Category Archives: Arts and Culture

Foundation Support for Independent Schools – new opportunities for public school education

The publicity about the Obama’s choice of the Sidwell Friends School shed light on the apparent contradiction of those who support public schools but elect to send their children to private schools.  I am sure this fact makes the Obama’s and others like them feel a bit defensive when attending parties.  In Oberlin, Ohio where I live, people who send their children to the independent school are literally shunned by those who keep their children in the public system.

One of the great challenges facing Independent schools, and the foundations that support them is how to make the excellent quality of education available to those outside the walls of these relatively small institutions.  The winter 2006 edition of Independent School, published by the National Association of Independent Schools gave voice to a growing number of members who struggle with perception that independent schools are institutions only for the elite. In an environment where the gap between wealthy families and poorer families grows, fewer middle class families are able to afford private school education. The quality of Independent School education, such as the institution I send my children (Lake Ridge Academy) can not be disputed. In fact trustees of  foundations tpically send their children to independent schools places like:   Noble and Greenough School, Heathwood Hall, Buckinham, Browne and Nicols and others of pedigree based on a history of quality education. Read the mission statments of any of them and compare that aspiration to those of public schools.  This reality presents an unease because these same trustees approve grants that try to improve the quality of public school education.  We all know that undertaking can have pockets of success but due to the enormity of the task of reform  rewards are elusive.

Faith-based schools such as Epiphany School, Nativity Prep, Arrupe Prep as well as non-denominational charter  KIPP schools. supported by the foundation I serve, offer the quality education that rivals the atmosphere, academic dicipline and values of  higher priced independent schools.  However these schools are expensive to maintain and require constant funding from private sources.  The State simply will not fund these entities.  In the case of KIPP and Charter Schools, the national discussion is typically met with a vitrol accompanied by public policies that keep State funding to a minimum.  Tacitly, the policy carries a hope  that charters will fail and, like apostates, will someday realize the waywardness of their action and return to the public school system as we know it.    That system of course is failing millions of children in the U.S. daily, but there remains no strategy to address that reality.

How can one make the quality of Independent School education available to families of the middle class and even children of low-income families has remained elusive.  D. Scott Looney, Head of Hawken School in Cleveland  suggested, “The benefits of having the broadest possible exposure to students with other backgrounds, races, ideas, and experience must be part of that education, and must include children from families in the bottom 50 percent of the socioeconomic tier.”

How can an independent schools do that when the availability of scholarship monies is limited? Technology provides answers.

Independent Schools can make better use of web-based technology to break down the walls of their institutions and make their curriculum available to a larger number of students.

The Harvard Crimson reported an innovative adaptation of SecondLife™ at Harvard University in 2006 whereby students at the Harvard Law School will co-learn with students at the Harvard Extension School – linking a divergent student body in a cooperative learning process.  Independent Schools can and should do the same thing with outreach to public schools.  Foundations can support these activites.

SecondLife offers very tremendously exciting  opportunities to explore how the quality of independent school education may be open to others who cannot afford a typical four-year education.  What can that look like? Check out the site that explains how Secondlife works for educators.

Independent schools can and should explore the possiblity of creating their schools in Secondlife and inviting their professors and other educators to work with selected students in a virtual envorinment.  This is particularly true of the children in the lower 50% of the economic tier Mr. Lowney mentions.

Phillips Exeter Academy is known for the Harkness Table.  This seminar-styled approach to high school education was developed in 1931 and invites young people to share thought together in a collaborative learning experience.  Why not re-create a Harnkess Table in Secondlife whereby children from schools across the country could benefit from this educational style and interact with students who typically will not have access to these inistitutions of privilidge.

The Burton D. Morgan Foundation in Hudson, Ohio funded one of the first business/entrepreneurship programs at the high school level to Lakeridge Academy.  The teachers developed a very fine curriculum which serves the 20 or so students in that program.  I can imagine a very interesting project where, for example students from the business/entrepreneurship at Lakeridge Academy participated in SecondLife with students from the E-City program and the related Entrpreneurship Academy or E-Prep in Cleveland. (E-Prep received a start-up grant from The Nord Family Foundation and continues to receive yearly operating support s0 I disclose my interest and passion for this great school). A project of this type would expand the number of people who share in the curriculum and widen the perspectives on what entrepreneurship means in the suburbs and what it means on “corners” in Cleveland.

Foundation should consider funding these types of projects as a means of opening quality education they can (and often do) provide their own children and to talented and able children attending failing public schools.

I have had the priviledge to get to know some of the people at The Center for Institutional Technology and Academic Computing (ITAC) .  This institution is currently supporing several innovative uses of Secondlife in the educational settings including pioneering work in the high school curriculum.

