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Category: Pathways to Opportunity

  • How Donors Can Fight Rising Antisemitism on College Campuses

    It’s been one month since Hamas terrorists brutally murdered over 1,400 innocent Israeli civilians – including babies, children, women and the elderly – and the international community was jarred back to the reality of the evil in this world.  

    Subsequently, an antisemitic backlash to the Israel-Hamas war has ensued. According to the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that fights antisemitism, in the weeks following the Hamas attack, there have been nearly four times as many instances of harassment, vandalism and assault directed at Jewish people and communities in comparison with the same period in 2022.  

    On college campuses in particular, there has been an alarming rise in threats against Jewish students. This week, a Cornell University student was arrested following online threats he would “bring an assault rifle to campus” and “shoot up” a dining hall where Jewish students eat. At Stanford University, an instructor was removed from the classroom after trying “to justify the actions of Hamas” and singling out Jewish students. In response to “an extremely disturbing pattern of antisemitic messages,” the Biden administration announced this week it would partner with campus law enforcement to provide federal resources to schools.  


    Universities Slow to Respond Following Hamas Attacks 

    Sadly, in the wake of Hamas’ barbaric terrorism, many people tacitly supported their actions. Yet as anti-Israel rhetoric and actions have intensified among some groups, leaving Jewish students feeling scared and unsafe at American universities, too many higher educational institutions have hypocritically equivocated at the moment they should have stood firm in their opposition to antisemitic hate and violence. Encouragingly, charitable donors are uniquely positioned to hold higher education accountable to its commitments to the safety, dignity and rights of all people.    

    Days after the attacks and amid pressure from donors to respond, universities released statements expressing concern. The responses ran the gamut from clear moral condemnation to near sympathy for the attackers. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian student groups hijacked the conversation with their shocking statements and protests thereby coopting the universities’ responses.  

    Harvard’s reaction illuminates this point. It took days for the most elite university to release a statement, prompting former Harvard President Larry Summers to say: “The silence from Harvard’s leadership, so far, coupled with a vocal and widely reported student group’s statement blaming Israel solely, has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral toward acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel.” The university released multiple follow-up statements, but failed to strongly condemn a student statement that held Israel responsible for Hamas’ violence, prompting other alumni and donors to chide the university. 

    In comparison, University of Florida President and former U.S. senator Ben Sasse sent a letter to students and alumni explaining why it was unacceptable that his peers at other institutions were taking a neutral approach: “I will not tiptoe around this simple fact: What Hamas did is evil and there is no defense for terrorism. This shouldn’t be hard. [They] have been so weakened by their moral confusion that, when they see videos of raped women, hear of a beheaded baby or learn of a grandmother murdered in her home, the first reaction of some is to ‘provide context’ and try to blame the raped women, beheaded baby or the murdered grandmother,” he wrote.   

    The neutral approach that some colleges have taken – those that even chose to speak out —stands in stark contrast to letters and commitments made after the murder of George Floyd and the social justice protests of 2020. Many of those statements condemned the officer, the criminal justice system and systemic racism inherent in all institutions against Blacks. This leads us to wonder why those who embraced social justice and the equal rights and protections of all people haven’t stepped up now to defend their Jewish counterparts or condemn the slaughter of 1,400 people. What message does this send to Jewish students, faculty, donors and alumni? 

    As Sasse said on another occasion, “You got so many universities around the country [who] speak about every topic under the sun, Halloween costumes and microaggressions. But somehow in a moment of the most grave, grotesque attacks on Jewish people since the Holocaust, they all of a sudden say there’s too much complexity to say anything.” 


    Donors Can Help Combat Antisemitism on Campuses 

    Now, as violence and intimidation against Jewish students are rising, donors and alumni need not sit on the sidelines in dismay. They can use their voices and dollars to move administrations to stand against antisemitism in word and deed.  

    Philanthropic giving to higher education last year totaled $59.5 billion, including $23 billion from individual donations, according to a 2022 survey of U.S. universities by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. People giving $1 million or more made up less than 1% of donors but 57% of total donations.  

    While higher education giving is a rewarding and meaningful use of philanthropic dollars, it can be challenging for both donor intent and grant compliance. Nonetheless, accountability is a critical element of higher education funding. Academic institutions must be held accountable for the misuse of donor funds and that includes indirectly supporting activities that can be destructive to civility, undermine academic freedom or promote violence. 

    Recently, major higher education donors have ended their financial support and relationships with institutions over their response to the attack. For example, venture capitalist David Magerman, hedge fund billionaire Cliff Asness, private-equity billionaire Marc Rowan, former U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman and other high-profile donors cut ties with the University of Pennsylvania in protest of the university’s support for a festival featuring antisemitic speakers and its subsequent conflicting messages on the Hamas attack. Magerman, who is calling on other donors to do the same, noted, “I was just pushed over the edge by the equivocation of the response.” 

    At Harvard, retailer Leslie Wexner announced he was pulling funding from Harvard over its refusal to support Israel. Meanwhile, a group of prominent alumni including Utah Sen. Mitt Romney and investors Seth Klarman and Bill Helman published an open letter criticizing the school’s leadership for creating an increasingly hostile environment for Harvard’s Jewish students and providing steps the university can take to remedy its actions. 

    Perhaps the removal of charitable dollars will nudge universities to action. Academic institutions may say their hands are tied or attempt to hide behind claims they are protecting academic freedom and free speech. However, that rings hollow when we consider the alarming censorship on campus today. Let’s remind them of their sundry diversity, equity and inclusion efforts – from speech codes to removal of faculty — that have been weaponized against opposing viewpoints on campus. There is something deeply wrong when people argue “words are violence” but make excuses for and even celebrate one of the most inhumane acts of violence on a civilian population – including at least 30 Americans – in recent memory.  

