In response to Detroit’s financial crisis and Flint’s water crisis, philanthropies and nonprofits... more In response to Detroit’s financial crisis and Flint’s water crisis, philanthropies and nonprofits announced multi-million dollar investments and new initiatives. We examine the activation of the nonprofit sector in response to crises augmented by governmental failure. Can significant nonprofit engagement in crisis response promote local recovery efforts? Does nonprofit involvement contribute to rebuilding local government capacity or does it tend to supplant local government? Our findings support prior work demonstrating the importance of the Grand Bargain in Detroit’s recovery. We also show the substantial contribution of nonprofits responding to the Flint Water Crisis. While Detroit’s Grand Bargain was primarily a resource transfer that enabled city government to regain fiscal stability, Flint’s nonprofits have provided essential “boots on the ground” responsiveness to the continuously unfolding impacts of the water crisis. In the conclusion, we argue that while nonprofits have be...
We examine how Michigan and Tennessee have developed and implemented plans for school turnaround ... more We examine how Michigan and Tennessee have developed and implemented plans for school turnaround districts partly inspired by Louisiana’s Recovery School District. Our comparative case studies focus on Michigan’s policies and involvement in Detroit schools through the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) and Tennessee’s policies and involvement in Memphis schools through the Achievement School District (ASD).
This analysis combines an original data set of foundation grants for social services with in-dept... more This analysis combines an original data set of foundation grants for social services with in-depth interviews to assess the role of foundations in supporting the suburban social safety net in the atlanta, Chicago, Denver, and Detroit regions.
Philanthropic involvement in education politics has become bolder and more visible. Have foundat... more Philanthropic involvement in education politics has become bolder and more visible. Have foundations changed funding strategies to enhance their political influence? Using data from 2000, 2005, and 2010, we investigate giving patterns among the 15 largest education foundations. Our analyses show growing support for national-level advocacy organizations. Furthermore, we find that foundations increasingly fund organizations that operate as “jurisdictional challengers” by competing with traditional public sector institutions. We apply social network analysis to demonstrate the growing prevalence of convergent grant-making—multiple foundations supporting the same organizations. These results suggest that a sector once criticized for not leveraging its investments now increasingly seeks to maximize its impact by supporting alternative providers, investing concurrently, and supporting grantees to engage in policy debates.
Some of the nation's wealthiest philanthropies, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundat... more Some of the nation's wealthiest philanthropies, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Broad Foundation have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in education reform. With vast wealth and a political agenda, these foundations have helped to reshape the reform landscape in urban education. In Follow the Money, Sarah Reckhow shows where and how foundation investment in education is occurring and presents in-depth analysis of the effects of these investments within the two largest urban districts in the United States: New York City and Los Angeles. In New York City, centralized political control and the use of private resources have enabled rapid implementation of reform proposals. Yet this potent combination of top-down authority and outside funding also poses serious questions about transparency, responsiveness, and democratic accountability in New York. Furthermore, the sustainability of reform policies is closely linked to the political fortunes of the current mayor and his chosen school leader. While the media has highlighted the efforts of drastic reformers and dominating leaders such as Joel Klein in New York City and Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C., a slower, but possibly more transformative, set of reforms have been taking place in Los Angeles. These reforms were also funded and shaped by major foundations, but they work from the bottom up, through charter school operators managing networks of schools. This strategy has built grassroots political momentum and demand for reform in Los Angeles that is unmatched in New York City and other districts with mayoral control. Reckhow's study of Los Angeles's education system shows how democratically responsive urban school reform could occur-pairing foundation investment with broad grassroots involvement. Bringing a sharp analytical eye and a wealth of evidence to one of the most politicized issues of our day, Follow the Money will reshape our thinking about educational reform in America.
Studies of minority political incorporation have demonstrated that advocacy organizations are cri... more Studies of minority political incorporation have demonstrated that advocacy organizations are critical for advancing minority electoral success and policy change. Drawing on an original data set of 30 midsized U.S. cities, the author evaluates the extent of organized representation of racial and ethnic groups and the effect of organized representation on elected representation. Latinos and Asian-Americans both have greater numbers of local advocacy organizations as the groups' proportion of the population increases. Yet many cities with sizable African-American populations have a lower density of advocacy organizations than cities with fewer African-Americans. A smaller field of organizations increases elected representation for African-Americans but not for Latinos.
We show how Democrats and Republicans converged to support similar policies on a major educationa... more We show how Democrats and Republicans converged to support similar policies on a major educational issue: teacher effectiveness. Our study demonstrates the importance of idea brokers —actors that bridge structural gaps between members of different parties and promote shared policy ideas. Our study is based on analysis of testimony from 197 congressional hearings from 2000 to 2014. We use Discourse Network Analysis to examine network ties based on shared policy preferences expressed in hearings, which can be used to create networks linking policy actors and stated policy preferences. We use this network data to examine changes in the education policy subsystem during a policy window between the Bush administration and the Obama administration. We identify idea brokers based on network attributes, including: 1) actors that contributed to the policy debate, and 2) actors that bridged structural gaps between Democrats and Republicans. We then estimate QAP regression models to examine whether ties to idea brokers are associated with future policy preferences among political actors.
