Some recent news stories about large private donations to charter schools caught our attention here at Matters of Choice.

On August 2, The Washington Post  wrote that a nonprofit called Venture Philanthropy Partners is giving $5.5 million to help KIPP’s D.C. operation expand from its current seven charter schools serving 1,500 students to 10 schools with 3,400 students by 2015. The money will be directed several ways: expanding KIPP’s financial and management structure to support more students, recruiting teachers and students, and improving schools’ ability to use data to track student learning – operations that are important to educational quality and expensive to provide. A KIPP official told The Post the expansion of innovations at KIPP schools will “set a high bar for what’s possible” for all D.C. schools.

In late June The New York Times wrote about $15 million that Green Dot Public Schools is budgeting to turn around Locke High School in Los Angeles, a former traditional public school (TPS) that was plagued by crime, gangs, and high dropout rates. Two years into the four-year turnaround project, students report less violence and better instruction and test scores are slowly improving. The $15 million, which The Times said was provided mostly by foundations, is in addition to about $30 million a year the 3,200-student school receives in public funding. Green Dot told The Times that the extra money is paying for hiring psychologists and social workers, increasing security and transportation, adding classrooms, and creating an academy to train students for careers in architecture. (Green Dot is one of five California charter management organizations sharing a multi-year, $60 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.) The Times quoted Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) applauding the school’s improvements but asking how replicable they are. How many single schools can expect foundations to chip in $15 million? The price tag, The Times notes, is more than double the $6 million maximum the federal government has said it will pay public school districts to turn around a single failing school?

Earlier in June Education Week reported that the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation plans to open its own charter school in Kansas City next year. A foundation official said the expected $10 million investment over the school’s first decade will allow it to concentrate on education from the start instead of having to worry about raising money.  The school, he said, will “provide rigorous college preparation and offer a longer-than-usual school day and school year.” Ed Week wrote that while other large, influential private funders such as Gates and the Walton Family Foundation have given millions to charter schools, Kauffman is believed to be the first large grant-making foundation to start its own school.

So what’s the big deal? Private support for charter schools is nothing new. Some say private money is necessary to level the playing field for charter schools, which often receive about the same taxpayer funding per pupil as traditional public schools but not money for overhead like buildings and central administrative functions. Also, say proponents of private funding for charters, extra money is necessary if charters are to carry out expensive reforms like small classes, specialized academic programs like Locke’s architecture academy, and longer school days and years. But others counter that the private money could be helping traditional public schools, which some studies have found are more likely to wind up enrolling students with special needs and which also are increasingly likely to be raising private money. Also, skeptics add, studies comparing achievement outcomes between charter schools and traditional public schools have produced mixed findings. (KIPP and Green Dot are generally considered successful charter operators). Finally, what happens when the initial infusion of private money runs out? Will schools that built budgets and expectations around the extra money be able to continue providing programs that make them stand out?

When Ed Week asked New York University professor Diane Ravitch to comment on Kauffman’s new charter school, she replied in an e-mail: “And what will they prove? That lots of resources make a difference and that every school should have someone with deep pockets to keep classes small and keep the school well-supplied with the best of everything.” Ravitch has written that charter schools have failed to satisfy early predictions that they would stimulate innovation and improve student outcomes.

On the other hand, Andrew Rotherham, a founder of Education Sector who is now with Bellwether Education Partners, told The Post that infusions of private money have helped make the rapid expansion of charter schools possible in D.C., creating a robust environment for reform. “The most celebrated schools” in D.C., he said, “have all had to use creative strategies,” including raising private money. The Post identifies Rotherham as a former trustee of a D.C. charter school.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Read these papers from the NCSC publications archive on a range of issues about charter schools, including a report on a large group of privately financed schools in Chicago and research into innovation and student achievement at charter schools in several locales.

Renaissance Schools Fund-Supported Schools: Early Outcomes, Challenges, and Opportunities

An Examination of the Legal Environment, Educational Innovation and Student Achievement

Innovation in Schools of Choice

How New York City’s Charter Schools Affect Achievement, August 2009 Report

Instructional Conditions in Charter Schools and Students’ Mathematics Achievement Gains