Beyond Impact: Philanthropy for International Education

within a Justice Paradigm

Rachel Dowling
Stanford University / Ethics in Society Honors Thesis / 2010
 3
The Role of Education in Development: 34
What We Can Expect it to Do

“Education for All” Blueprint 36

Economic Functionalist Rationale for the

Expansion of Education 38

Human Rights Rationale for the Expansion

of Education 41

Equity Rationale 45

Equity vs Quality? 48

1 4
The Impact Model of Philanthropy: 51
Introduction 1
Appropriate for International Education?

Education as a Human Right? 4 The Impact Model 52

Impact rhetoric
Domestic Educational Inequality -
Unquestionably Compelling 7 Efficiency and Effectiveness 57
What is Justice? Who Resides Within your Is Impact Ethical? 58
Sphere of Justice? 8
Is Measurement Possible? 61
What is Humanitarianism? Can it defend
International Philanthropy for Education? 10 Measurement Maintains Systems of Power 64
Give Domestically or Internationally? 11 Should Social Goods be for Sale? 66
Impact and Standards 14 Does Impact Philanthropy Answer a
Humanitarian Call, or an Appeal to Justice? 68

2 5
Justice and Humanitarianism: 18 Moving Beyond Impact: Using Service- 70
a Comparison of Frameworks Learning to Inspire Partnership

Humanitarianism as a Basis for International Justice-Driven Partnership Philanthropy 70

Educational Aid 19
What is Service-Learning? 71
Justice as a basis for International Educational
Aid 24 What Can Service Learning Teach the 74
Philanthropic Sector?
Global Justice 26
-Political (Statist) Conception Conclusion 77
-Cosmopolitan Conception 28
-A Novel Middle Ground position: 29 References 79
Community Based Global Justice
 Rachel Dowling 1

Beyond Impact: Philanthropy for International Education

within a Justice Paradigm

Rachel Dowling

Stanford University

May 10, 2010

Advisor: Rob Reich, Political Science and Education

Readers: Bruce Sievers, Philanthropy and Civil Society

Tania Mitchell, Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity

Abstract: This thesis investigates international philanthropy for education (IPE). It studies the
actual utility of education for socioeconomic development, and determines that equity concerns are
instrumental to granting equal outcomes of opportunity in both developed and developing nations.
Understanding equity as an issue of justice, not humanitarianism, a theory of justice must be worked
out to account for the expensive proposition of implementing elite-quality education. For
international educational aid to get off the ground, a global justice account must connect
philanthropists and individuals in foreign nations. Finding issue with aspects of both statist and
cosmopolitan views, I suggest a novel Community Based approach to global justice, which takes as
its basis extant community networks and the primacy of human dignity.
Turning then to the practice of philanthropy today, I question the compatibility of the
Impact Model with the goals of justice. Finally, I suggest an alternative to impact philanthropy that
is built on a mutual-learning paradigm similar to that seen in service-learning critical pedagogy. I
believe this approach better supports the empirical evidence for how education improves
socioeconomic equity.

I hope philanthropists interested in education for development, philosophers, education researchers,

and anyone interested in global justice more broadly will find this a useful synthesis of these
intersecting disciplines.
 Rachel Dowling 2

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Philanthropy and education are two of the most important catalysts for social change in the

world. They have the potential to transform individuals, penetrate the most established structural

inequities, and inspire dramatic rethinking of the social order. Promising progress and peace, both

education and philanthropy offer significant reason to hope for justice in this unjust world. As

Frederick Harbison and Charles Meyers famously said in 1965, “education is both the seed and the

flower of economic development.” And while education certainly does have transformative

potential, its causal relationship with economic development, human rights protection, political

democratization, and population health improvement are not clearly understood. Despite this, there

is widespread confidence in education as a kind of social panacea (Chabbott and Ramirez, 2000;

Ramirez and Boli, 1987). And philanthropy, which can act to remedy social ills left unaccounted for

by the government or the market, is seen as a potential omnipotent benefactor for both domestic

and international individuals.

This thesis aims to study international education for development, probe its relationship to

socioeconomic development, and ask what can be done to improve educational aid. By some

estimates, 113 million children are out of school, nearly a billion adults are illiterate, and wealth is

strongly correlated with educational mastery. Given that there are innumerable factors of welfare are

associated with education, there is a clear ethical imperative to think about our commitment to

equitable access to high quality schooling (World Bank, 2008; UNICEF; Hannum and Buchmann,

2003).

