AJE Feature | Strategic Giving and the Common Core – Uncovering the Common Purposes of Foundations Supporting the CCSS by Nikolaus J. Barkauskas.

The full-length American Journal of Education article by Nik Barkauskas can be accessed here.

In the beginning, the Common Core State Standards just looked like a set of national educational standards designed to boost student achievement on a national level by helping to define common academic targets for assessment.  However, the calls to adopt mere standards quickly became a movement to implement an entire education reform program on a national scale that sought to foster efficiency in schools by providing professional development and curriculum resources as supports for the standards; I refer to this movement as the CCSS.  Subtly, “Common Core” became the default term for this well-regarded and complex set of academic standards, and the simplification of the name helped to drum up support for a change that, in truth, had already happened.  The standards themselves were ultimately adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia, but some states – like Kentucky – adopted the Common Core State Standards before they were completed. 

Since their initial adoption, political and teacher groups in various states urged lawmakers to repeal or alter the Common Core State Standards and, in many cases, were successful (Bruce, 2013; Cloonan, 2014; Dawson, 2013; Ek, 2013; Kornhaber et al. 2017).  Lawmakers in Indiana, Oklahoma, and South Carolina officially repealed the Common Core State Standards even after being involved in the initial development and implementation (Ballantine, 2014; Ujifusa, 2014).  Most states have augmented the Common Core State Standards with additional standards not included in the initial release.  For example, in many cases, alterations to the Common Core State Standards included a name change to avoid political pressure and the appearance of “federal intrusion” (Layton, 2014).  The Common Core State Standards were widely adopted, and although they faced some initial backlash and some states repealed them, the Common Core standards are still in effect in most states.  Sure, they may have a different name – in my state of Pennsylvania, we have the PA Core Standards, which look very similar to the Common Core State Standards of old (Commonwealth of Pennsylvania n.d.) – but the reform took hold.  The CCSS will likely have a lasting impact on education in the U.S.

So, how were the standards developed in such a way so that they were almost universally adopted, and why did states adopt them so readily?  The answer to both questions is that outcome-oriented (Tompkins-Stange 2016) non-profit foundations led the development, introduction, implementation, and support of the Common Core State Standards from the very beginning.  These organizations, often just referred to as “foundations,” worked with non-profit organizations, states, and private companies to develop the standards and create the movement and resources to adopt and implement the standards effectively.  I’ve described seven common purposes shared by the six foundations that supported the Common Core in my research.  These common purposes correspond to areas of support provided by those foundations supporting the Common Core through grants to many organizations.  Below is a brief description of each purpose and a brief example.

Crafting CCSS Materials – Foundations made grants to non-profit organizations to develop new curricula, teacher resources, and assessments.  One example is a game called “Cosmos” developed by MIT with a $2.8 million grant from the Bill and Melinda gates foundation.  The game was aligned to the Common Core and Next Generation Science Standards, and it is no longer available.

Upgrading for CCSS – As a way to quickly and efficiently develop an array of Common Core resources, older resources were often aligned to the new standards rather than starting from scratch.  An excellent example of this is the $2.9 million the Danielson Group received from the Helmsley Charitable Trust to integrate their framework with the Common Core.

Aligning Systemic Policy – On the more technical side, foundations supporting the CCSS saw the need to align state and local policies to enable/allow for the adoption of the standards themselves.  A large part of the CCSS was the rapid and enthusiastic adoption by State Boards of Education.  One example here is the $350,000 grant from the Lumina Foundation to Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., which funded the validation of the standards-aligned assessments that many states would ultimately adopt.

Consulting for Operational Alignment – States and education agencies often need technical assistance adapting to policy changes.  The CCSS brought many changes to instruction, assessment, and leadership.  Foundations anticipated that need and provided less specific funding to organizations positioned to provide such technical assistance, like the $2.2 million grant to the Council of Chief State School Officers to support “Rural States” implementing the new standards.

Training Teachers and Parents – Every policy change creates a policy-practice gap for teachers and parents that policymakers often seek to fill.  Foundations supporting the CCSS attempted to do so by funding organizations capable of creating learning opportunities for teachers and parents about the Common Core that informed and convinced them of the validity of the standards.  One example is the almost $300,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the Constitutional Rights Foundation to provide professional development opportunities to teachers regarding the Common Core.

