This bimonthly newsletter provides information about the progress of the Honor States Grant Program, a governor-led effort to improve college--and work-ready graduation rates. This issue spotlights the "supply-side" of high school redesign, exploring how state policymakers are working to expand the supply of high-quality high schools.…

The author asks whether higher education reform has run out of new things to say. The final two decades of the twentieth century were a remarkable period for innovation in undergraduate education. Many of higher education's earlier waves of reform had focused on curricular issues, on what should be taught. The new reformers by and large ignored…

In the first decade of the 21st century, the nation, the states, and colleges and universities began to grapple with the challenges of globalization, changing demography, the implications of the digital era, and of a less expansive public sector. Although not a transformative period for higher education, the decade saw significant innovations in…

Focusing on Chicago Public Schools (Illinois), explores issues related to philanthropy's role in the development of arts education policy. Discusses the relationship among philanthropic organizations and the core curriculum; the impact of research; preservice teacher training, and economic development and arts education. Offers recommendations for…

Since 1984 the Pew National Dental Education Program has worked to bring long-term change in the U.S. system of dental education by enhancing individual dental schools' ability to understand the changing health care and higher education environments and assist them in redirecting program policies and budgets in response. (MSE)

The percentage of foundation support to elementary and secondary level schools from both corporate and private sources is increasing. Projects that call for systemwide reform and/or are collaborative are more likely to be funded. Offers tips and tactics for seeking grants. (MLF)

Maintains that funding for the improvement of geography at the precollegiate level has increased dramatically, both in the amount of money raised and the number of funders making grants. Provides strategies and guidelines for identifying foundations and proposal writing. Includes a list of helpful resources. (CFR)

The writers call for foundations and educational institutions to build their programs around the goal of increasing educational capital through more open and accountable forms of education grant-making and educational activity. Recognizing that education needs philanthropic foundations to enliven imagination, spur improvements and test solutions;…

The Donors' Education Collaborative of New York (DEC) began with a scene more typical of politics than philanthropy: five foundation presidents in a room, trying to figure out what to do for a city that had fallen on hard times in the early 1990s. They investigated specific topics--such as the public hospital system and school governance…

Today's public schools are failing to educate not only disadvantaged students, but average students as well. The public education system in America faces twin dilemmas: In the current changing national economy and labor market, schools are inadequately preparing students to be self-sufficient adults; and the population of disadvantaged youth is…

Bringing together a mix of researchers and practitioners, "With the Best of Intentions" examines the major goals of recent philanthropic efforts and looks at some of the key lessons--for educators, philanthropists, policymakers, and community leaders--of philanthropic contributions to schools and school systems. From the Gates small…

Reviews the history of the relationship of the Ford Foundation and higher education, and chronicles the substantial and widespread influence of the foundation, through its institutional grants for curriculum and program development, on business administration education from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Initiatives and results at specific…

Five years into an eight-year study of its high school improvement efforts, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is shifting its strategy for evaluating the $1.3 billion grant program. The foundation's initiative, which is underwriting change efforts in more than 1,800 schools, is the nation's largest privately funded attempt to improve high…

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) requires states and school districts to act aggressively to turn around failing schools. NCLB lists 31 different interventions of varying degrees of severity that are available to state and local policymakers when faced with schools whose students fail to make sufficient academic progress and sets forth…

This paper is designed to help funders avoid some of the pitfalls of embarking on major reform efforts in troubled urban districts, proposing exploratory case studies as a tool to improve philanthropic giving. The paper explains what is behind the two major flaws of philanthropic investment (not knowing how one thinks schools will improve and not…