    While faculty and students have the right to their viewpoints, the university has a responsibility to ensure everyone’s physical safety and – given their outspoken stance on social justice – to speak out when atrocities like the unprompted murders of innocent Jews occur in the world. And when they forget, donors should remind them.   

  • 2023 Simon-DeVos Prize Winners Laura and Jeff Sandefer Create Change Through Education

    A 2009 encounter with a teacher dramatically changed the course of Laura and Jeff Sandefer’s lives—and the lives of thousands of students—forever. 

    That year, the Sandefers were considering a move from Montessori to traditional school for their sons. During a meeting with a teacher from a local private school, Jeff Sandefer asked when they should make the transition.  

    “As soon as possible,” the teacher said. “Once they’ve experienced so much freedom, they will hate sitting in a desk and being talked at all day.”   

    When Jeff pictured his curious, energetic boys confined to a classroom in this way, he was heartbroken. And that afternoon, when he returned home to Laura, he told her “We’re not doing that to our boys. We’re either going to home-school or start our own school.” 

    That’s how Acton Academy was born.  

    For their groundbreaking contributions to education through platforms like Acton Academy and the Acton Children’s Business Fair, the Sandefers are the recipients of the 2023 Simon-DeVos Prize for Philanthropic Leadership. This Prize honors living philanthropists who have set an example of leadership excellence through charitable giving, and by conveying the values of individual freedom, resourcefulness, faith in God, personal responsibility, scholarship, volunteerism and helping others help themselves. 

    Awakening Heroes on a Hero’s Journey   

    Acton Academy is a global network of private schools inspired by the one-room schoolhouse approach to education. These schools inspire every student to see themselves as a hero in waiting, with an important quest to embark upon. At Acton Academy, students are encouraged to connect to their unique gifts and genius, much like the small-group learning and apprenticeships of early America.  

    “We believe each child has a special gift, and our role is to inspire them with great stories from the past to be the heroes in their own hero’s journey,” Jeff says.  “We believe children learn best through trial and error, in a tightly knit community, tackling real world problems through sharing the stories, examples, rubrics and recipes widely available because of 21st century technology.” 

    Acton’s founding centered around the idea that each student is a genius in his or her own way. Every individual has a unique calling to uncover, and within that potential lies the ability to change the world for the better.  

    “While our learners excel as thinkers, speakers, writers and users of math and technology, we believe courage, setting goals and getting along with others are even more important,” Laura says.  


    From a Small Rental Space to a Global Movement  

    What started with seven students in a small rental house has expanded to a growing, worldwide educational phenomenon. Acton Academy’s learning model is characterized by:  

    • Game-based learning programs that help students develop core knowledge and skills 
    • Discussions based on the Socratic method that encourage the development of critical thinking  
    • Real-world, hands-on projects and learning experiences  
    • Apprenticeships that equip students with all-important skills and knowledge they can take into their professional lives  

    Now, with 300 schools in more than 25 countries so far, the Acton Academy model is steadily increasing in popularity. Students from kindergarten through 12th grade study and develop their individual talents in these intimate settings as they prepare for entrepreneurship, higher education or the workforce. 

    “My parents had seven children, none of whom learned the same way,” says Bill Simon, Jr., co-chairman of the William E. Simon Foundation, which, along with the DeVos Family Foundation, sponsors the annual Prize. “Laura and Jeff Sandefer are visionaries in helping empower parents to create schools that meet the needs of their children through the Acton Academies. We are so pleased that their accomplishments and generosity are being recognized with the 2023 Simon-DeVos Prize for Philanthropic Leadership.”  

    The Sandefers credit Acton Academy’s success to the families who had the courage to try a new approach to education.  

    “We focused on the needs of the end customer,” Jeff says. “Then, we built experiments that turned into kits many could use, and a network of people willing to work and learn together. In every way, it was a bottom-up experiment that relied on the hard work of thousands of young heroes and parents with real skin in the game.”  


    Sifting Through the Past: Education Before the Industrial Revolution 

    As Jeff and Laura began to consider what launching their own school might look like, they traveled back in time—first to the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when our current public school model emerged. The current public school system is professionalized and modeled to train productive citizens. But that means children are being trained in an environment that is, essentially, industrialized.  

    The Sandefers believe the traditional model of education fails to recognize students as individuals. Rather than treating children as cogs in a machine, Acton Academy seeks to transform them into the leaders and heroes they’re capable of becoming.  

    “Children aren’t widgets,” Jeff said in his 2011 TEDxOKC Talk.  

    Rather than emulating the current educational system, Acton Academy is modeled after the one-room schoolhouse educational style that predates the Industrial Revolution. It’s also characterized by apprenticeships that allow students to study under a knowledgeable teacher who can help them learn essential skills for the years ahead.  

    “Jeff and Laura’s visionary ideas have transformed the educational ecosystem by fostering entrepreneurship, critical thinking and character development in young people through experiential student-led learning,” says entrepreneur and investor Rick DeVos. “Their work through Acton Academy has empowered students to discover their unique gifts and become independent lifelong learners. Jeff and Laura’s outstanding contributions uplift communities and ignite a ripple effect of transformational impact.”   


    Creating an Agile, Powerful Network Through Experimentation  

    Acton Academy’s founders and leaders have demonstrated a deep willingness to experiment and remain agile in their quest to develop its strong educational programs. According to Laura, they’ve carefully “defended against mission creep,” remaining focused on the task at hand.  

    “We learned from groups like the early Christian church and Alcoholics Anonymous how to create lightweight, powerful networks where those we serve promise to serve others and pay it forward,” she says.  

