Issue 27(2)
Reconnecting
Education and Foundations: Turning Good Intentions into Educational
Capital. (2007).
Ray Bacchetti and Thomas Ehrlich (Eds.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,
528 pp., $55.00 (hardcover). ISBN # 978-0-7879-8818-0
.
Review
by: Curtis Good
Academic
Program Director
Kent
State University
Reconnecting
Education and Foundations is
an informative volume designed to mark the centennial of The Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In this volume, editors
Bachetti and Ehrlich allow the audience to see the monumental
impact foundations have had on education and how this relationship
has changed over time. In addition, the volume also details the
differing perspectives of foundation and institutions of education
that benefit from their support.
Baccchetti
and Ehrlich divide their volume in four parts: the history of
foundational support for education, K-12 relations, higher education
relation, and those topics that cover multiple levels of education.
The result is a comprehensive detail of why foundations offer
support and what education institutions would like to do with
this financing. Not surprisingly, the perspectives between the
two parties are typically misaligned. This misalignment is described
perfectly at several points, and helps the reader to better understand
how foundations have grown continuously discontent over time with
educations freightliner like movement towards change or immediate
impact. Given the fact that institutions of education, especially
higher education, tend to move cautiously avoiding change along
the way, the relationship between the two parties suffers. The
volume’s numerous authors may be its most positive feature. The
varied perspectives of the authors allows the reader to see that
though all of them feel the relationships have change over time,
they do not necessarily agree to the degree of that change or
that the change is necessarily negative. Of particular interest
is the chapter prepared by Charles T. Clotfelter whose perspective
differs from Bacchetti and Ehrlich. Clotfelter does a masterful
job of describing the multiple perspectives of both higher education
and foundations in their partnerships. Clotfelter’s more optimistic
viewpoint gives leadership in both camps a wonderful insight on
how foundation support for higher education is a mutually benefiting
practice.
This volume
is a valuable resource for those advisors wishing to better understand
the funding intricacies and the role foundations play in financial
and cultural support. Even though I do not feel this volume offers
much applicable value to the role of the advisor, it is remarkably
informative in its content and message. While I felt the volume
was somewhat thin on solutions to improving the relationships
between foundations and institutions of education, it is extremely
valuable to those educators attempting to build perspective on
the role of foundations and the impact they have had on the educational
landscape.
