“One of the consistent partners in the work of public education has always been and continues to be philanthropy,” declares our guest on District Administration’s latest episode of the “Talking Out of School” podcast. But it’s an art form, and leaders can better utilize data to meet their philanthropic goals to maximize the benefit of their students.
Sasha Rabkin, chief of program strategy and innovation for the Advanced Education Research and Development Fund, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing research and development in K12 education, argues that because of the way public education is funded—or not—we’ve given a large set of responsibilities to philanthropy to fill financial gaps in district operations.
“Because of that, I think we’ve created a real sense of both needing philanthropy in that relationship and also having a real opportunity to shift how philanthropy is doing that and not having to be a one-way street because some of us need the money,” says Rabkin.
Rabkin says numerous areas receive little to no funding in education, and R&D has the potential to bolster these services for K12 education.
“In the federal government, I think 50% of the defense budget goes toward R&D while less than 2% of the education budget goes to R&D,” Rabkin explains. “We know how to do R&D and we know it’s important for creating guardrails and what you can do in the world.”
The Advanced Education Research and Development Fund also works closely with district leaders to fill in the scientific discovery gaps behind R&D in public education. You can find some of those opportunities here.
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