Design Philanthropy: Challenges and Opportunities in the Evolution of Philanthropic Giving

Over the past several decades large philanthropies have adopted aggressive approaches to education reform that scholars have labeled venture philanthropy. These efforts focused on broad changes to schooling and education policy, borrowing techniques from the venture capital world. But many foundations have recently become convinced that market forces and macro-level policymaking alone cannot drive educational improvement, particularly in areas related to classroom teaching and learning. In response, foundations have begun to design their own instructional innovations and identify providers to implement them. This paper interprets these recent efforts as early evidence of a distinct adaptation in the evolving role of philanthropies, which we dub design philanthropy. Although this approach represents an attempt by foundations to simultaneously increase democratic engagement, directly influence the instructional core, and spur educational innovation, it poses new risks for coherence, scalability, and sustainability in education policymaking.

Ecole des Beaux-Arts

The term “École des Beaux-Arts” refers to a French arts institution and the building that housed it; the name also refers to its Curriculum and Pedagogy, and the impact of both on the teaching and practice of architecture—in its day and to the early 21st century. Originating in the royal academies established in the 17th century, the École des Beaux-Arts evolved through multiple iterations over the course of two centuries. Its architecture section, the focus of this bibliography, dates to 1671, the year of the founding of the Académie Royale d’Architecture. It was temporarily suppressed during the French Revolution (1793), resumed in altered form under the aegis of the Institut National in 1795, and definitively reestablished under Louis XVIII, who granted it permanent quarters on the Rue Bonaparte in 1816 and formally articulated its new mandate and structure in 1819. A major reform was attempted amid pitched debate in 1863 and a decree of 1903 decentralized the architectural education it purveyed by establishing a system of Écoles Régionales d’Architecture. The architecture section of the Paris École was ultimately dissolved by ministerial decree on 6 December 1968 in the wake of the revolutions in May of that year. The ensuing reorganization of architectural education created autonomous but coordinated unités pédagogiques, which are now gathered under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture and Communication, under the rubric École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture (ENSA). Today’s École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts (ENSBA) at the Rue Bonaparte location is devoted to the nonarchitectural fine arts. Originally housed in an old regime convent reclaimed in the 1790s by arts aficionados to hold spolia of the Revolution, the École compound was expanded by one of its star progeny, Félix Duban, in the 1830s and became the center of an arts neighborhood, heartbeat of artistic production later in the century. The instructional core of the school, the so-called système des Beaux-Arts, featured an atelier structure, with students clustered in studios run by influential patrons; and a competition-based model of practice, with all exercises culminating in multiphased contests pitting students against one another for coveted prizes. The ultimate prize, the annual Grand Prix de Rome, won the laureate several years residency at the Villa Medici, headquarters of the French Academy in Rome. The Beaux-Arts education bore a distinctive relationship to drawing, to history, and to design values exemplified in antiquity. The stylistic impact of its architectural taste in France took a variety of forms, from a revivified classicism to eclectic recombinations of historical precedent and protomodern experimentations in space and light. In the United States, “Beaux-Arts” style came to be characterized by the sumptuous civic creations of a flush late-19th-century Gilded Age and, in the 20th century, by its opposition to modernism. The École’s most profound and wide-ranging influence lies in the particularities of its approach to the teaching of design—at once rigorously systematic and flexibly adaptable to circumstance.

Principal support of student psychological needs and a functional instructional core

