February 21, 2002 | Read Time: 1 minute
Making It Count: A Guide to High-Impact Education Philanthropy
by Chester E. Finn Jr. and Kelly Amis
The war of ideas over the best ways to improve public schools is exasperating, the authors say, but in Making It Count: A Guide to High-Impact Education Philanthropy, they nevertheless attempt to make sense of the various approaches to school change.
“Our aim is to provide practical advice for the philanthropist who has tired of the status quo,” they write in the introduction, adding a disclaimer that the guide doesn’t aim to be the final word on education philanthropy, but rather a catalyst for discussion.
The book gives an overview of the state of U.S. public education, examines ways that philanthropists are trying to improve it, and explains why some approaches work better than others. Popular theories of change embraced by today’s education advocates and philanthropists are also discussed and analyzed.
Unlike the first three chapters, which focus on education philanthropy in the abstract, the fourth offers profiles that analyze education philanthropy in practice. The chapter takes a look at 14 education-improvement projects and presents information about each project’s goals, scope, cost, time frame, and how it illustrates a theory examined in the book.
Another chapter spotlights the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, the book’s publisher, and its experience in setting up school-improvement projects in Dayton, Ohio.
Publisher: Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, 1627 K Street, N.W., Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20006; (202) 223-5452; fax (202) 223-9226; http://www.edexcellence.net; 123 pages; free.
