Local Education Foundations: Right for Many Schools

Ms. de Luna describes the hottest fund-raising trend in U.S. public education and what it can do to spur educational excellence and innovation. Shrinking tax revenues, budget cutbacks, programs threatened, teaching positions on the line - so goes an all-too-familiar scenario in many school districts. Concerned about maintaining the quality of schooling in today's tight-money climate and about the diminishing public support for education, many parents and other citizens are turning to private sources for help. Their vehicle of choice: the local education foundation (LEF), the hottest fund-raising trend in U.S. public education. Although large philanthropic foundations, such as the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation, have been contributing significantly to public education since the late 1950s,(1) locally funded and operated education foundations have become prominent only since the 1980s. Nonprofit and tax-exempt, they act as a third party operating between the community and the school system to promote educational excellence and innovation. Through the generosity of local individuals and businesses, many of them offer dollars, equipment, and services that help ameliorate the effects of lean budgets. Although the largest growth of these foundations has occurred since 1989, the boom started early in the decade in some states that had newly approved property tax limitation measures. California, where school boards began to face budget squeezes as an aftermath of the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, is a case in point. Between 1980 and 1983, the number of LEFs in that state doubled, mostly as a response to the tax cap. In the midst of this mushrooming, several foundation leaders formed the California Consortium of Education Foundations (CCEF). Its current executive director, Susan Sweeney, says the organization grew out of the need of foundation members across the state to share successful ideas and a desire to "build the capacity" of the local foundations. Today, the CCEF acts as a unified voice for some 350 local education foundations across the state. (2) In Massachusetts, expected or actual reductions in school district revenues resulting from the passage of a similar measure (Proposition 2 1/2) prompted a local education foundation movement that also took off in the early 1980s. A 1988 report revealed that more than half of the foundations in that state had been formed in response to the tax-restraint law. Proposition 2 1/2 provided a major reason for the foundations' continued vitality throughout the decade, but many of the organizations have since broadened their interests. Paul Reville, former executive director of the Alliance for Education, a foundation serving Worcester and the surrounding region, says the property tax cap "gave an added impetus for school districts to reach out to the private sector. " Today, there are 50 to 60 local education foundations in the state. (3) Declining revenues, whether stemming from property tax limitation legislation, state equity requirements, or a slowdown in economic conditions, have since contributed to an upsurge in LEFs in other parts of the country. From Bronxville, New York, to a rural region of southeastern Kentucky, to Topeka, Kansas, foundations in cash-strapped districts are funding such resources and programs as computers, innovative teaching projects, and summer enrichment activities. According to a recent study, diminishing tax receipts were the major reason that a majority of foundations were formed not only in California and Massachusetts but also in Oregon, Illinois, and Washington. (4) In Oregon, only a handful of LEFs existed prior to 1990, when voters gave the nod to a constitutional amendment limiting property tax rates. During the next four years, at least 25 new foundations were organized. Margaret Peterson, information specialist with the Oregon School Boards Association, which was then providing information on how to form local education foundations, says there was "incredible interest" in LEFs during that period. …