LOUISVILLE, Ky.—A charitable organization that pumps millions into Colorado public schools to pay for reform programs is helping Kentucky start a nonprofit that officials hope will also attract much-needed cash for initiatives stuck in neutral because of budget pressures.
The Denver-based Colorado Legacy Foundation, which funds programs favored by state education officials while also supporting its own projects, has emerged as a model for a similar organization the Kentucky Department of Education hopes to have in place by July.
CLF operates independently of that state’s education department but works closely with it to ensure money is readily available to help pay for unfunded state mandates and new reform-oriented programs, in addition to implementing its own ideas, Robert Hammond, Colorado’s commissioner of education, said in an interview with The Associated Press in his Denver office last month.
“There’s not too many funders that want to fund state government,” Hammond said. “They love funding an outside organization that’s nimble that they know can be accountable. They know it can make things happen and they know it doesn’t get lost in the bureaucracy.”
Kentucky Department of Education staff members, who have met with and consult with CLF staff, have developed an aggressive timeline for getting a similar foundation off the ground. The timeline will be presented at the Board of Education’s regular meeting Wednesday in Frankfort.
Education department documents to be presented show Education Commissioner Terry Holliday is working closely with staff on the project, which was his idea. The timeline shows the goal is to have the foundation operating as an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit sometime in July.
CLF’s 2012 operating budget is $9.8 million, up from $400,000—with just $250,000 cash on hand—in 2009, said Helayne Jones, the president and chief executive officer. CLF receives money from national and local groups, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Colorado Health Foundation, and has raised more than $20 million in the past three years, Hammond and Jones said.
It has gone from paying travel and other small expenses for the Colorado Department of Education to, among other things, starting a sweeping program to improve students’ health and wellness across Colorado’s public schools, funding literacy and Advanced Placement test initiatives and implementing an “Educator Effectiveness” program to improve teacher and administrator quality.
CLF is a way to “shine a spotlight on what works,” Jones said, and a way to attract outside funding that can be swiftly spent on reform programs education officials want to implement without wading through state bureaucracy.
Yet Hammond and Jones insist CLF is not simply a puppet of the Colorado Department of Education. One of Jones’s first moves was to move the CLF office out of the state building, though it is within walking distance. Hammond and Jones said they meet weekly.
“So what you find is a very unique partnership but a completely separate organization,” Hammond said. “The discussions are on our strategic priorities and ‘What are we doing to support each other to make sure the reform efforts in Colorado indeed happen?'”
Lisa Gross, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Education, has said Holliday envisioned the foundation as a tool to help find additional funding for Kentucky’s public schools.
A coalition of state education groups in January called for school funding levels in Kentucky to be restored to 2008 levels, when the state spent more than $4,200 on each student. In the 2012-2014, $19 billion state budget approved by the legislature Friday, per-pupil funding for public schools was reduced to about $3,800, KDE documents show.
A reform program Kentucky hopes to help continue is AdvanceKentucky, an effort to increase participation in Advanced Placement classes in math, science and English. The nonprofit group Kentucky Science & Technology Corp., created after the state received a $13.2 million grant from the National Math and Science Initiative, is incorporating the program in 64 state high schools this academic year, and KDE documents show the goal is to have every interested high school to be included by 2018.
CLF earlier this year received a $10 million grant to continue a similar program in Colorado schools.
Kentucky is in the midst of a massive remake of its public education system, driven by the 2009 passage of Senate Bill 1.