    Throughout Acton Academy’s development, its leaders have experimented in order to improve the educational model. They repeat what works until they can package it into a kit for others. Then, they create networks to learn from one another. When experiments are proven to be effective, they become part of Acton Academy’s playbook.  


    Entrepreneurial and Educational Roots Inspire a Fresh Method of Learning  

    At its core, Acton Academy helps to develop critical thinking and entrepreneurial skills in young students. The concept formed in part as a result of the Sandefers’ unique backgrounds.  

    A successful entrepreneur and educator, and the founder of seven businesses including the oil and gas company Sandefer Offshore and the energy investment firm Sandefer Capital Partners, Jeff learned entrepreneurship at an early age. His father, an oil businessman from Abilene, Texas, made his living from wildcatting, a high-risk method of exploratory oil drilling that may or may not yield results. At 16, Jeff launched his first business painting oil tankers.  

    He earned his bachelor’s degree in petroleum and gas from the University of Texas. From there, he went on to Harvard University to earn his MBA. During this time, he learned about the Socratic method, a teaching technique that Acton Academy employs today to encourage critical thinking in its students. For more than three decades, Jeff worked as a professor, first at the University of Texas then at his Acton School of Business MBA program and later as a guide at Acton Academy.  

    Laura, whose mother was a beloved teacher, holds a bachelor of arts and masters of education from Vanderbilt University. She’s also the author of “Courage to Grow: How Acton Academy Turns Learning Upside Down.”  

    Combining their shared backgrounds, the Sandefers blazed an entrepreneurial trail, establishing and growing Acton Academy into a global movement. Despite its success, they remain mindful of the reasons they first established the school.  

    “Our mission is to serve families and their quest for learning – not to take political positions or participate in educational reform,” Laura says.  


    Making an Impact Through Engaged Philanthropy  

    At the heart of every charitable donor is a desire to improve the lives of others. When it comes to being an engaged philanthropist, Laura says it’s important to focus on “questions, choices and community” over money and top-down solutions.  

    “[We focus on] questions to discover the deeply felt needs of an individual; choices to offer to the individual who becomes the hero in his or her own story and community so the individual becomes part of something grander and more beautiful, and almost always pays it forward by serving someone else,” she says.  

    Rather than using multiple metrics to gauge their success, the Sandefers say they only focus on one: the willingness of learners and their families to recommend Acton Academy to others.  

    Jeff says Acton Academy has looked to Philanthropy Roundtable as a model for its own growth and development.  

    “I found … Philanthropy Roundtable in 1989 when I was 29 years old,” he says. “Over the last several decades, their focus on donor intent, keeping overhead low and staying focused on the needs of those we serve have been guiding lights.”  


    Looking Toward the Future 

    As recipients of the 2023 Simon-DeVos Prize, the Sandefers will receive an award of $200,000, which may be paid toward one or more selected charities. Jeff and Laura have elected to split the award between the Acton Institute, which bears no relation to Acton Academy, and Hope International, a micro-finance organization that helps fight poverty. 

    “Jeff and Laura’s journey has been defined by a relentless pursuit of positive change, a commitment to innovation and a deep compassion for humanity,” says Dick DeVos, president of the Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation. “Their ability to inspire, motivate and mobilize others across the globe through the Acton model is a testament to their exemplary leadership and charisma. Their story reminds me that each one of us has the capacity to make a difference, creating a legacy that extends far beyond our own lifetimes.” 

    For the Sandefers, accepting the Simon-DeVos Prize is the culmination of many years of philanthropy and impact. But it’s also a poignant moment for Jeff and Laura, who have been inspired by the Simon and DeVos families for many years.  

    “I’ve long admired the work and character of Betsy, Dick and the DeVos family,” Jeff says. “Likewise, Bill Simon has been a hero of mine since the 1970s, from his pioneering of the leveraged buyout to his world changing service as Secretary of the Treasury.”  

    “Being recognized by the Simon and DeVos families is a great honor and we’ll do everything we can to live up to it,” he adds. 

    The Prize was presented to the Sandefers on October 25, 2023 at Philanthropy Roundtable’s Annual Meeting in Rancho Palos Verdes, California. 

    Learn more about the Simon-Devos Prize here. 

  • Will the “Apprenticeship Degree” Come to America? 

    A version of this essay by Reach University President Joe E. Ross first appeared in Inside Higher Ed on July 25, 2023.  

    Philanthropy Roundtable is pleased to share this essay by Joe E. Ross, president of Reach University. Ross and his team have worked to provide an innovative model that creates pathways to opportunity for individuals working within educational communities while simultaneously solving one of the largest problems plaguing our nation’s schools today – teacher talent pipelines. Reach University is providing a low-cost solution to the barrier of credentialing for individuals who are best positioned to meet the educational needs of their local communities through a groundbreaking apprenticeship model.  

    Among high school seniors, a privileged few get to pick between elite, world-renowned colleges like Columbia, Duke, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, Stanford, Wellesley or Yale.  

    What if they could spend their next few years at investment bank Goldman Sachs instead?  

    Some now can. Dozens of famous employers — including Goldman Sachs and other corporate luminaries like Deloitte, GE, IBM, J.P. Morgan, Nestlé, UBS and Rolls Royce — have begun to offer a four-year paid “apprenticeship” that leads to a debt-free bachelor’s degree.   

    What’s the catch?  

    Well, to apply for the Goldman Sachs gig and others like it, you need to be based in the United Kingdom. Here in the United States, the apprenticeship-to-degree model is only beginning to emerge, particularly for working adults who otherwise lack access to college. If the idea takes off, it could be a long-term solution to the $1.7 trillion student debt crisis and restore lagging faith in American higher education.  

    How does this model work?  

