Racial Justice is the Most Urgent Priority for a Growing Number of K-12 Funders

A common refrain expressed by K-12 education grantmakers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic is that the crisis threw longstanding inequities into stark relief and widened them; chief among these disparities are the funding and resources awarded to schools serving predominantly low-income students of color. COVID has disproportionately affected these students, who are more likely to lack access to devices and broadband service, experience food insecurity and have families denied federal stimulus assistance, as IP has previously reported. In addition, children of color comprise the overwhelming majority of the youngest Americans who contract the virus.

Against this alarming backdrop, and after the wave of massive protests this summer across the nation following the police-involved murder of George Floyd, a new report from Grantmakers for Education (GFE) states 39% of funders say that racial justice is the most important area of focus over the next one to three years. Core to this issue, the report finds, is addressing resource inequities in school budgeting. Funders had in mind a study from EdBuild last year that found school districts serving children of color receive $23 billion less than those serving white students, despite educating the same number of children.

The other urgent priorities funders cited are pre-K educational improvement (24%), postsecondary and workforce success (17%), philanthropy’s role in an inequitable system (14%), and civic education for students (5%).

GFE surveyed 101 individuals for the report. The group is a membership organization of nearly 300 private and public funders.

Different approaches

Within the focus area of racial justice, funders expressed a sense of urgency around replacing suspensions with alternative disciplinary programs, promoting diversity in hiring teachers and appointing school boards, requiring cultural awareness and implicit bias training for educators, offering trauma-informed guidance counselors, installing culturally inclusive curriculum, renewing efforts for school desegregation, and eliminating the presence of police in schools.

Furthermore, the GFE report found that 80% of respondents believe education funders must support public policy and advocacy-related activities to advance their priorities.

Celine Coggins, GFE’s executive director, was pleasantly surprised that racial justice was the foremost area of concern for education funders. “For me, personally, that is the cornerstone of all of the changes we need to see. The fact that schools that are majority black and brown receive basically $23 billion less a year in funding than schools that are majority white is the most pressing problem that we need to solve in education.”

Where funders’ enthusiasm is also increasingly being directed, Coggins says, is hybrid learning. “Surprising in a different way was how much energy there was around the future of hybrid learning. How do we make sure that we’re not going back to the system that we were in before that oftentimes rejected technology, set up false dichotomies between ‘are you getting taught by a teacher or a robot?’ We have proven that there is a place for technology, we just need to figure out what that looks like post-vaccine. I see funders as poised to really try to lead on the question of the future of hybrid learning. That’s a place where I see some new energy.”

A changing K-12 philanthropy agenda

However, the report is also telling, in that it signals a sharp retreat from the education reform agenda that has been dominant for the past 20 years. Funders have far less of an appetite to continue spending huge sums to support controversial efforts that have drawn much criticism and seen mixed success at best. They also are shifting away from a focus on academics.

“Then I would say, the surprise, in a disappointed way, is just how minimal the academic side of things turns up in funder interest,” Coggins says. “Some of the core academic issues that were the big issues of funders in the not-so-distant past are not getting attended to well today. So that’s school choice, teacher quality, the issues that have to do with assessment and accountability.”

Adds Coggins, “When I came on board at GFE in 2018, what we saw is that institutions have really shifted away from teacher quality, from standards and accountability, from charter schools, things they had been funding very consistently for the prior 10 years. This [report] is a reaffirmation of that. It’s an existential question, frankly, for an organization like GFE, because this is the core of education. It is important for us to at least be parsing what are some of the lessons that funders took away from the era when they were funding those things.”

Although the topic of school choice has made funders weary, the public is increasingly embracing it. Coggins suggests that grantmakers might be premature in walking away from the issue entirely.

“If funders and the ‘elite’ are not reflecting what the general American public is looking for in their education system, let’s interrogate that. So having this data in my mind allows for that conversation that is going to help funders to be looking ahead, playing that catalytic role that they might be able to play in helping to shape the next stage.”

The right priorities?

The GFE report raises troubling questions regarding whether education philanthropy is moving toward progress or escaping failure.

Funders’ shift away from academics comes at an inopportune time as a series of grim reports warn that students have suffered months of learning loss this year, with children of color falling even further behind than before the pandemic. The impact of such losses may be felt for years to come.

While big foundations quickly gave millions to local community funders to administer relief programs to provide basic needs for families hit hard, IP reported their efforts within K-12 education have been muted thus far. Another report released by GFE earlier this year found that only 7% of 606 unique rapid response funds addressed COVID’s impact on student learning.

If racial equity is now considered the most explicit and urgent priority for education funders, the financial commitment has yet to be seen aside from a smattering of announcements. The Nellie Mae Education Foundation committed $20 million to address the impact of COVID and anti-Black racism on public education in New England. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded $8.4 million to Teaching Matters to improve literacy equity for students in New York City. IP reported the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is a rare funder that has not treated COVID as an incidental part of its portfolio, but has centered much of its work on how the pandemic will change public education. It has consistently given grants toward making remote learning more equitable.

Furthermore, philanthropy is not immune to its own myopia regarding race. A report released earlier this year revealed funders give less to nonprofits led by people of color than those led by their white counterparts.

Despite the anemic response from education funders early in the pandemic, Coggins is optimistic they will ramp up their efforts now that the long game is coming into view. Certainly, the sobering data on the impact of COVID on students should compel them to push for seismic change. Now that a vaccine is within sight, and we are over eight months into the pandemic, funders no longer have the excuse of needing more time to collect data. The unprecedented events of this year point to an education system that must be drastically overhauled.

“Funders will tell you that they’ve been very intentional about giving away their money in stages. Stage one was meeting basic needs. Stage two was, how do we start the school year in a pandemic? Many of them contributed to PPE, filled in food security gaps, all that kind of stuff. Stage three, which I think is what we’re teeing up for, and what funders have talked about all along, is, how do we help jumpstart the next era, but make sure you don’t just ‘snap back’ and school looks exactly like it did in 2018? How do we start to synthesize what happened during COVID so that we start to rebuild?”