Venture philanthropy in public schools

Venture philanthropy has become increasingly common in the education sector, with entrepreneurial funders promoting systemic reforms while still often ensuring personal profit. This is evident within the policy network surrounding Teach For Australia, an affiliate member of the global Teach For All organization. While ‘Teach For’ organizations, including Teach For America in the United States, are perhaps best known for recruiting college graduates to teach in understaffed schools, their work is also part of larger reform endeavors that often elevate private interests in public schools. Assuming that public schools are fundamentally deficient, these venture philanthropic organizations lean on the corporate sector to help produce experimental, market-oriented solutions that may put already disadvantaged student populations at further risk.

A recent study examined the policy network of Teach For Australia, mapping out its funding streams and the individuals and organizations on which they depend. Utilizing interviews and both public and private sources of financial data, the authors found several ways in which public schools were impacted by the privatization efforts of this venture philanthropy.

Originating in 2008 through the support of the multinational Boston Consulting Group, Teach For Australia soon began to garner direct federal funding and later gained access to multiple tax breaks by attaining charity status. While it has received increasing levels of tax-payer money from the Australian government (see Figure 1), its private decision-making lacks the transparency and accountability that might otherwise be expected of an entity providing a public service. Decisions around teacher selection and training, for instance, are made without transparency, and many of these decision-makers have no experience in public education. The organization’s CEO receives higher-than-average wage increases, and its primary philanthropic donor, the Paul Ramsay Foundation, has the potential to exert political and ideological agendas. Although public funds are being used for public schools, private influences blur the boundaries of the government and de-emphasize democratic decision-making.

Figure 1.
Federal funding of Teach For Australia (2014-2022) in millions of dollars (AUD) 

Additionally, Teach For Australia participates in a product pipeline where certain private interests of individual stakeholders are satisfied through the promotion of their products within the Teach For Australia network. The product Math Pathways, for instance, has successfully leveraged their relationship with Teach For Australia to promote its use in public schools and generate increased profit for themselves.

Australia has a particularly large market of private high schools, which can exacerbate socioeconomic disparities by leaving the most disadvantaged students to the public schools. Justifying entrepreneurial risk through a claim of the fundamental deficiency of public schools, Teach For Australia uses undertrained teachers and experimental approaches with some of the country’s most disadvantaged students. Lacking democratic accountability, such venture philanthropic organizations insert private interests into public schools, with implications that have disproportionate relevance for already disadvantaged, socioeconomically segregated communities.

Read more about the role of venture philanthropy in Australian public education here.

This brief is based on the following published article:

Rowe, E., Langman, S., & Lubienski, C. (2023). Privatising public schools via product pipelines: Teach For Australia, policy networks and profit. Journal of Education Policy, 39(3), 384–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2023.2266431