    Imagine a job – a paid job – that turns into a degree. Applicants apply to the employer. The diploma is technically conferred by a collaborating university. But the action happens outside the Ivory Tower. Half of the learning comes from on-the-job work. The rest comes from job-relevant classes typically held outside of working hours. Tuition is largely paid for as part of the learner’s compensation. There are no student loans. 

    Early adopters of a similar approach in the United States include state education agencies and K-12 school districts seeking to address the teacher shortage. The nonprofit Reach University created a debt-free, apprenticeship-based bachelor’s degree specifically for school employees in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado and Louisiana. Launched in fall 2020, the fully job-embedded program has grown from 50 candidates to over 1,500 in less than three years.  

    The federal Pell grant typically covers all but $2,000 of the cost of the job-embedded degree program. Philanthropy or Labor Department apprenticeship funding covers most of the remaining tuition, so each candidate’s out-of-pocket contribution is capped at $900 per year. That’s enough to ensure some skin in the game, while keeping the program affordable without student debt.  

    Dr. Heath Grimes is the superintendent of the rural Russellville City School District in northwest Alabama. The majority of students in Russellville are Hispanic but the district has had a hard time recruiting bilingual staff. Grimes began last year to recruit prospective hires who had graduated from the local community college. He positioned the district as a kind of “transfer institution” where they could use their job to turn their associate degree into a bachelor’s degree.   

    Elizabeth Alonzo, who held an associate degree in business, was among the first to accept this unusual offer. She now serves as an English language aide. Her job is a kind of apprenticeship where what she does at work renders both a paycheck from the district and academic credit from Reach University. Less than a year from now, Alonzo will graduate with the bachelor’s degree she needs to become a teacher. 

    She will be the first fully bilingual elementary school teacher in Russellville.  

    For now, the apprenticeship-to-degree program at Reach exclusively serves school employees – classroom aides, coaches and bus drivers, for example – who aspire to become teachers, and who first need to earn a bachelor’s degree.  

    But could this idea expand in the United States to fields outside of teacher preparation?  

    The answer is yes. Just look at what’s happening in the United Kingdom. More than 100 universities now offer so-called “degree apprenticeships” in fields ranging from management consulting to medicine, and more than 40,000 new students enroll each year. Robert Halfon, the U.K. minister for higher education and skills, likes to say that “degree” and “apprenticeship” are his two favorite words.  

    The ordering of those words — degree before apprenticeship — reflects the complexity of the apprenticeship system in the United Kingdom, where the “degree apprenticeship” is the pinnacle of a multi-level system that also includes the “intermediate apprenticeship” and “advanced apprenticeship.” This nomenclature does not translate on our side of the Atlantic. It makes more sense to refer to the American version as the “apprenticeship degree.”  

    After all, amid skyrocketing student debt, it’s not the apprenticeship that needs to be modified. It’s the degree.  

    That’s why Reach University is bringing together policymakers, philanthropists, employers and entrepreneurial leaders in higher education and workforce development to launch a new nationwide center to advance the apprenticeship degree – not as a postsecondary alternative, but as a postsecondary option – and to make it mainstream in the United States.  

    We believe the emergence of the apprenticeship degree has three notable implications for the future of American higher education:  

    1. For starters, we’re skeptical of narratives that paint the apprenticeship as a mere “alternative” to college. This is a false binary. An apprenticeship that intentionally leads to a degree provides both near-term job skills and long-term upward mobility.  
    1. Second, we imagine the future of college as the future of work: The workplace becomes a campus. Colleagues become classmates. Classes may be online, but learners are not remote. This would be a big change for higher education. To conflate the apprenticeship degree with an online degree or an executive degree would be like mistaking Superman for a bird or plane. 
    1. Finally, when it comes to the nation’s seemingly intractable student loan crisis, we believe the debt-free apprenticeship degree could save the day. But this will only happen if job-embedded higher education goes mainstream, drawing the imagination of learners across all income levels. 

    Enrique Peñalosa, a former mayor of Bogotá, Colombia, has been quoted describing this third dynamic in the context of urban policy: “The sign of an advanced society is not where the poor have cars, it’s where even the rich use public transportation.” 

    Similarly, we’ll know the apprenticeship degree is changing the landscape of opportunity in America when rich and poor alike aspire to a job that will lead to a good degree.  

    Not the other way around.   

    To learn more about Reach University, visit www.reach.edu. If you are interested in helping accelerate Reach’s work addressing the teacher shortage or supporting Reach’s Fall 2023 launch of the new National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree (NCAD), please contact NCAD Executive Director Eric Dunker, edunker@reach.edu.   

    For more information about other organizations providing Pathways to Opportunity, reach out to Philanthropy Roundtable Program Director Erica Haines.  

  • This Labor Day, Pioneer Institute Highlights Importance of Vocational Training

    As Americans celebrate the achievements of our nation’s workers this Labor Day, Philanthropy Roundtable is proud to support organizations that eliminate barriers to upward mobility, expand opportunity and reward hard work. I recently sat down with Jim Stergios, executive director of Pioneer Institute, a think tank that envisions a nation where people can prosper and society can thrive because of “world-class options in education, health care, transportation and economic opportunity, and where our government is limited, accountable and transparent.” 

    The interview below has been edited for length and clarity. 

    Q: You lead Pioneer Institute (PI), a Massachusetts-based public policy think tank that concentrates on education, health care and economic opportunity. What is your mission and what role do you play in the broader public policy landscape? 

    Stergios: Pioneer’s mission is to advance innovation across multiple states in education, health care and economic opportunity through best-in-class research, advocacy and legal action.  

    Our education team works in multiple states with the goal of preparing students to be good citizens and economically successful. Our strategic focus is on innovations, especially the expansion of public (charter and vocational-technical) and private school choices, not on fixing broken public systems.  

