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Donor Intent Watch: A Dispute at the Berkshire Museum Offers Lessons on Donor Intent

Earlier this year, following the passage of the Donor Intent Protection Act in Kansas, Philanthropy Roundtable launched a monthly series on donor intent controversies around the country to better inform those who care about this important topic. We continue to await updates on lawsuits involving Middlebury College and the former Hastings College of the Law, and will continue to inform readers about those topics.

Most cases discussed this year have involved gifts to colleges and universities, and that will likely continue. Art and natural history collections have also experienced such disputes, however, as indicated by our coverage of the Barnes Foundation. This month, our focus is entirely on the museum world as we discuss a landmark case and the complications that can ensue regarding donations to museums and donor intent.

We encourage donors to contact us with any questions they have about our featured items and consult additional resources on donor intent at the Roundtable’s Donor Intent Hub. We also welcome any news about donor intent that we may have missed.

The Controversy Over Raising Funds by Selling Art at the Berkshire Museum

As we noted in August, the controversy at the Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University revolved around the university president’s decision to sell three notable pieces of art to raise funds for expanded on-campus student housing. The courts eventually dismissed the lawsuit brought by his opponents because they lacked legal standing. There was no decision on whether the institution’s financial need was sufficient to justify the sale.

A 2017 case in Massachusetts, however, was ultimately resolved – at least legally – on the basis of financial need. The Berkshire Museum, a relatively small facility in the western part of the state, faced continued annual financial losses and its trustees had been considering how best to resolve its critical budget crisis since 2015.

In 2017, they agreed to deaccession and sell 40 works of art at auction, not only to address the museum’s immediate need, but also to raise $60 million for a long-term sustainability plan to recreate the museum to showcase science and history along with art. Among the art works to be auctioned were two Norman Rockwell paintings that had been donated by the artist himself, an Alexander Calder sculpture and a painting by the Hudson River School’s Frederic Church.

Two lawsuits were filed in response, one by the three sons of Norman Rockwell who argued the museum trustees were violating their father’s donor intent. All the sons were beneficiaries of the Rockwell estate, and one was the estate’s executor. Another plaintiff in that suit was Tom Patti, an artist and owner of a company contracted by the Berkshire Museum to install two glass works. He sought to prevent the modification or revocation of his contract in the museum’s proposed plans.

The last group of plaintiffs in the Rockwell lawsuit were members of the museum, several of whom had also made donations beyond their membership dues. They claimed the decision to sell works of art constituted a breach of contract between the museum’s trustees and its members. A second lawsuit was filed by a group of plaintiffs who were residents of Berkshire County, some of them also museum members.

Museum professionals also objected to the proposed sale. In July 2017, the American Alliance of Museums and the Association of Art Museum Directors issued a joint statement noting the two organizations were “deeply opposed to the Berkshire Museum’s plans to sell works from its collection to provide funds for its endowment, to make capital investments and to pay for daily operations. One of the most fundamental and long-standing principles of the museum field is that a collection is held in the public trust and must not be treated as a disposable financial asset.”

From the beginning of the dispute there were questions about the legal standing of the plaintiffs to seek injunctive relief from the courts to block the sale of the paintings. On October 30, 2017, the attorney general of Massachusetts at the time and now governor of the state, Maura Healey – who had been named a defendant in the Rockwell suit – joined that lawsuit and “filed an emergency motion to ‘convert from defendant to plaintiff if plaintiffs lack standing’ and, if so, to seek a preliminary injunction on behalf of the Commonwealth.” This motion was granted.

The decision of the Superior Court of Massachusetts was issued on November 7, 2017. Associate Justice John A. Agostini dismissed all the non-governmental plaintiffs in the Rockwell lawsuit and all the plaintiffs in the second lawsuit for lack of standing and denied the attorney general’s motion for a preliminary injunction. The text of the decision is enlightening in understanding the various factors when a museum’s collection management policies are in play.

