There are many participants in the sausage factory that makes education policy.

The system is multi-tiered, with local, county, state and Federal elements. Beyond the formal decision structure, however, elected officials and legislators are influenced, counseled, advised and lobbied by a disorderly bunch of interest organizations, researchers, philanthropies and regular folks.

Who actually gets heard? This lesson attempts to explain.

Money, and the strange power of uncertainty

The education system involves a lot of money, as we will discuss in Chapter 8. Funding systems in education try to be boring. Predictable. Certain. Almost all of the money flows based on rules that are more or less set in stone, or at least in policy. Funding can vary significantly, but mostly because of changes in economic conditions, not so much based on things you can control. (More simply: "You get what you get, and you don't get upset!")

Compared to total expenditures, the dollars that philanthropists donate to education are tiny. They are influential because they are uncertain.

Like the reliable sons in the parable of the prodigal son, "normal" funding can be taken for granted. Because these dollars are reliable, they are uninteresting.

Lobbying organizations, philanthropies and think tanks can influence education systems in part because they aren't reliable. They can bring funding, attention, and talent to projects that can't or won't be prioritized through normal channels. In context, the amount of money involved is tiny. Even the Gates Foundation accounts for a tiny speck of the total expenditures for education each year. Like the prodigal son, however, these funders are not dependable. Their favor cannot be taken for granted. It comes with strings and must be earned.

Uncertain dollars motivate action exactly because they are uncertain. Action is necessary to get them. Economists refer to this as the power of the marginal dollar.

Education donors, researchers and lobbyists are people, not cartoonish puppet masters. The point of this lesson is to highlight some of the organizations, involving actual humans, that are trying to help school systems through their modest but influential work on the margins.

Lobbyists: The CTA (and others)

By far the largest and loudest education-related advocacy organization in the state of California is the California Teachers Association (CTA). Period. But they have plenty of company in Sacramento: the state's official directory of registered lobbying organizations is a document more than a thousand pages long. It includes about 300 organizations that classify themselves as education-related.

The Referee: The LAO

If there were any official referee in the chaos of education policymaking, it would be the nonpartisan Legislative Analysis Office (LAO). The LAO's small team serves for California a role similar to the US Congressional Budget Office — it advises the legislature. Its voice is authoritative, but quiet. Their reports, although technical, are open to the public — and they are surprisingly readable. When a policy question erupts with controversy, the LAO's site is a good place to look for a cool-headed presentation of the facts.

Interest Organizations

A vast number of organizations officially play a role in the development of education policy in California through lobbying efforts. They include:

Obviously, this list is not exhaustive - please add your comments to call attention to others!

The California State PTA plays a unique role in education advocacy, representing a significant but unknown fraction of California's public school communities. In order to be affiliated with the PTA, schools must organize with specific conditions and bylaws, and pay a small amount of dues to support the regional and state organizations. As part of PTA’s mission "to secure adequate laws for the care and protection of children and youth,” their volunteers monitor legislation in Sacramento and in local communities, provide legislative training for volunteers throughout California, and work to identify areas where additional legislation for children is needed. (CAPTA has been a supporter of Ed100.org)

Many of the organizations above are "in the room" when education policy is being written in Sacramento. (Indeed, these organizations help overworked legislative staff by providing specific wording suggestions for bills and regulations.)

Non-profit Organizations

They aren't the only ones, however. Many organizations with a substantial influence on policy decisions in education do not employ lobbyists at all, or hire them very sparingly. Here are just a few of them:

Foundations

These and many other non-profit organizations depend on foundations and donors to support their work - which has its own consequences. Private foundations can affect state education policies by way of what they provide funding for. They can commission research directly or through their grantees and they can make sure the findings get lawmaker’s attention. By doing so they bring attention to issues they care about, in the process influencing the legislative agenda both in Sacramento and in Washington D.C.

The power and influence of these foundations becomes clear when you look at some examples, their recent concerns, and the policy changes that resulted.

• Decades ago the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation became interested in reforming California’s school funding system and supported various initiatives to help make that happen. The state’s adoption of the Local Control Funding Formula traces straight back to those efforts.
• The James Irvine Foundation supported a high school reform effort called Linked Learning that is now funded through a special state program.
• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent billions to develop, research, and promote its education reform ideas. One example is a belief in stronger teacher evaluations, which have been implemented in many states.
• The California Endowment’s concerns about the disproportionately harsh school punishments dealt to African American and Hispanic youth ultimately led to a re-examination of zero-tolerance policies in local districts and at the state level.
• The Stuart Foundation has long worked on issues confronting foster youth in California, a group of students that were specifically targeted for extra funding in the state’s Local Control Funding Formula. (The Stuart Foundation has also provided critical support for Ed100 as one of its first funders, and it provides critically important support to EdSource)

A national organization called Grantmakers for Education convenes philanthropic leaders; thier conferences provide interesting insight into which causes these powerful organizations might focus on next.

In communities throughout California, local education foundations also wield influence, but it’s targeted to their local districts rather than state policymakers. The California Consortium of Education Foundations is a coordinating and technical support organization for hundreds of local foundations. And of course PTAs and other parent organizations like booster clubs collectively contribute millions to local schools. If you want the inside scoop about funders for education, the best source is probably Inside Philanthropy, if you have a few hundred bucks to spend for a subscription (we don’t.)

The lists above can hardly be considered complete. Please contribute your comments to help bring attention to other organizations that would be of interest to Ed100 readers.

The next lesson looks at the changing landscape of school accountability.

Updated August 2017, August 2021, October 2021