Developing nations often cannot afford high quality mass schooling, source books, or

maintain technology. So even though every nation in the world has a ministry of education, and

almost all have compulsory schooling written into constitutional documents, widespread decoupling
 Rachel Dowling 3

between formal policy and practice exists when it comes to educational access for all. For instance,

in Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank estimates there will be a $32.2 billion gap in funding needed

for primary and post-primary education per year by 2020. This is even assuming moderate GDP

growth and a 20 percent investment of overall government expenditure on education. Despite

alleged foreign donor commitments to the Millennium Development Goals, new priorities like

environmental change, food security, and pandemics have served to make governmental foreign aid

less reliable for education (Ledoux et al, 2010). In the face of these significant funding gaps,

philanthropy can play an important role. It can act to fill in what is missing from governmental and

market contributions.

Yet philanthropists confront the simultaneous facts of worldwide educational disparity, and

domestic education inequity. Cost, quality, and enrollment values vary as much between and within

countries and districts as students themselves do (Baker and LeTendre, 2005; Ramirez, ). Yet

socioeconomic inequality cannot be remedied by expanding education across the board. The

problem is that to a large extent, the value of an education within a community depends on the

relative quality of that education in relation the education peers in that community have. Depending

on the local context, a secondary level of schooling might be enough to compete in the job market,

but in another context only a college degree or higher will allow someone to live well. When it

comes to socioeconomic opportunity, a person’s education relative preparation determines their

success. Likewise on a national scale, a nation is only as successful at progressing economically as it

is competitive in the global marketplace. Thus on both the individual and national levels, the worth

of education depends on how it compares to other students’ education.

Acknowledging the comparative aspect of education is a precondition for understanding

economic development and growth. Considering the issues of parity, equity, and relative attainment

are absolutely crucial to effectively carrying out education for socioeconomic development.
 Rachel Dowling 4

Education as a Human Right?

The benefits of primary school education have been reiterated in hundreds of publications

to the point where it has entered public discourse as a matter of fact. Expanding mass schooling is

seen as a cure-all for all manner of political, economic, health, and population problems. But the

functionalist arguments that allege a connection between the schooled and productive individuals

and collective national progress are highly contested in the education literature (Hannum and

Buchmann, 2003; Pritchett, 1996; Levine and Renelt, 1992, Krueger and Lindahl, 2000). A plethora

of studies have shown conflicting results with regard to the degree of influence additional years of

school has on individual’s earning potential. In general, citizens of developed countries see a greater

increase in income for staying in school longer, but this is not necessarily true in developing

countries where skilled jobs are scarcer. Students in the developing world frequently cannot find jobs

in the economy to match their expanded education. Making a claim about the collective economic

progress that an expansion in mass education purportedly enables is even more tenuous.

It seems that there is stronger evidence for the claims that better educated citizenry have

healthier and longer lives and have healthier children in both developed and developing nations

(Hadden and London, 1996). For instance, a 10% increase in enrollment rates in primary school

leads to a 0.9 year average increase in life expectancy, for secondary school it is another full year, and

for tertiary school it is 0.7 years. (Hannum and Buchmann, 2003). The mechanisms and specific

health benefits differ among developed and developing

nations; in the later women are better equipped to process

health information and protect themselves and their

children if they are educated. In developed countries,

education benefits the population through psycho-social

factors (Williams, 1990). There is equally strong evidence

Souce: World Bank, 2006
that educated populations grow less rapidly than
 Rachel Dowling 5

uneducated ones, which is a boon to sustainable development that is concerned about shrinking

natural resources. Uneducated individuals have a shorter lifespan, lower quality of health care, more

disease than those who are educated.

But the discussion of education as a static human right can obstruct a consideration of the

terms of inclusion in education. There is no disputing the right for all children to have a high quality

of education, but it’s important to see the limitations of discussing education merely in terms of

human rights.

Human rights entail a set of standards which all people are due in virtue of their humanity,

not their national association. So a human right to education would entail a pre-defined package of

goods with dimensions that are static across nations. It would suggest that there is a minimal

standard which is uniformly useful for all children to achieve regardless of how and where they live.