Regarding art deaccessions, for example, the court noted, “If it is used to pay for a greater work of art or to change a collection’s focus, deaccession is generally tolerated. However, if it is used for operations or capital expenses, it is discouraged, if not condemned.” Agostini added, however, “there are numerous examples of museums deaccessioning artwork for operating or capital costs,” and “the courts have played a very limited role and there is scant legal authority, statutory or case law, when a conflict of this nature arises.”

Instead, the court’s primary concerns were whether the plaintiffs had standing and whether the requirements for a preliminary injunction had been satisfied. The Rockwell sons, Agostini ruled, had no standing to enforce their father’s contracts; only his estate or trust had that option. Patti lacked standing because his suggested injuries were “too speculative.” And the rights claimed by museum members or donors or residents of Berkshire County were simply insufficient for legal standing.

Regarding the attorney general – who clearly did have standing to request an injunction – Agostino raised many questions. Noting that her office had been “fully engaged in this controversy” for at least four months, no steps had been taken to intervene or even question the upcoming auction until the last minute. Even then, the office stated merely that it had unspecified “concerns,” and needed more time to investigate the situation. Yet there was no request for a continuance, simply one for a preliminary injunction. He concluded, “In this litigation, the AGO is a reluctant warrior” and the “general reluctance [of her office] gives the court pause.”

Tackling the major points of the attorney general’s argument, the court found the museum trustees were responsibly performing their fiduciary duty by acting “in good faith” and with “reasonable care.” Their proposed sale of works of art would not violate any charitable trusts, nor would their plan to showcase science and history as well as art violate their corporate purpose.

In his opinion, Agostino paid particular attention to the assertion that the sale of the two Rockwell paintings would constitute a violation of donor intent, a contention he vigorously countered by noting, “There is no evidence before this court that Rockwell ever said – to anyone, let alone the Museum – that he wanted these paintings to remain with the museum or to be displayed forever in the Berkshires.” “The sum total of the evidence,” he added, “tends to show that Rockwell simply wanted to benefit a museum that he particularly enjoyed.”

In his final statement, Agostino recognized that his denial of an injunction “may very well mean that timeless works by an iconic, local artist will be lost to the public in less than a week’s time.” That, however, was not the case. Just three days before the auction was scheduled to begin at Sotheby’s, the Massachusetts Appeals Court, responding to a motion requested by the attorney general’s office, placed an injunction on the sale until at least December 11, 2017, and granted that office the option to request an extension beyond that date so it could continue its investigation of the matter.

In February 2018, the attorney general and the trustees of the Berkshire Museum won court approval of the settlement agreement they had reached and the sale of designated works of art was scheduled for April. Both sides had made concessions to reach this point, and again, the fate of the Rockwell paintings – particularly, Shuffleton’s Barbershop – was a key issue. The attorney general’s office conceded the right of the Berkshire Museum to sell some of its acquisitions because of financial need and agreed its long-range plan was appropriate. The museum trustees agreed to the restriction that Shuffleton’s Barbershop be sold only to another nonprofit museum and to a $55 million cap on the revenue the museum could earn from the sale, ensuring no additional works would be sold once proceeds reached that total.

Selling for an estimated $25 million, Shuffleton’s Barbershop found a new home at the (George) Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles. Because the Lucas Museum would not open until 2022, the painting would spend at least two more years in Massachusetts on loan to the Norman Rockwell Museum, only 20 miles from the Berkshire Museum. The balance of the sales at Sotheby’s did not go as expected, however, as many of the works up for auction failed to bring in their pre-sale estimates, and it took longer than anticipated to achieve the museum’s goal.

Despite the settlement, critics of the sale continued to voice their opinions. In addition to the protesters who gathered daily at Sotheby’s, the Association of Art Museum Directors issued a statement that made their position clear:

Notwithstanding the decision by the Court, AAMD will continue to advocate for the highest ethical and professional practice standards in collections management and deaccessioning. And if the Berkshire Museum proceeds with its current plan for selling deaccessioned works and utilizing the funds for operating and capital purposes, AAMD will have no choice but to consider taking further action in accordance with its policy, which may include censure and/or sanctions.