    Our health care strategy focuses on the life sciences. In the last half century, the U.S. shed 40% of its hospital beds, largely because of the rise in outpatient care made possible by massive medical advances. Our life sciences team works in seven states and Washington, D.C., to promote transparent pricing, fend off price controls and expand adoption of pricing strategies that will make cutting-edge treatments more affordable.  

    On economic opportunity, we run on dual tracks, defending Massachusetts’s economic competitiveness and piloting in several states, for now, a program on the catalytic role of immigrant entrepreneurs in the U.S. economy as a way of building an understanding of capitalism. 


    Q: Over the last 30 years, PI has focused on policies that expand opportunities for all people. Where do you see the biggest opening for making gains in this area?  

    Stergios: In these increasingly politically charged times, organizations must focus on research, partnerships and legal strategies. That’s why we started the Pioneer Public Interest Law Center. Its job is to create precedents that will have immediate and lasting impact. Currently, it is focused on equal treatment for special needs students in private schools, enforcement of state obligations to teach U.S. history and civics, and the defense of immigrant entrepreneurs harmed by unnecessary government regulations. 

    Pioneer has seen significant progress in recent years, in Supreme Court cases like Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, where our amicus brief was cited in Justice Alito’s concurring opinion, and Carson v. Makin. Since these decisions, Pioneer’s research and advocacy on the ground in 10 states assisted local activists in securing legislation expanding choice.  


    Q:  While vocational training in schools has fallen out of favor over the last several years, you have focused on it quite a bit, authoring a book on this issue called “Hands-On Achievement: Massachusetts’s National Model Vocational-Technical Schools.” Why have you focused on this topic? 

    Stergios: Education reformers usually focus on either charter or private school choice. Massachusetts vocational-technical schools are public schools of choice that were ignored for too long. The commonwealth’s 1993 Education Reform Act required vocational-technical students to pass the same tests as their peers in other public schools to earn a diploma. That, along with a system in which students alternate weekly between academic and vocational education, has created a network of schools that outperform the state’s comprehensive high schools, ensure that students graduate with strong work skills and credentials, and have dropout rates a third of the statewide average.  

    That is especially impressive because Massachusetts’s vocational-technical schools educate more special needs and low-income students than other public schools. No state has gotten vocational-technical education right the way Massachusetts has. These graduates have a choice of pursuing further education or entering jobs that offer family-sustaining wages—without college and the debt that often accompanies it. Importantly, expanding stronger vocational programs in other states will address labor shortages in the trades and technology manufacturing and services sectors. 


    Q:  How have your strategic partnerships helped PI expand vocational and technical school efforts outside of Massachusetts?   

    Stergios: Pioneer is partnering widely to extend the impact of our vocational-technical school work. Through our longstanding partnership with the Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators, we were able to connect with national industry organizations such as SkillsUSA and Advance CTE.  Working through our chambers of commerce, we developed contacts with peers in our target states (Kentucky, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas). Employers we’ve connected with understand the deficiencies in federally funded workforce development programs. Finally, we work with State Policy Network affiliates to disseminate our work nationally. 

    Pioneer also has hosted webinars on “Hands-On Achievement,” garnering over 14,000 views in our target states, California, Florida, New York and Washington. The book generated national print articles in outlets like The Washington Post, The Washington Times, IndustryWeek, Public News Service, radio coverage, media attention in target states and think tank podcasts and articles. Our mini-documentary, “Training Our Future Workforce: Voc-Tech Success,” was watched over 84,000 times. 


    Q:  The recent Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in higher education will impact students throughout the country. Why is focusing on K-12 education important in creating opportunities for all students?   
     
    Stergios: Our focus remains on K-12. Much of the racial tension generated by affirmative action results from the failure of our monolithic public schools. Affirmative action in higher education admissions is itself a clear indictment of the success of America’s public K-12 schools. If traditional public schools were doing their job, such an “end of pipe” workaround would never have been necessary. This is, in part, why the vocational-technical model is vitally important. We need more K-12 models that bridge achievement gaps.  


    Q:  What are the ongoing challenges or pitfalls for PI and organizations like yours that aim to address expanding opportunity through education? How are you tackling these issues?   
     
    Stergios: I’m very hopeful about education. In 2000, few would have believed that by 2023, district schools in the U.S. would lose 10% of their market share, as measured by enrollment, to charters and private education models. Instead of responding by improving the product, the two national teachers’ unions are doubling down on divisive, self-serving rhetoric.  

    Pioneer is part of a group of organizations supporting change in states where that is possible. Only the threat of even greater losses in market share will force traditional public schools to change direction and focus on providing educational opportunity to all students. 

     For more information about this organization or others providing Pathways to Opportunity, reach out to Philanthropy Roundtable Program Director Erica Haines.  

  • Denisha Allen (Merriweather) on Why Black Minds Matter


    Philanthropy Roundtable recently sat down with Denisha Allen (Merriweather), founder of Black Minds Matter, a “national movement to celebrate Black minds, support excellence and promote the development of high-quality school options for Black students.” Allen, an American Federation for Children senior fellow, is a champion for school choice and a Florida tax-credit scholarship recipient. Through Black Minds Matter, she hopes to help provide access to an excellent education for every Black student. 

    The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.  

    Q: You founded Black Minds Matter, a project of the American Federation for Children Growth Fund (AFC), in 2020, a time when many Americans were seeking to address social injustices in our country. What led you to create this organization and what role does it serve? 

    Allen: I came to AFC after working at the U.S. Department of Education with Secretary DeVos. I worked with the Trump administration for two years, and then came to AFC as a director of Family Engagement. Then, in 2020, I wrote an op-ed in Real Clear Education about my frustrations in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. Our country was in civil unrest, maybe even the whole world was in civil unrest, and people were looking for ways to challenge racism. I wanted to bring attention to areas that would help Black America attain empowerment and excellence in all aspects of life. And, to me, that meant focusing on education. When I looked at the data, I saw that Black students are not reading on grade level or graduating from high school at the same rates as their white and Asian counterparts. I wanted to focus on changing that.  