Although SecondLife has been tremendously successful in higher education, the potential for its use in high school settings has been thwarted because SecondLife restricts its users to a minimum age of 18.  Students under that age are pointed The Teen Grid.  It is the hope of many educators that someday soon, SecondLife and its creators at Linden Lab will  allow for less restrictive use by high school teachers.

Another very interesting organization to watch for application for Independent schools is the work of the remarkable Aaron Walsh at MediaGrid at Boston College.  This organizations provides high quality virtual environments that rival those of expensive interactive games.

Foundations that restrict themselves only to supporting projects in public education are selling themselves short by not opening themselves to exploring these new ways to blend independent school and public school education.  It is my experience that most independent school faculty would welcome this innovation to expand their educational mission to those outside their walls.

It is time the philanthropic sector open itself to this important discussion with colleagues from Independent and Public Schools.  For those unsure about all this, may I suggest reading a report published by the MacArthur Foundation’s and the Digial Youth Resesarch at U.Cal. Berkeley.  Great reading!

Collective Intelligence and the Zoo – a challenge for educators and philanthropy

I have posted previously on the foundation’s support for non-formal science and art education programs and their role in education.  Today I had the priviledge of visiting the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo buided by one of its most impressive Directors, Liz Fowler.  Liz is one of those rare and inspirational directors whose love for the organization is infectious.   The Nord Family Foundation provided a grant several years ago to support a Distance Education program when distance education was still on dial-up networks.  I was really pleased and stunned to see how far this museum has come in developing quality broadcast of its distance education programming.  While I was there today, I learned about the plans for the Zoo to expand its space but also its education programs for the Elephants.  There is a cool video about the Plans for Elephants.  As I toured the facility I had the opportunity to meet the staff at the Zoo’s Hospital and their office with links to the Ohio State School of Veterinary Medicine.  Dr. Lewandoski provided me with a tour of the surgery unit for animals.  The zoo provides window in the surgery units that allow any child an opportunity to view the procedure.  An interpreter provides and explanation of what is happening during the operation.  Interestingly, the zoo staff rigged a webcam to one of the overhead lights allowing a webcam to broadcast the event as the Vet see it.  At this time, the broadcast takes place internally.


As I moved I watched zoo education staff provide animated lessons about animal science to classes of children from some of Cleveland’s inner city schools.  The children were completely engaged with the lectures that were accompanied with hands-on experiences.  As I watched I wondered what would happen after the students returned to their classrooms.  Was there anyway to follow-up to keep the student’s engagement with the teacher and/or subject matter alive?  Did the students have portfolios or an opportunity to write about what they saw, to use blogs?   I met staff who are profoundly knowledgable in their subject area and they exude excitment about science and animals. Did the zoo use blogs to allow these people to keep touch with any of the students through a blog?  As I watched these experts, I looked at the teachers who sat at the back of the room who were also enjoying the subject matter.   Did the zoo open it’s curriculum to these teachers so the teachers could use a wiki to shape their own science programming and allow these “expert” to become co-teachers on the child’s learning process.  The answer was no.  The zoo simply does not have these tools.  The majority of teachers do not know how to use them.

What a waste of resources.  At a time when the schools are pushing for innovation, the resources are lying all around us.  The State school system lacks a coherent strategy for linking the many tools that are available right now, to the many many resources and expertise of institutions such as the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, The Great Lakes Science Center, The Lake Erie Nature and Science Center and many others like it just in the Cleveland area.  How many other institutions of this type across the country are underutilzed simply because the State’s do not know how to adequatly train teachers on use of something as relatively simple as the suite of services available through Google for Educators. How much philanthropic funding supports these programs year-after-year without providing the tools to bring these resources into the core of learning in public schools.

A place like the Cleveland Zoo is a place where K-12 educators, as well as Colleges and Universities focus on science and can introduce young people to biology, animal sciences, chemisty and math….all in one place.  The educators I have met at these institutions are more than willing to join in developing curriculum through an effort of collective knowledge.  I am particularly excited about this concept having listened in part to a conference called Program for the Future One of the most compelling presentations was by Thomas Malone from MIT’s Sloan School of Management.  This slide show on Collective Intelligence points the way for people who are trying to figure out what P-16 councils can really mean for igniting educational achievement in their communities.

Tom Malone – Program for the Future Dec. 8

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I think it is incumbent upon foundations to find ways to work among themselves to foster conversations across sectors that will tap into the collective conscience.  In this time of economic crisis (the State of Ohio has a projected budget deficit of almost a billion dollars), we need to make more effective use of the resources we have.  There will be resistance because this type of knowledge sharing is a trenemdous threat to those who have interest in guarding “knowledge” as they see it, (read, state education bureaucracies, Departments of Education, many School Boards, and Teachers Unions).  It will take conversations that phanthropists can convene, push and bring to the state and national agenda.  No one else will.