AAMD did, in fact, impose sanctions on the Berkshire Museum in May 2018, asking all of their 243 members to refrain from lending or borrowing works of art and also to refrain from collaborating with the Berkshire Museum on exhibitions. In 2020, AAMD altered its policy temporarily, placing a two-year moratorium on any punitive actions “in recognition of the extensive negative effects of the current crisis on the operations and balance sheets of many art museums.” AAMD also said a museum “might use proceeds from deaccessioned art to pay for expenses associated with the direct care of collections,” noting, “Each museum must determine its own definition of ‘direct care.’” In 2022, AAMD restored its pre-pandemic policy, a response not only to changed economic conditions, but also to equity-focused definitions of “direct care.”

We can reasonably anticipate ongoing donor intent disputes in cultural institutions, and we will report on them as they arise.

October 26, 2023
How Philanthropy is Tackling Homelessness Through Holistic Solutions

Victor Rosado had tried homeless shelters all over New York City. There was the one in Queens that offered an opportunity for temporary housing but nothing to give him a real leg up. There was the Brooklyn-based shelter nicknamed “Castle Grayskull” because it is “one of the worst shelters you can go to.”

Rosado had left home at age 17. Since then, he’d dealt with tragedy from the death of his mother to “three violent experiences” after which he suffered depression and was diagnosed with PTSD.

At 50 years old, Rosado was ready to turn his life around — and reconnect with his 15-year-old daughter, who he hadn’t seen for a year. But he needed the hard skills to help him compete in the workforce. Then he heard about The Doe Fund’s Ready Willing and Able program, which takes participants through a year-long program that offers job training, education and sobriety support.

“It was unique,” Rosado says. “Other shelter systems did not have that.”

Rosado, who is currently a member of the program, has since been through Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and welding training, and he and his daughter have reunited.

“That’s been my thing,” he says, speaking of the motivation to see her again. “It’s helped me out mentally to get back into a relationship with my daughter.”

Rosado’s experience with Ready Willing and Able has been life changing. But unfortunately, it’s also unique for someone who has experienced homelessness. The Doe Fund boasts that 78% of participants retain their job after six months and there’s a 62% reduction in recidivism three years after graduating from the program.

Compare that to programs with the popular “housing first” model, which became the United States’ default solution to homelessness in the early 2000s.

“There was a lot of rhetoric 10-15 years ago that we would solve homelessness with the housing first model in 10 years or so,” says Judge Glock, director of research at the Manhattan Institute.

When the federal government adopted “housing first” as its policy in 2013, former President Barack Obama promised the federal government would end homelessness by 2023. Gavin Newsom, then mayor of San Francisco, pledged to end homelessness in his city within 10 years.

“You had a lot of people very excited about this housing first model who made a lot of pretty expansive claims about what it would do to reduce the homelessness problem,” Glock says. “That bill has come due, and by most measures, the problem has gotten much worse.”

Today, cities that were meant to be the poster children for the promise of “housing first” have become cautionary tales. San Francisco has the ninth highest homelessness population in the country, with 9.5 unhoused people per 1,000.

“We’ve built over 200,000 new [permanent supportive housing] units for the homeless, as they’re known, and, since 2013, the federal government has mandated the Housing First strategy nationwide,” Glock writes for the Cicero Institute. “Yet since that nationwide mandate has gone into effect, we’ve seen street homelessness increase by almost a fourth.”

Post-COVID, the problem has gotten even worse. “The data so far this year [on homelessness numbers] are up roughly 11% from 2022, a sharp jump that would represent by far the biggest recorded increase since the government started tracking comparable numbers in 2007,” The Wall Street Journal warned in a recent report.

Why “Housing First” Has Failed

Many researchers, nonprofit leaders and donors agree the “housing first” experiment has failed. It is not without good intentions, but suffers from some fundamental flaws.

The first problem is that of perverse incentives.

According to Glock, most of the country allocates scarce housing resources according to a point system. The idea is the neediest get the housing first, but in practice, it means there is incentive to abuse drugs, commit acts of violence and more just to reach a higher rung on the ladder.