    Unfortunately, at that moment in the national conversation, there was not a widespread initiative from the Black Lives Matter movement to talk about education and education reform. So, I coined the term Black Minds Matter to highlight that we need to focus on education freedom. We received a tremendous amount of support for what we stood for. And I’m proud that one of our first initiatives was to bring together a network of Black school founders. This was very personal for me because I went to a Black-founded school, and I benefited directly from the school choice movement.   

    Our mission is to nourish Black students with a rich education of their parents’ choice by any means necessary. Our goal is to expand our reach by engaging new audiences. This includes both Republican and Democratic elected officials, HBCU’s and our growing Black Founders Network. We are also committed to expanding our visibility through high quality content that can also be used to generate revenue for our work.  

    Lastly, we want to bring awareness about education freedom to the communities where Black students are most likely to be relegated to poor performing public schools. We have over 430 Black-founded schools in our online directory at www.BlackMindsMatter.net, and 150 Black school founders in our network. We were thrilled to have many of them in attendance at our second annual Black Minds Matter Summit in Washington, D.C., earlier this year.  

    Q: Can you tell us more about your personal connection to the work you are doing? 

    Allen: I went to a private school in Jacksonville, Florida, on scholarship from sixth grade onward. I failed the third grade twice because I couldn’t read. As you can imagine, I had very low self-esteem, and I was lashing out by starting physical fights. My life trajectory was going in the same direction as many of the people in my family who had all dropped out of school. When I switched schools, I went from getting F’s and D’s to getting straight A’s.  When I founded Black Minds Matter, I saw the opportunity to highlight Black-owned schools as a part of that narrative, since school choice had such a transformative impact on my own life. 

    Q: Your website says that nourishing Black minds with a rich education is the first step to breaking generational poverty and societal inequities. What do you mean by societal inequities, and how does education combat this problem? 

    Allen: In America, there’s a class issue and there are a race issues, and sometimes those issues get intermingled and intertwined. But, at the root of both of those conversations is our education system. And the data shows that Black and brown students are performing the worst academically in this country. Just to give you an example, the NWEA just came out with a new study that follows in the same vein as recent NAEP [The Nation’s Report Card] scores. They said students on the whole will need three to four months of additional schooling in order to catch up from recent learning loss.  

    Shockingly, they found Black students will need two additional months to catch up. So, you’re telling me that Black students will need five to six months of additional schooling to make up for learning loss. When the system is pumping out hundreds of thousands of Black students who can’t read or do math into society, they end up in the criminal justice system. We call it the school-to-prison-pipeline. That is a societal inequity. That’s a civil rights issue. Black kids are not able to read. We need to change that. 

    When we look at education in America, we need to ensure that no kid is relegated to poor performing or failing schools because of where they live. Students in poorer neighborhoods are not receiving the same education as students who are going to schools where almost 90% of parents own their homes. We can solve this socio-economic/racial problem if we can create a market where competition is going to create incentives that perform better for students. Education freedom allows parents to choose the best school for their child regardless of school type. I sit on the board for Step Up For Students in Florida – the largest school choice program in the country. In Florida, we’ve seen academic outcomes for students in traditional public schools increase with every expansion of the state’s scholarship program. That’s because everyone is competing for students.  

    Q: Our 2021 Simon-DeVos Prize Winner Bill Oberndorf, chairman of the board of the American Federation for Children, has called access to education the civil rights issue of our time. Do you agree, and if so, why is that the case? 

    Allen: I absolutely do. It is the civil rights issue of our time. One of the goals of Black Minds Matter is to help the public see that school choice and education freedom are a part of the longer struggle for freedom in the United States and have deep historical roots. The conversation has been led by policy folks for so long, which is important. But I really want to make it more approachable and accessible to everyone. When we talk about the history of freedom in America, it is inextricably tied to access to education, from slavery through the Antebellum period all the way up to today. The struggle has always been access to education.  

    One of the ways we are working to showcase the connection between freedom and education is by conducting exhibits that illustrate the extent to which slaves wanted to read. One part of our exhibit showcases findings from archaeologists who found “pit schools” or deep holes in the ground where they also found tablets and pencils for writing. The slaves understood that their freedom was rooted in the ability to read and write, and they risked their lives to try to attain those skills. I always like to say there is freedom of the body and also of the mind, and that has always been the goal of African Americans in this country. They have never been divorced from one another. 

    Q: The recent Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in higher education could impact students throughout the country. How do you feel about this decision and why? 
     
    Allen: I think it’s going to be very obvious that we need better options for Black students, and this decision makes that clearer. Black kids are not reading on grade level and removing affirmative action in higher education means Black kids will have to perform even better academically to be accepted into colleges and universities.   

    Q: As you look ahead, what are you most excited about for Black Minds Matter? 

    Allen: I’m always very excited about the Black School Founders network. They are amazing, so to be able to support them and champion the work they do for students is very rewarding. Many of them have models that are worthy of replication. We are going to focus on capacity building and finding ways to support them. I’m also very excited to get more involved in states and districts with the worst academic and life outcomes for Black and brown students, and to advocate for better outcomes in the lowest performing districts in the country. For example, I get excited when I think about a city like Baltimore, where reading and math levels are abysmal. The creation of education savings accounts in that city will help students access better choices. Through projects like this, we are going to close the achievement gap.   

    For more information about this organization or others providing Pathways to Opportunity, reach out to Philanthropy Roundtable Program Director Erica Haines.