In response to Detroit’s financial crisis and Flint’s water crisis, philanthropies and nonprofits... more In response to Detroit’s financial crisis and Flint’s water crisis, philanthropies and nonprofits announced multi-million dollar investments and new initiatives. We examine the activation of the nonprofit sector in response to crises augmented by governmental failure. Can significant nonprofit engagement in crisis response promote local recovery efforts? Does nonprofit involvement contribute to rebuilding local government capacity or does it tend to supplant local government? Our findings support prior work demonstrating the importance of the Grand Bargain in Detroit’s recovery. We also show the substantial contribution of nonprofits responding to the Flint Water Crisis. While Detroit’s Grand Bargain was primarily a resource transfer that enabled city government to regain fiscal stability, Flint’s nonprofits have provided essential “boots on the ground” responsiveness to the continuously unfolding impacts of the water crisis. In the conclusion, we argue that while nonprofits have be...
We examine how Michigan and Tennessee have developed and implemented plans for school turnaround ... more We examine how Michigan and Tennessee have developed and implemented plans for school turnaround districts partly inspired by Louisiana’s Recovery School District. Our comparative case studies focus on Michigan’s policies and involvement in Detroit schools through the Education Achievement Authority (EAA) and Tennessee’s policies and involvement in Memphis schools through the Achievement School District (ASD).
This analysis combines an original data set of foundation grants for social services with in-dept... more This analysis combines an original data set of foundation grants for social services with in-depth interviews to assess the role of foundations in supporting the suburban social safety net in the atlanta, Chicago, Denver, and Detroit regions.
Philanthropic involvement in education politics has become bolder and more visible. Have foundat... more Philanthropic involvement in education politics has become bolder and more visible. Have foundations changed funding strategies to enhance their political influence? Using data from 2000, 2005, and 2010, we investigate giving patterns among the 15 largest education foundations. Our analyses show growing support for national-level advocacy organizations. Furthermore, we find that foundations increasingly fund organizations that operate as “jurisdictional challengers” by competing with traditional public sector institutions. We apply social network analysis to demonstrate the growing prevalence of convergent grant-making—multiple foundations supporting the same organizations. These results suggest that a sector once criticized for not leveraging its investments now increasingly seeks to maximize its impact by supporting alternative providers, investing concurrently, and supporting grantees to engage in policy debates.
Some of the nation's wealthiest philanthropies, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundat... more Some of the nation's wealthiest philanthropies, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Broad Foundation have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in education reform. With vast wealth and a political agenda, these foundations have helped to reshape the reform landscape in urban education. In Follow the Money, Sarah Reckhow shows where and how foundation investment in education is occurring and presents in-depth analysis of the effects of these investments within the two largest urban districts in the United States: New York City and Los Angeles. In New York City, centralized political control and the use of private resources have enabled rapid implementation of reform proposals. Yet this potent combination of top-down authority and outside funding also poses serious questions about transparency, responsiveness, and democratic accountability in New York. Furthermore, the sustainability of reform policies is closely linked to the political fortunes of the current mayor and his chosen school leader. While the media has highlighted the efforts of drastic reformers and dominating leaders such as Joel Klein in New York City and Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C., a slower, but possibly more transformative, set of reforms have been taking place in Los Angeles. These reforms were also funded and shaped by major foundations, but they work from the bottom up, through charter school operators managing networks of schools. This strategy has built grassroots political momentum and demand for reform in Los Angeles that is unmatched in New York City and other districts with mayoral control. Reckhow's study of Los Angeles's education system shows how democratically responsive urban school reform could occur-pairing foundation investment with broad grassroots involvement. Bringing a sharp analytical eye and a wealth of evidence to one of the most politicized issues of our day, Follow the Money will reshape our thinking about educational reform in America.
Studies of minority political incorporation have demonstrated that advocacy organizations are cri... more Studies of minority political incorporation have demonstrated that advocacy organizations are critical for advancing minority electoral success and policy change. Drawing on an original data set of 30 midsized U.S. cities, the author evaluates the extent of organized representation of racial and ethnic groups and the effect of organized representation on elected representation. Latinos and Asian-Americans both have greater numbers of local advocacy organizations as the groups' proportion of the population increases. Yet many cities with sizable African-American populations have a lower density of advocacy organizations than cities with fewer African-Americans. A smaller field of organizations increases elected representation for African-Americans but not for Latinos.
We show how Democrats and Republicans converged to support similar policies on a major educationa... more We show how Democrats and Republicans converged to support similar policies on a major educational issue: teacher effectiveness. Our study demonstrates the importance of idea brokers —actors that bridge structural gaps between members of different parties and promote shared policy ideas. Our study is based on analysis of testimony from 197 congressional hearings from 2000 to 2014. We use Discourse Network Analysis to examine network ties based on shared policy preferences expressed in hearings, which can be used to create networks linking policy actors and stated policy preferences. We use this network data to examine changes in the education policy subsystem during a policy window between the Bush administration and the Obama administration. We identify idea brokers based on network attributes, including: 1) actors that contributed to the policy debate, and 2) actors that bridged structural gaps between Democrats and Republicans. We then estimate QAP regression models to examine whether ties to idea brokers are associated with future policy preferences among political actors.
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