The Obama-era Department of Housing and Urban Development directed local groups to use this metric for providing housing, though states have some leeway on how far they go with it. In Massachusetts, for example, you get four points for being an active drug user, but only one point for being a recovering addict. But should you overdose, you can get two more points.

Even critics of the policy agree that housing options are essential for people experiencing homelessness and some may even benefit from a simple gift of permanent housing. But for most, that can’t be the only solution.

“The problem is that people become homeless for a variety of reasons, and putting them into an apartment just moves their homelessness inside,” says Mary Theroux, CEO of the Independent Institute. “They’re still culturally homeless, they still have the same issues they had when they were living on the street, except now they’re isolated inside, and they die at higher rates, actually, once they’re housed.”

What people struggling with homelessness really need, she argues, is a holistic approach that combines housing with social support. Sometimes, people need a push in the right direction.

Stephen Eide, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, says “housing first” relied on “false advertising” that presented it as an almost scientific solution.

But it fails in theory — advocates hold up a “harm reduction” philosophy that says you cannot impose on people by directing them toward another lifestyle, you can only make resources available to them — and in practice. Not only are there perverse incentives, but “housing first” often ends up just looking like “housing only.”

Yet homelessness is a problem of so much more than housing.

“When we’re talking about that problem, we’re often actually talking about other problems — crime, untreated serious mental illness — and when we fail in those other areas, we do make our homelessness crisis worse,” Eide says.

Multi-Pronged Approach Tackles Issue from All Fronts

If housing first has failed, what should take its place?

Isabel McDevitt, co-founder of Work Works America, is working to be part of the solution. The Doe Fund’s Work Works model, which inspired the Ready Willing and Able program that helped Rosado, helps people find housing, work and mental and emotional support through an employment-based holistic model to fight addiction, exit homelessness or just get back on their feet.

Because McDevitt supports various interventions with the Work Works’ multi-pronged approach to homelessness, she finds it surprising so few organizations and government entities seem interested in expanding solutions to face this issue from all fronts.

“What a lot of people don’t necessarily understand is the complexity of how people end up experiencing homelessness,” she says. “What I would hope is that we can have more of an open conversation about new, custom approaches to match the diversity of people in need. We haven’t yet solved homelessness, so let’s get creative. Policymakers should be looking at creative approaches that integrate people back into the community rather than keeping them separate in ‘homeless housing’ or doubling down on one-size-fits-all approaches.”

While permanent, no-strings-attached housing has become the default solution to solving homelessness, Glock says more states should focus on recovery housing, such as the Oxford House model (temporary homes for those fighting addiction), and transitional housing. In Texas, the Health and Human Services Commission contracts with organizations providing recovery housing, with many positive results.

Theroux has traveled the country looking for alternative programs. One such initiative is Haven for Hope in San Antonio, Texas, which says an astounding 91% of clients “are still in permanent housing after one year.” The organization describes its approach as “person-centered, trauma-informed and recovery-oriented.”

Carrie Tynan of the Adolph Coors Foundation supported McDevitt in bringing the Work Works model to Boulder and Aurora, Colorado. McDevitt wanted to expand the model of the day shelter she was running to something with more long-term impact.

This turned into the Ready to Work program at Bridge House, a “combination of employment, housing and support that breaks the expensive cycles of homelessness, incarceration and chronic unemployment,” per its website.

Participants in the program are required to find work shortly after joining, and the program claims a success rate of 74%.

“We believe in the value of work,” Tynan says. “We know that it can help people move out of a dependency mindset.”

Tynan says she met one participant who said he liked his alone time and had a clean driving record. “So I decided I’m going to be a truck driver,” he concluded.

How Philanthropists Can Make Lasting Changes

For donors who want to get involved in solving the homeless crisis, supporting efforts that help people in a lasting way, what can they do?

The fact that government programs seem generally disinterested in taking a holistic approach presents an opportunity for philanthropists to focus on mental health, foster care, substance abuse, public policy, direct service, preventive measures or all of the above. And they don’t have to do it alone.