  • Philanthropic Responses to the Closing of the American Mind

    How Charitable Giving Is Helping Expand Freedom of Expression on College Campuses

    Philanthropy Roundtable’s Values-Based Giving Program connects our donor community to high-impact organizations that advance our shared values of liberty, opportunity and personal responsibility. This story is part of our campaign highlighting how donors and nonprofits work together to improve lives. Interested in learning more about Values-Based Giving and the services our team provides? Click here.

    The fundamental purpose of higher education is to provide Americans of all backgrounds the opportunity for advanced learning, foster the pursuit of knowledge and provide training in specific fields of study or practice. But in recent years, ideologically charged threats to freedom of thought and academic inquiry have expanded on college and university campuses across the country under the guise of “diversity” initiatives or policies. Many campuses have become hot beds for a “cancel culture” driven by political ideology that has intimidated students and professors, leaving them afraid to express their views, popular or otherwise.

    This truly is the closing of the American mind, then throwing away the key, a mortal threat to the very soul of scholarly inquiry as well as educational and professional advancement, which are building blocks of individual and economic flourishing. 

    Fortunately, private philanthropy is well-positioned to help the leaders and organizations who have stepped up to assess and remedy this grave crisis. Nonprofits are mobilizing students, faculty and alumni by providing resources on multiple fronts—from litigation to advocacy to media efforts—to raise awareness about this attack on free speech and association and promote the value of intellectual diversity at educational institutions.

    By challenging what has become a dangerous status quo, organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the Academic Freedom Alliance, and Alumni Free Speech Alliance are working hard to maintain an open exchange of ideas and critical thinking in our colleges and universities. While others, like the Institute for Humane Studies, are creating alternative models that help demonstrate innovative approaches to higher education. The work of these organizations varies, but each is dedicated to combating an epidemic that is chilling speech and hindering students and faculty from engaging with diverse ideas through respectful debate and discussion.     

    A Crisis of Free Speech and Expression on College Campuses

    To underscore the seriousness of this problem, one can cite numerous examples from university and college campuses around the country.

    FIRE is dedicated to defending and sustaining all Americans’ individual rights to free speech and free thought, with a special emphasis on our nation’s campuses. According to FIRE senior fellow Robert Shibley, college administrators have become “so amenable to unlawful or unconscionable demands that they set themselves up for the many calls to punish or silence students we’ve seen.”

    Last year, FIRE partnered with College Pulse to conduct the largest survey ever of college students’ experiences with free speech. Nearly 45,000 students participated from more than 200 colleges, and only one-in-four students (22%) reported they felt “very comfortable” discussing “a controversial political topic” with other students on campus. The survey also found that about three-in-five students (59%) said they would be uncomfortable disagreeing with a professor publicly on a controversial topic, while one-in-five (22%) said they often engage in self-censorship.

    Another recent survey conducted from 2019-2021 by the nonpartisan nonprofit Heterodox Academy, which is dedicated to improving “the quality of research and education in universities by increasing open inquiry, viewpoint diversity and constructive disagreement,” found that nearly nine out of 10 students believe “colleges should encourage students and professors to be open to learning from people whose beliefs differ from their own,” while almost the same high percentage of students believe that “colleges should welcome students and professors with a lot of different points of view.”

    In comparing these two reports, it appears college students agree that open inquiry and free expression are valuable. However, many remain somewhat fearful of expressing their own views to their peers and faculty.

    Fortunately, organizations like FIRE and Heterodox Academy have resources available for them. FIRE’s Student Network offers a community of peers who care about civil liberties as well as opportunities to learn about students’ rights on campus. This year, Heterodox Academy is launching a new Campus Community Network with 23 chapters across the U.S. and Canada, including MIT, UC Berkeley and McGill University. Each community is action-oriented, led by Heterodox Academy member co-chairs from among faculty, staff or graduate students, and charged with hosting monthly gatherings, organizing events and collaborating with fellow campus leaders.

    It’s important to realize that students are not the only ones suffering on campus. FIRE publishes a database that tracks when a professor, researcher, lecturer or other individual with an academic position at a college or university is investigated, penalized or otherwise professionally sanctioned for “engaging in constitutionally protected forms of speech.” They have documented nearly 900 examples—more than 120 in 2022 alone—of people being targeted by either the political left or right since 2000.

    Philanthropic leaders and charitable organizations are stepping up to support organizations pushing back against efforts to suppress free speech and expression on college campuses, as well as developing new ways of fostering open and intellectually diverse learning environments in higher education. They include the Barry Foundation, the Stanton Foundation and the Institute for Humane Studies.

    Donors and nonprofits are bringing together resources in different yet complementary and effective ways to motivate alumni to engage with their alma maters and their student populations, provide high-tech alternatives to traditional academic forums for formulating scholarship and support litigation that defends professors and students whose rights have been violated and who are facing reputational and career repercussions.

    Academic Freedom Alliance: Promoting “Freedom of Thought, of Inquiry, of Discussion”

    In early 2021, academics from across the ideological spectrum came together and formed the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) to protect college and university faculty members’ right to speak, teach and publish the results of their research without fear of sanction or punishment. According to the nonprofit’s website, AFA’s purpose is to help scholars “fulfill their vocation as truth-seekers.” Its diverse membership includes socialist philosophy professor Cornel West, conservative Princeton law professor Robert P. George, former president of the American Civil Liberties Union Nadine Strossen and prominent liberal free speech attorney Floyd Abrams.

    It is one thing to state an ambitious purpose, but AFA members have formulated effective strategies. AFA Director of Operations Howard Muncy points out, its members embrace “the NATO-like principle of an attack on one being treated as an attack on all” – transcending any philosophical differences or disagreements between an academic who is subjected to attack and the colleagues coming to his or her aid. To the AFA, an assault on academic freedom anywhere is an assault on academic freedom everywhere.