Purpose Limited attention to messages transmitted between principals and teachers led to the general question for this study: is principal support of student psychological needs related to functional social conditions within the instructional core? Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to define principal support of student psychological needs and explain its leadership function through the lens of conversation theory. Without much empirical evidence to draw from, a theoretical argument for how principal support of student psychological needs might influence the features of the teaching and learning environment is advanced then tested empirically. Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses were tested using a non-experimental, correlational research design based on ex-post facto data collected from teachers and students in 93 schools in a metropolitan city of the USA. Data were collected in the spring of 2017 from randomly sampled teachers and students in the 93 schools. Usable responses were received from 1,168 teachers, yielding a response rate of 66 percent. A total of 4,523 students received surveys and usable responses were received from 3,301, yielding a response rate of 73 percent. Multi-level modeling was used to analyze the data. Findings Principal support of student psychological needs was related to school-level differences in faculty trust in students, collective teacher efficacy and student perceived autonomy support. Leadership practices surrounding professional development and instructional coherence had moderately strong, positive relationships with the outcome variables; however, the strength of these relationships diminished when principal support was included in the analysis. Originality/value The argument in this study proposes that principal–teacher conversations enhance leadership practices and support a vibrant and engaging instructional core when intentional messages build mental representations that enable teachers to understand sources of optimal student growth. Such use of conversation extends the functionality of principal–teacher interactions beyond that of teacher control and toward an ongoing sense-making and learning process.

A Novel Approach to Professional Development in Middle School Science: Instructional Coaching by University Professors to Improve the Instructional Core

The current study was constructed based on the recommendations of a previous study (McHenry & Borger, 2013).Though inquiry-based teaching has long been touted as an effective pedagogy, its application by middle schoolscience teachers has been problematic. Using tools developed from the previous study in conjunction withprofessional development grounded in instructional coaching, the program attempted to support middle schoolteachers in making informed instructional decisions that enhance classroom practices to support students in reachingfull science proficiency. Over the two and one-half year span of the program, researchers found that middle schoolteachers were able to embrace major facets of the 5E model of inquiry. While their view of the nature of scienceexpanded slightly, they still struggle with ideas related to argumentation and theory building. The impediments thatinfluenced the success and continuation of the program were three-fold. There was a lack of administrativepartnership due to a change in upper-level district leadership. The decision to adopt new curricular materials wascounter to the goals of the inquiry-based teaching model and was adopted without discussion with the universitycoaches. There was inadequate time allotted to the program in the last year. Though administrative difficulties led tothe discontinuation of the program, the enthusiasm exhibited by the middle level teachers speaks to the need for aninstructional coaching partnership that provides this type of sustained, reform-based, transformational professionaldevelopment that enhances the instructional core.

Instruction Matters: Lessons from a Mixed-Method Evaluation of Out-Of-School Time Tutoring under No Child Left Behind

Background/Context Under supplemental educational services (“supplemental services”), a parental choice provision of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), schools that have not made adequate yearly progress in increasing student achievement are required to offer low-income families free, afterschool tutoring. Existing research shows low attendance rates among eligible students and little to no aggregate effects on achievement for students who do attend. Focus of study We employ a framework grounded in examining the instructional setting, or “instructional core,” and we draw on the unique contributions of qualitative research to help explain the limited effects of supplemental services on student achievement. Specifically, we address the following research question: How can in-depth examination of the instructional core explain the impact of supplemental services on student learning? Research Design Our findings draw on data from an ongoing mixed-method and multisite study of the implementation and impact of supplemental educational services in five urban school districts located in four states. Although this paper includes quantitative data from this study, analysis focuses on qualitative data, including observations of tutoring sessions using a standardized observation instrument; semistructured interviews with district staff, provider administrators, and tutors; focus groups with parents of eligible students; and document analysis. Findings We identify two primary reasons for a lack of effects. First, there is a “treatment exposure” problem where most students receive far less than 40 hours of tutoring over the course of a school year, a critical threshold for seeing significant effects on achievement. In addition, there are discrepancies between an invoiced hour of tutoring and actual instructional time. Second, supplemental services has an instructional quality problem. Instruction lacks innovation; the curriculum typically does not align to that of the day school; programs do not meet all students’ instructional needs, especially students with disabilities and English language learners; and there can be considerable variation in quality within the same provider. Conclusions Our findings lay the foundations for being able to not only establish best practices for supplemental services, but to suggest policy changes to facilitate these best practices and offer insights to a host of other parental choice, out-of-school time (OST), and accountability-based reforms.