According to entrepreneur and philanthropist Joe Lonsdale, the key is to ask yourself, “Do you want to be subsidizing a broken system or do you want to be part of a solution?” Too many philanthropists dump their money on mediocre organizations with misaligned incentives and lack of accountability, he says. By pouring money into efforts that aren’t actually solving homelessness, he says, “You’re probably making the problem worse.”

Tynan says policy change will do little if it doesn’t go hand-in-hand with the work of direct service nonprofits. For donors looking to scale a model, she suggests providing “multi-year gifts with benchmarks that need to be met in order to track the organization’s progress.”

Theroux proposes a “Tocquevillian solution,” a “community-wide approach in which all sectors come together to advance solutions.” She applauds Haven, for example, for coordinating every other nonprofit in San Antonio working on homelessness, about 140 of them, to tackle the problem together. More than a decade later, “they’re all working in concert” rather than duplicating each other’s work, she says. “That’s where a funder can really help exert influence.”

“The clearest lesson” from Haven for Hope, she says, “is that its success is a result of its being a product of the entire community’s coming together. It started with the partnership of an oil tycoon [Bill Greehey] and the Democratic mayor whose election he had opposed [Phil Hardberger], but then engaged and involved every sector: police, fire, EMS, hospitals, every nonprofit, the business community, philanthropic community, homeless advocates, the homeless themselves … And over the 12 years it has operated as an independent 501(c)(3), it has learned and adjusted its model based on learned information.”

Theroux and her colleagues at the Independent Institute regularly partner to share ideas with peers at other organizations such as the Manhattan Institute, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Discovery Institute and Cicero Institute.

Theroux and other leaders focused on addiction recovery and homelessness alleviation joined together earlier this year, organized by Michael Shellenberger and We Heart Seattle. They created North America Recovers, a network of organizations that share insights with each other and push for policy change together.

“We share studies, interviews, information, Twitter posts and more, at a rate of probably 20-plus messages each day,” Theroux says. “Members meet with one another and visit policymakers and others to advance recovery. We meet monthly by Zoom to collaborate on ideas for messaging, outreach to policymakers and the public, and are currently organizing several events to be held next year.”

One issue that faces even successful programs that fall outside the norm is funding. McDevitt says many nonprofits that don’t fit the government’s narrow mold for homelessness policy need alternative funding, adding philanthropists should look for local organizations that are trying new things.

“Don’t assume your city has it figured out or that it’s just a resource issue,” she says. “Try to understand and support what’s happening and having an impact on the ground but also push for innovation.”

Ultimately, while government homelessness policy remains stuck in the past, donors have a unique opportunity to support nonprofits that are shaping the future.

“Philanthropists need to step up and be the civic leaders they have traditionally been in the U.S.,” Theroux says, “coming together in community and working on our problems together.”

Madeline Fry Schultz is the contributors editor at the Washington Examiner. She previously worked at Philanthropy Roundtable and as the culture commentary writer at the Washington Examiner.

October 17, 2023
Civics Education Programs Making a Difference This Constitution Day

As we approach Constitution Day, it’s worth exploring whether educators are prepared to teach students about the Constitution and its history in a manner that is accurate, effective and engaging. While it may not be widely known, numerous organizations spend their summers offering workshops and institutes to equip teachers with the resources to teach civics and American history during the school year.

This effort should not go unnoticed, because civics, when effectively taught, promotes and preserves good citizenship. As teachers and students get back to work this fall in earnest, here’s a look back at some organizations that worked with educators over their break to ensure they’re well prepared to teach this important subject:

Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge (FFVF) hosted nearly 250 teachers across the United States this summer for one of their five week-long teacher programs and one traveling workshop. Their special guests and speakers included eminent scholars such as CherylAnne Amendola, Frederick Douglass descendant Kevin Douglass Greene, Dr. Joe Fornieri, Dr. Allen Guelzo, Mae Krier and Stephanie Townrow. Seminar topics included “Frederick Douglass: Legacy and Impact,” “Constitutional History,” “American Revolution South (Traveling Workshop),” “Medal of Honor Legacy: Cold War,” “Women in American History” and “Abraham Lincoln and His America.”