    When professors or scholars find themselves under siege for exercising their First Amendment rights, the AFA will raise funds to support any necessary litigation on their behalf. And it carries out this defense without endorsing any content. In just two years, the AFA has supported 13 cases. During that same time period, it expanded its membership from 217 founding members to more than 700 practicing academics today, a credit to their strategy of refusing to choose ideological sides.

    This is also why the John and Daria Barry Foundation chose to help protect academic freedom by becoming AFA’s first donor.

    “To carry out their mission, scholars must be free to pursue the truth,” Daria Barry emphasized. “Our foundation helped to create the Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) to ensure that professors who are unfairly censored can find a common source of strength by banding together with their peers from across the political spectrum.”

    And it’s not only the scholars who benefit, notes Barry. “In today’s climate, the AFA serves to recall universities—and their broader communities—to their first duty to their students: to pursue the truth,” she said.

    Alumni Organize to Support Free Speech at Institutions of Higher Education

    It takes courage for a faculty member to risk the comfort of his or her position in opposing politically charged attacks on academic freedom – courage which not every professor or scholar who cherishes free inquiry will be willing to exhibit. But alumni are significantly less vulnerable.

    With this in mind, graduates of Cornell University, Davidson College, Princeton University, the University of Virginia and Washington and Lee University formed the Alumni Free Speech Alliance (AFSA) in 2021, allying with the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse, Princetonians for Free Speech, UVA’s Jefferson Council and Washington and Lee’s Generals Redoubt.

    According to AFSA Chairman Emeritus Edward Yingling, the group is working to establish individual speech alumni groups at colleges and universities, then helping them grow and thrive. Like the AFA, AFSA does not discriminate based on ideology in defending the rights of faculty and students.

    “In the current environment of intolerance of thought, our colleges and universities are becoming monocultures. They’re losing their reason for being,” said Yingling. “So our job is multi-faceted. We shine a spotlight on any objectionable actions against faculty or students. … But that’s just one element of what we do.”

    AFSA is building a list of alumni across the country who support its mission, extending support to faculty and students so they do not feel isolated and taking part in events with third party groups, including partnerships between the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), Braver Angels and BridgeUSA to encourage depolarization and respectful engagement among students on divisive issues. At present, AFSA boasts 15 member alumni groups actively engaged with their alma maters with an ambitious goal of increasing that number to 40 by the end of the year.

    The Stanton Foundation, which primarily educates at-risk children and promotes adoption, provided AFSA with its initial grant. Stanton Foundation Program Director Laurie Slap applauded AFSA’s “thoughtful, coherent approach” to growing its membership and influence as an “umbrella group that is bringing together different organizations,” citing support for AFSA from MIT’s Free Speech Alliance. That organization was founded in 2021 when University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot was disinvited from delivering MIT’s prestigious John Carlson Lecture. The invitation was rescinded following a student outcry over a Newsweek article Abbot co-wrote arguing that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives on campus, among other things, violate the “ethical and legal principle of equal treatment.”

    Digital Platform Provides “Intellectual Community Building”

    Another nonprofit pursuing freedom of thought – albeit in a different manner – is the Institute for Humane Studies, which supports scholars applying classical liberal principles to today’s most pressing challenges. Ryan Stowers, executive director of the Charles Koch Foundation, which has long been one of IHS’s financial supporters, is excited about its plans to make full use of technology in the fight to promote robust scholarly discourse.

    “In the last five years the attacks on scholarly freedom have escalated to a level you wouldn’t have expected,” Stowers said. “That’s a reflection of increased intolerance in the exchange of ideas elsewhere in society. But universities are meant to be above this, to be a safe place where the entire array of ideas can be discussed. Instead they’re now under constant threat.”

    “Philanthropy has to think through the strategy of how to fight that threat,” said Stowers, “and IHS has one of the most innovative approaches.”

    For more than 60 years, IHS has been connecting scholars across the “humane disciplines” of economics, history, law, philosophy and political science through interdisciplinary programs around the ideas and institutions that underlie free, open and prosperous societies. Economist Emily Chamlee-Wright, the organization’s president and CEO, described the new IHS initiative as a digital gathering place that, once fully developed, will break down intellectual silos and help scholars do their best work.

    According to Chamlee-Wright, like IHS’s traditional programs, which will continue, the digital gathering place will attract scholars seeking bottom-up solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges in a context of intellectual humility and openness.

    Education has long been central to America’s success in numerous fields from medicine and the advanced sciences to the globally competitive field of computer technology plus law and economics. Defending and promoting the freedom to learn, teach or research without ideologically motivated interference, bullying or other threats is critical to any effort focused on restoring or reforming older higher education institutions or providing new pathways to opportunity.

    Through philanthropy and its partnership with these dedicated nonprofits, we are witnessing support for independent, critical thinking on campuses and beyond, including innovative technology that empowers scholars and faculty researchers to share ideas openly, and ultimately, to strengthen our free society.

    For those concerned about what’s being taught to our next generation of leaders headed into the business world, government agencies, medical community, and yes, the classroom as educators, we must remember that stifling debate, diverse viewpoints and the ability of students, faculty and staff to engage with them does not create a skilled practitioner, a bold innovator or even a savvy voter. Instead, it results in students being woefully unprepared for the “real world” and without the skills needed to succeed when they bid their campuses farewell.

    Thomas McArdle was a White House speechwriter for President George W. Bush and is a longtime political journalist. He was speechwriter for Export-Import Bank of the United States Chairman Kimberly Reed during the Trump Administration and was senior writer for Investor’s Business Daily. He writes a column for the Epoch Times and contributes to IssuesInsights.com.