Foundation, say market principles, such as choice and competition, will improve schools. If…

The first round of attempts to extend the access of working people to higher education began in 1873 with an imitation of the University of London on the prairies of Illinois. For all practical purposes, it ended in the legislature of the State of New York in 1892, although it took more than a decade to formally close all of the external degree…

This article describes the meeting between Mr. Eugene M. Lang and about 30 other higher-education leaders in midtown Manhattan to discuss the future of Project Pericles. Project Pericles Inc., is the organization founded in 2001 by the 87-year-old multimillionaire and renowned philanthropist. The organization aimed to promote civic involvement not…

Backed with political and financial capital, advocates of change push to improve America's education system. For most people, the purpose of education is self-improvement--becoming better informed, more knowledgeable, better equipped to solve problems, more able to earn a living and prosper. The more effectively an education system delivers on…

Back in 2000, Charles Best was teaching at Wings Academy, an alternative high school in the Bronx, when he got the idea for a Web site where teachers could solicit donations for class projects. With help from his students, DonorsChoose.org soon was born. Last year, the site won Amazon.com's Nonprofit Innovation Award. So far, DonorsChoose has…

The Carnegie Corporation of New York is associated with the very foundations of literacy going back to the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie himself and of the Corporation in its early years. Andrew Carnegie's legacy includes over 2,500 free public libraries that he saw as a link "bridging ignorance and education." In fact, Carnegie, the…

In recent years, an increasing number of districts have turned to district education foundations (DEF) for added fiscal support. Similar in many ways to university development offices, DEFs are privately operated, nonprofit, tax-exempt organizations that solicit funds from individuals and businesses and then distribute these funds to public school…