Over the past 50 years, nearly 14,000 educators from around the world have enriched their knowledge and their classrooms through FFVF’s critically acclaimed and accredited seminars.

The George Washington Teacher Institute Summer Residential Program at Mount Vernon offers educators an opportunity to attend a five-day immersive professional development program to learn more about George Washington and the 18^th century world he lived in. Their format, with a different thematic focus for each program, allows educators to explore an 18^th century subject that is most relevant to their classrooms. Participants learn from a variety of visiting and estate experts about how to bring the first president and his world to their 21^st century students.

Topics in 2023 included “Martha Washington and the Women of the 18th Century,” “The Great Experiment: George Washington and the Founding of the U.S. Government,” “Slavery in George Washington’s World,” “George Washington at War: From Soldier to Commander in Chief,” “George Washington and the Economy of a New Nation” and “Leadership and Legacy: Lessons from George Washington.”

At the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History (GLI), educators can choose from a variety of in-person and virtual summer professional development opportunities. These include 12 online teacher seminars, including “The Making of America,” a two-week National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute; The Gilder Lehrman Teacher Symposium, a five-day program at Gettysburg College “Statesmanship in American History,” hosted and funded by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University; “Reframing Lincoln Seminar: Myth, Memory,” “Changing Narratives; United States Foreign Policy, 1898 to Present” and “The Making of America: Colonial Era to Reconstruction.”

The National Constitution Center (NCC), located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, offers in-person and online resources to educators across the country and “serves as America’s leading platform for constitutional education and debate.” It hosts over 160 educators from across the country for its series of summer institutes, which bring together top educators and ideologically diverse constitutional scholars.

Over the course of week-long in-person sessions and three-day virtual sessions, participants work with content experts during these programs to deepen their knowledge of constitutional topics and their historical contexts and modern understandings. During the summer institutes, educators discover and develop ways to make content relevant to their students. Educators leave having gained new content knowledge, teaching tools, classroom-ready resources and skills for improving constitutional literacy.

NCC’s approach has three main components: (1) building a historical foundation through storytelling of the Constitution’s founding and exploring how courts have interpreted it over time; (2) learning how to interpret the Constitution like a constitutional lawyer by asking what the government constitutionally may not do, not what it should do and (3) developing the skills of civil dialogue and reflection. Programs are open to educators working with grades 5 – 12 at public, charter, independent, parochial and other schools. Topics in 2023 included “Constitutional Conversations and Civil Dialogue” and “Principles of the American Revolution.”

The Jack Miller Center (JMC) has continued to grow its resources for K-12 teachers, offering 24 teacher education programs across nine states this summer, which included graduate courses in Illinois and Massachusetts, symposiums in Florida and Wisconsin, a summer institute in Texas and workshops in Virginia. JMC’s faculty partners covered topics such as the American Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville, the First Amendment and Frederick Douglass. See this comprehensive list of the Summer 2023 seminars to learn more about the topics covered, locations (frequently university campuses) and faculty who partnered with JMC.

Due to the generosity of donors, FFVF, GLI, NCC and JMC all provide scholarships to participants to remove the financial barriers of attendance. All these programs adjust their offerings each year to ensure they provide content that is particularly relevant to the needs of educators and their classrooms. They are currently in the process of making these adjustments for next year, so announcements of Summer 2024 offerings are imminent.

The vital work of these civics organizations does not stop when the school year begins. They continue to provide support to educators through lesson plans, weekend workshops, online seminars and even MA programs during the year. If you walk into a classroom and see an educator effectively and engagingly teaching civics, you may learn their approach was impacted by one of these programs, many of which are hoping to reach more teachers in the critical effort to prepare the next generation of citizens.

If you are interested in learning more about these initiatives, please contact the Programs team at programs@philanthropyroundtable.org.

September 15, 2023
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. 

August 30, 2023