Is it philanthropy? Or corporate meddling?

Looking at the peaceful campus at St. HopeCharter High School, you would never know that it had been a legal battleground for the past year. Not only has the sign not been changed to reflect the new name, people still call it Sacramento High School.

CTA and the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA) won the court battle over what was ruled an illegal conversion of a public high school to a charter school, but the district found a way to grant the charter anyhow.

Kevin Johnson, a former basketball star with the Phoenix Suns, raised millions of dollars from several philanthropic foundations to make the conversion happen at his alma mater, including $3 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Microsoft) and more than $1 million from the Walton Family Foundation (Wal-Mart).

Teachers are upset that the independent charter school drains funding from other district schools and operates outside the union's jurisdiction, says SCTA President Marcie Launey. But even more, they're upset that the foundations did not consult with teachers beforehand about the sweeping changes they planned to make in Sacramento's education system.

Foundations have been very generous in providing the money necessary to bring about education reform around the country, but in some cases, they are financing the fad of the moment, advancing a political agenda or attaching substantial strings to their generosity.

In Sacramento, a large portion of the estimated $24 million the district has received from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the Eli Broad Foundation and the Gates Foundation between 1997 and 2002 has gone for causes popular with teachers like the breakup of large schools into smaller schools or schools-within-a-school.

But some of the money is tilting the scales on philosophical issues without giving the public a say in the matter. For example, the Packard Foundation donated millions of dollars for the purchase of Open Court, a scripted learning program that's used in the district's elementary schools.

"Now we have one specific reading program that controls what, when and how teachers teach," says Launey. "In many ways it is a good reading program, but some teachers believe that academic freedom has been taken away from them because they have to follow the curriculum to the letter. If our reading coaches see a teacher who is not following curriculum to the letter, they have to work with that person."

"What worries me is that as cutbacks continue, and the state takes away public funding, schools are putting themselves in the hands of private foundations," says Launey.

"I fear that we are abdicating public control of public education."

"Some wealthy patrons may care more about making a name for themselves by financing unique projects than about supporting the unglamorous work of operating good schools," notes Richard Rothstein in a New York Times article. "The judgment of donors is sometimes wiser than that of school officials and sometimes not.... But it is hard to separate good ideas from foundation proposals that, while seemingly attractive, may be passing fads or only a way to advertise a donor's virtue."

It was only 40 years ago, he points out, that the Carnegie Corporation sponsored a campaign to consolidate small high schools into large, comprehensive schools. "Many urban schools were already large before the Carnegie campaign, but the rise of large schools was accelerated by the foundation's influence."

"Philanthropists get tax breaks when they endow foundations," writes Rothstein. Using a formula developed by Michael E. Porter, a professor at Harvard Business School, Rothstein estimates the government loses about $4 in taxes for every $10 a philanthropist donates. "For the $4 lost in taxes, schools and other services get foundation grants of 55 cents a year."

If a corporation can afford to give money to a school district, it can afford to be taxed, asserts New School University Professor Joel Spring. "However, most of the time, foundation money is presented with a public relations spin, so people see it in a positive light."

Foundations have successfully shaped the public's perception that government is inefficient and that private businesses can better serve the needs of the public. "At one time, people who worked for public institutions were called public servants, not bureaucrats," recalls Spring, author of Political Agendas for Education and How Educational Ideology is Shaping Global Society. This anti-government philosophy has spread to public schools, which conservatives believe should be run as businesses based on the corporate model.

"The corporate model of reform pays little heed to other expectations of public schools - building just and tolerant communities, reducing distrust of one another and our shared institutions, safeguarding democratic ethics and introducing children to the wisdom of the world," warns Dorothy Shipps, in an article titled "Corporate Influence." "We are also witnessing the abandonment of many kinds of equality. Neither markets nor business ethnics routinely put equality or fairness above profits."

Billionaire Eli Broad, founder-chairman of KB Home and chairman of SunAmerica Inc., is a strong believer in the idea that schools should be run as a business. The Broad Foundation has invested millions in Aspire Public Schools, which operates charters in urban areas, and has committed millions more to the New Schools Venture Fund, which is dedicated to accelerating the growth of charter schools.

"Charter schools, private schools, Edison schools, parochial schools and opportunity scholarships all provide healthy competition to our K-12 schools system," he says in a "personal message" on his website.

Broad has been lauded for his good works, which include awarding urban school districts huge prizes for improving student achievement. Long Beach Unified received a $500,000 prize in October, which, according to Teachers Association of Long Beach President Tony Diaz, will be divided among approximately 500 high school seniors who have shown significant improvement but would still not be eligible for typical merit scholarships. "It's very beneficial."

Broad also worked with CTA to pass the statewide initiative that made it easier for local school districts to pass school facility bonds.

Locally, his foundation has gotten involved in recruiting and training school board members, urban superintendents and principals. It invested $4.2 million to recruit and train principals for San Diego City Schools and fund San Diego's Education Leadership Development Academy. The foundation also worked with mayors nationwide to explore the role they could play in education, including "mayors as charter school authorizers" and as recruiters of school board candidates.

"Eli Broad was one of the major backers of the Coalition for Kids, put together by former Mayor Dick Riordan," recalls John Perez, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. "The goal was to take over the L.A. Unified Board of Education. They solicited candidates, raised millions of dollars and created an effective board majority of people who were beholden to the coalition's philosophy: Schools should be seen as another business and run on a business model. This happened in 1999, when their candidates, pro-business types, swept three seats out of four. They outspent us by a whole bunch."

