Ever since the “Philamplify” debate on the pros and cons of school privatization, drawing on the review of the Walton Family Foundation issued by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, there has been a lot of controversy over where progressive philanthropy really stands on charter schools and school vouchers, two of the core tenets of the Walton school reform agenda.
One of the commentators on stage that NCRP recruited for the debate was Lori Bezahler, the president of the Edward R. Hazen Foundation. The foundation’s 2015 through 2019 program goals strongly emphasize “educational justice” as a grantmaking priority. The structure of the Philamplify debate didn’t fully allow the three commentators to weigh in as specifically as they might have on the issues raised by the two primary debaters—a representative of the Chicago Teachers Union on the anti-privatization side and an executive of the Thomas Fordham Institute defending charters and vouchers. Bezahler has taken to the NCRP blog to amplify what she tried to get across in the debate.
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