Civic Investment in Public Education

2012, NO.32

This issue of VUE, developed in partnership with PEN and featuring the first redesign of VUE since its inception in 2003, builds on the work of PEN’s National Commission on Civic Investment in Public Education and highlights the urgent need for greater civic investment in public schools, the work of more than 1,000 pioneering public education funds, and a new set of accountability and transparency standards developed by the Commission.

Download PDF

About this issue

This issue of Voices in Urban Education was produced collaboratively by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) and Public Education Network (PEN) and grew from the work of the National Commission on Civic Investment in Public Education, convened by PEN in 2009 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Prudential Corporation. Much of the content of this issue draws on the Commission’s work and on its final report An Appeal to All Americans (Washington, DC: Public Education Network, 2011). All of the authors of articles and sidebars are closely associated with PEN and the National Commission. Wendy Puriefoy is president of PEN; Richard W. Riley and Linda Darling-Hammond were co-chairs of the National Commission; Barbara Bartle, Susan Berresford, Jim Collogan, Wendy Puriefoy, Rob Reich, S. Paul Reville, and AISR’s executive director Warren Simmons were members of the National Commission; Margaret Hiller is on the board of directors of PEN and isthe executive director of Bridgeport Public Education Fund, a PEN member organization; and Erwin de Leon of the Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy was the lead author of the report Who Helps Public Schools? Public Education Support Organizations in 2010, commissioned by PEN to support the work of the National Commission. The sidebar “Ensuring Public Trust: Standards for Local Education Funds and Public Education Funds” is adapted and significantly condensed with PEN’s permission from “Section B: The Standards” of An Appeal to All Americans. The full National Commission report and complete standards are available for download from PEN’s website. The Urban Institute report is available at www.urban.org/publications/412105.html. Rob Reich’s article is excerpted with permission from Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2005. AISR and PEN thank Robert Rothman of the Alliance for Excellent Education for his contributions to this work.