Perez says all three candidates voted against the superintendent's recommendation to raise teacher salaries and also voted to increase class size in 2002. In 2003, all three of the school board members were up for re-election, but were defeated by teacher-backed candidates after UTLA waged an expensive campaign.

In San Diego, Broad money prevented SDEA-backed candidates from gaining a majority on the school board. "Broad gave money to certain school board candidates whom we opposed," says Terry Pesta, president of the San Diego Education Association (SDEA). "He butted into our school board race. One of their candidates won and one of them didn't." As a result, the SDEA-opposed majority stayed in power by just one vote.

San Diego Unified School District has been the recipient of grant money from several sources that came with some big strings attached.

According to Education Week, "Several foundations have made grants to the 140,000-student district with the understanding that the money could be pulled should there be a change in leadership. Broad, Gates, Hewlett and Atlantic Philanthropies have made donations totaling more than $30 million to the district with such conditions."

The grants support the district's Blueprint, which is unpopular with teachers because of its drill-and-kill approach to teaching and learning, and make their money conditional on the district's keeping the leadership team of Superintendent Alan Bersin and Education Chancellor Tony Alvarado. Although Alvarado has since left San Diego, he continues to serve as a part-time advisor to the district. Bersin maintains that Alvarado's long-distance consulting position is in the "best interests" of the district and is not tied to grant money.

Marie Groark with the Gates Foundation says that their grant conditions are tied more to the Blueprint than to specific people staying in power. "We endorsed the plan because the plan had great value and was aligned with the foundation's objectives. A leadership change doesn't mean the grant goes away, but we would like to make sure that the new leadership is equally supportive of the plan."

Nevertheless, says Pesta, because of the conditions, "the school board feels like its hands are tied."

Before Bersin became superintendent, teachers collaborated with district administrators and foundations to decide how grant money should be used, recalls Marc Knapp, a former SDEA president. "We had representation on committees and were often full-fledged partners. But Alan Bersin put an end to that."

SDEA members found out about the strings attached to the grant after it was a done deal, says Knapp. "We found out the same way everyone else did - in the newspaper. We didn't have any inkling ahead of time. I would have liked to have sat down with the Gates people and said, 'What are you after? What do you want to get out of this?' It would have been nice to have teachers at the table talking about what their expectations were."

Groark, the Gates spokesperson, says the foundation is "definitely not anti-union." When asked why teachers have not been consulted in San Diego and elsewhere, she says, "I think, in general, that's a great question. As our work has evolved over time, I think we recognize the importance of engaging key stakeholders in all communities, which includes teachers and their representatives, parents and students - as well as leadership and administrators."

As an example of that new approach, the Gates Foundation recently contacted CTA to see how they could work together with teachers. CTA is developing programs that involve teachers to help improve California's schools of greatest need.

"We're interested in working with the Gates Foundation in this effort," says CTA President Barbara E. Kerr. "We're hopeful that together we can set a standard for how foundations work with teachers to do what's best for students and public schools."

Presently, the Gates Foundation is involved in restructuring high schools in many communities, including San Diego. It awarded an $11 million grant to San Diego City Schools and New American Schools to transform three large San Diego high schools into "high-performing learning communities." According to the plan, "three underperforming high schools will be reorganized into 18 small, rigorous schools designed to increase student achievement and high school graduation rates."

"Many teachers support the plan," says Pesta. "Others are concerned about what will happen to their jobs, and whether their program will still be offered at the new high school."

There is also some alarm because the plan calls for increasing the number of administrators at each school site. Each school-within-a-school will have its own administrative staff.

With a $15 million grant from the Gates Foundation, a similar small school effort is happening in Oakland. Oakland Education Association President Sheila Quintana says, because district administrators did not plan the transition very well, there are some concerns about whether the program can sustain itself when the grant money runs out, but she's pleased teachers were involved in the process.

"Teachers have been involved from the ground up" in the small autonomous school reform efforts funded through the Bay Area Coalition for Equitable Schools (BayCES), says Spanish bilingual teacher Raquel Rodriguez Jones. "Teachers and parents wrote the proposals after the district gave us the go-ahead. We also have autonomy over the budget."

Rodriguez Jones teaches fourth grade at the newly opened International Community School, which houses 240 students, as opposed to the 1,400 at Hawthorne Elementary School where she used to work. It's the first new school built in Oakland in 30 years. The ratio of students to teachers is 20 to 1 instead of 35 to 1, as it was at Hawthorne sometimes.

Although Hawthorne was a great school, she says, it didn't have continuity from one grade level to another. It was hard to build on something that wasn't there.

Students and families feel safer at International. "School is easier to supervise and there are far fewer conflicts. Students, teachers and families all know each other, everyone's on a first-name basis, and there's a feeling of community."

As for professional development, "we have discussions about what we need help in. We find resources, bring in experts, and share what we know. We schedule ourselves a lot more time to talk about what we need, what's going on and how we can collaborate."

The small schools movement is a very powerful reform movement, says Rodriguez Jones. There may be instances where it hasn't worked well, but it's not the case at her school. "It's much better. I think part of the strength of reform autonomy is that, at small schools, teachers have a lot more to say about what happens."

It just goes to show the good that follows when foundations make the effort to involve all stakeholders in deciding how to use the money that's available.