Advocacy with Target Populations – Every new policy has target populations for which the new policy is designed.  A new set of national academic standards like the Common Core has a vast target population segmented into groups with sometimes disparate ideas about education.  CCSS supporting foundations provided funding to some non-profits to build support for the CCSS amongst specific stakeholder populations.  One example of this type of grant was given to the Military Child Education Coalition to engage the support of military families for the CCSS.

Building Organization Capability – Grants made for this purpose tended to be given to non-profits already working to support the CCSS.  As such, the descriptions of these grants were less specific and tended to build capacity for continued work.  A good example is the $10.9 million grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust to Student Achievement Partners, Inc. for “Empowering all students to achieve the core.”

The CCSS was an unprecedented reform movement on a national scale that was, ultimately, successful.  Many states adopted the standards and still use them, even if they are called something slightly different.  Moreover, the standards themselves and the resources to support their implementation were not provided by traditional education stakeholders but by a small army of non-profit advocacy organizations and think tanks.  The funding of the CCSS might be upsetting to some educators.  Many will ask how this happened?  The answer, it seems, comes down to the fact that strategic giving can be very effective because every entity operating on the education landscape is living in a state of resource dependency because education funding is scarce (Pfeffer and Salancik 2003).  As a result, foundations with financial resources can induce organizations (e.g., schools, state agencies, non-profits, etc.) to work towards a change the foundation wants to implement through grants that fund specific work and support the ongoing livelihood of recipient organizations.  

As educators and scholars, we should critically evaluate this state of affairs.  More work is needed to understand the impact of strategic giving on other reforms and predict its effect on the future of education.  Specifically, for the CCSS, we can research the long-term effects of the new standards on students’ academic achievement.  Over time, we may understand whether or not the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to implement a national set of educational standards was worth it.

References

Ballantine, Summer. 2014. “Indiana House Committee Votes to Nix Common Core.” SFGate, February 21, 2014. http://www.sfgate.com/news/education/article/Indiana-House-committee-votes-to-nix-Common-Core-5250722.php#src=fb.

Bruce, Al. 2013. “COMMON CORE PUSH BACK – A-A School Chief: Greatest ‘Disruption.’” Evening Tribune, The (Hornell, NY), September 9, 2013.

Cloonan, Patrick. 2014. “Critics Warn Common Core Will Lower Education Standards – Luksik Challenges State’s Leaders to Reverse a 2010 Decision to Adopt Concept.” Daily News, The (McKeesport, PA), January 17, 2014, sec. News.

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. n.d. “Download PA Core Implementation.” Accessed March 25, 2022. https://www.pdesas.org/Page/Viewer/ViewPage/14.

Dawson, Anastasia. 2013. “Florida Educators Lobby for Common Core Delay.” Tampa Tribune, The (FL), December 6, 2013, sec. Metro.

Ek, Derrick. 2013. “Education – Teachers, Parents Rip Common Core at Hearing.” Leader, The (Corning, NY), December 6, 2013, sec. NY News.

Kornhaber, Mindy L., Nikolaus J. Barkauskas, Kelly M. Griffith, Erica Sausner, and Julia Mahfouz. 2017. “The Common Core’s Promises and Pitfalls from the Perspectives of Policy Entrepreneurs and Ground-Level Actors.” Journal of Educational Change, September, 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-017-9306-z.

Layton, Lyndsey. 2014. “Some States Rebrand Controversial Common Core Education Standards.” The Washington Post, January 30, 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/some-states-rebrand-controversial-common-core-education-standards/2014/01/30/a235843e-7ef7-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html.

Pfeffer, Jeffrey, and Gerald R. Salancik. 2003. The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective. Stanford University Press.

Tompkins-Stange, Megan E. 2016. Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform, and the Politics of Influence. Educational Innovations Series; Educational Innovations. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Education Press.

 Ujifusa, Andrew. 2014. “Resistance to Common Core Mounts: Critics Span the Political Spectrum, from Tea Partyers to Union Leaders.” Education Week 33 (29): 34, 36.