Flocking Around the Facts? Measuring the Impact of Evidence on Philanthropic Convergence in Charter School Reform

• In Event: Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: Educational Privatization: Charter Schools, Foundations, School Governance, and Technology

Abstract

Ostensibly, venture philanthropists co-fund charter organizations that demonstrate significant growth in student achievement, but there is a dearth of empirical evidence supporting this assumption. The following paper contributes to this gap by directly testing whether or not venture philanthropic convergence in state-level charter school reform in 2012 and 2014 was influenced by existing research. Using QAP regression to analyze longitudinal funding network data from 8 major philanthropic foundations and 15 state-level studies of charter school effectiveness, we find that state-level convergent grant funding in 2012 and 2014 is only associated with non-peer reviewed studies published between 2009 and 2011. Peer reviewed studies across all years and non-peer reviewed studies published after 2011 do not appear to have any impact.

Authors

• Joseph J. Ferrare, University of Kentucky

• Renee Setari, University of Kentucky