Rand Quinn

Beyond Grantmaking Philanthropic Foundations as Agents of Change and Institutional Entrepreneurs

Studies examining the role of philanthropic foundations in advancing social change have primarily focused on the impact of foundations’ financial resources. Few scholars have analyzed how foundations also leverage social mechanisms to advance and legitimate desired change. We conceptualize philanthropic foundations as agents of change known as institutional entrepreneurs to illuminate the social mechanisms they employ in pursuit of institutional change. We study the case of charter schools within the field of U.S. public education, where foundations elevated a new organizational form—the charter management organization—by engaging in three social mechanisms: recombining cultural elements to establish the form, enforcing evaluative frameworks to assess the form, and sponsoring new professionals to populate the form with preferred expertise. We argue that foundations are distinctive due to their ability to simultaneously pursue social mechanisms that are often considered to be the realms of different types of institutional entrepreneurs.

Teacher activist organizations and the development of professional agency

Teacher professional agency refers to the ability of teachers to control their work within structural constraints. In this paper, we show how teacher activist organizations can assist in the development of professional agency. We focus on a teacher activist organization in a large urban district in the United States and identify three organizational processes. We find that teacher activist organizations can facilitate efforts to alter classroom instruction, create opportunities for teachers to challenge educational structures, and foster a shared belief in the collective power of teachers. However, teacher activist organizations may be limited in scope and impact, tempering these potential benefits.

The Politics of Education in the Post-Brown Era: Race, Markets, and the Struggle for Equitable Schooling

Purpose: In this essay, we examine the racial politics of education in the six decades after Brown. We consider the state of educational policy in an era in which market reform advocates often invoke the spirit of the Brown decision even as the Supreme Court has largely vacated the legal framework provided by Brown to desegregate schools. Background: Educational policy post-Brown has focused largely on expanding market reforms such as school choice, high-stakes testing, and federal and state accountability mechanisms in lieu of the radical shifts in the distribution of educational opportunities for which Brown called. Setting: We discuss these market-oriented trends in San Francisco and Philadelphia. Findings: While many of these interventions have contributed to the growing racial, linguistic, and socioeconomic segregation in public education, efforts to realize more just and democratic schooling persist in these same urban school districts. Conclusion: We conclude with a call to educational leaders to partner with local communities to revive Brown’s promise for more just, diverse, and equitable schooling.

The Politics of Immigration and Education

The United States has endured multiple periods of intensely virulent nativist sentiment and policy, from the Know Nothing movement of the 1850s, to the decades-long stretch leading to and resulting from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, to Operation Wetback in the 1950s. If the first months of the Trump presidency are any indication, the nation may well be entering yet another such period. The Trump administration’s immigration agenda is expansive. Within days of his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order closing the U.S. border to certain individuals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, and suspending refugee admissions for 4 months. The response from both courts and communities was swift, with the courts stepping in almost immediately to halt implementation. In June 2017, the Supreme Court allowed parts of a revised ban to go into effect, allowing the exclusion of visa applicants without a “bona fide” connection to the United States. Trump has also cut in half the number of refugee visas the United States will offer in 2017, severely limiting access to those arguably most in need. Although some questions remain regarding whether Trump will be able to follow through on his campaign promise to build a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border, it is clear that he has plans to significantly increase border militarization. His administration has also taken steps to limit immigrants’ appeal options to significantly speed up deportations.

Playing the Field: Implications of Scale in the California Charter School Movement

Whether the aim is to slow global warming, reduce poverty, or improve urban education, social entrepreneurs and philanthropists seek scalable solutions to the pressing social problems of our time. More recently, however, academics, nonprofit leaders, and consultants have questioned the emphasis on scale on two counts. First, a number of scholars have shown that organizations can significantly grow their impact without growing in size (Dees et al., 2004; Uvin et al., 2000; Wei-Skillern and Marciano, 2008). Second, social entrepreneurs and their observers have documented the challenges associated with scaling social change organizations.

‘We share similar struggles’: how a Vietnamese immigrant youth organizing program shapes participants’ critical consciousness of interracial tension

Abstract This article examines Homeward Bound, a political education youth organizing program for Vietnamese immigrant youth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Inspired by Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy theory, the program sought to empower learners to challenge their pre-existing knowledge and experience of interracial relations. Drawing on data from observations, interviews, and document reviews, we describe the process by which the program shaped Vietnamese immigrant youth’s critical consciousness of Vietnamese/Asian-black interracial tension. While some participants expressed apprehension and prejudice toward African Americans, particularly in the early days of the program, by the end, participants demonstrated knowledge retained from lessons and activities on the shared history of Vietnamese immigrants and African Americans. Participants also identified roots of and offered solutions to interracial tension. This study illuminates the role of immigrant youth organizing programs in resolving interracial tension in multiracial contexts.

Democracy Thwarted or Democracy at Work? Local Public Engagement and the New Education Policy Landscape

In recent decades, changes to the education policy landscape have made local public engagement more difficult. Among these changes are increased centralization of policy making, the rise of school choice, and mayoral and state takeovers of urban school districts. Philadelphia is at the vanguard of these changes. We discuss how community-based organizations in Philadelphia responded to the challenges of this new landscape by adapting their tactics and strategies. Adaptations include reconceptualizing targets, identifying new targets, retooling premises and strategies for building coalitions, cultivating new constituencies, entwining community education with community-based action, and making equity and community engagement central to the platforms of candidates for elective office. The study broadens our understanding of how organizations seek a voice in education decision making.

Immigrant Youth Organizing as Civic Preparation

Adequately preparing youth to enter the civic spheres of adulthood has emerged as an issue of concern in recent years due to widening civic empowerment gaps that track along race and class lines. Drawing on an ethnographic study of Homeward Bound (pseudonym), a program for Vietnamese youth in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, we show how immigrant youth organizing functions as civic preparation. We identify three processes. Organizing has the potential to (a) develop the critical orientation of immigrant youth participants and prepare them to (b) navigate the unique political dynamics within their local communities and (c) work cooperatively and productively with other communities. The study demonstrates the capacity of immigrant youth organizing to help close civic empowerment gaps.