Yet the specific level and quality of education that is necessary for the attainment of “full human

dignity” is a hotly contested issue among experts, practitioners and other stakeholders. Discussing

education as a human right often becomes entangled in arguments about the elements of a minimal

standard.

Yet there is a moral problem with centering the discussion of education for development

around minimal standards. It implies that only a minimal quality of education is owed to children,

and that further levels of education are unnecessary. It suggests that allowing some children access

to higher levels or higher quality education might deny others their access, which would be a

violation of the principle of the human right.

There is also a fundamental practical problem with discussing education only in terms of

human rights. This problem is under-discussed and misunderstood by many policy makers. When

disparities in educational access and quality exist in a community, setting a minimal educational

standard does nothing to eradicate inequality. Empirical research shows time and again that merely

expanding mass education without an accompanied effort to address inequality does little to raise
 Rachel Dowling 6

poor families and individuals out of poverty, and does nothing to equalize opportunities for children

of stratified backgrounds. If all children reach a certain minimal standard, elite families raise the bar

for their own children. If all countries reach a minimal standard of education for their citizens, elite

countries will raise the bar to keep a competitive edge.

Therefore development programs that do not deliver “elite quality” education to students in

need should not expect to reduce income disparity or socioeconomic poverty, either for individuals

or nations. Education for development needs to set goals that are fundamentally relative, and which

aim for comparable access to education that elites have. In effect, education for development needs

to keep an eye on the highest performers, not just the lowest.

It would be much easier to take on a strategy of implementing a minimal standard, but the

central economic reasons for prescribing universal education -- namely that education is correlated

with macroeconomic growth, alleviation of poverty and increase in income equity -- are contested

by decades of cross-national research. The expansion of mass education has been shown to

entrench instead of erase income inequity. Blossfield and Shavit find that “educational expansion

actually facilitates to a large extent the persistence of inequalities in educational opportunity” (1993,

pp 258). Their research examined 13 countries in Europe and Asia, America, and concluded that

despite universal educational expansion, educational inequity remained stable. Essentially, elites

routinely raise the bar for their own educational demands once lower classes attain a certain level,

which leaves poorer classes with the same economic outlooks they had before because they are still

losing the race for credentials. So despite the last several decades’ growth in educational access (the

worldwide net enrollment ratio as grown from 40% in 1960 to 89% in 2006), equality of

opportunity has not improved (World Bank, 2008). The disadvantaged are making strides toward

becoming better educated, but so are the elite (Blossfield and Shavit, 1993).

It is easy to ignore national inequity by merely looking at the growing educational attainment

of the lower strata. Without examining the simultaneously growing educational attainment of the
 Rachel Dowling 7

higher strata, it might seem as if Modernist’s hopes of achieving equity through education could be

realized. But it seems instead that the empirical evidence supports a Reproduction perspective; the

status quo of social inequity will persist. “Whereas the proportions of all social classes attending

school have increased, the relative advantage associated with privileged origins persists in all but two

of the thirteen societies” (Blossfield and Shavit, 1993, pp 257).

In our increasingly globalized world, the lack of

parity between developed and developing nations’

education systems is of growing moral concern. The

concern is increasingly centered around dramatically

unequal access to quality education. Yet the standards

for achieving competitive status in the workforce vary

Souce: World Bank, 2006
tremendously between nations. In the United States for

example, it is difficult to break the cycle of poverty without being college educated, but in a

developing nation, finishing primary school alone might do a lot to remedy poverty. So recognition

of differing contexts is crucial to understanding education’s role in development.

Domestic Educational Inequity -- Unquestionably Compelling

Yes, the absolute need of the world’s neediest people exceeds that which American school

children experience. But within our own nation’s borders, we also see dramatic inequality in

education. This inequality is tied to racial, ethnic and linguistic minority groups. Socioeconomically

disadvantaged groups are systematically excluded from high quality education in the United States by

virtue of neighborhood and real estate differences.

The nonprofit sector has responded to this inequality in the last two decades by increasing

giving and programatic support to domestic school initiatives, after-school programs and 0-5 early

education initiatives. Donors, who believe that the state or federal educational systems are failing,
 Rachel Dowling 8

have started to support education where the government used to have sole involvement.

Philanthropists are not unaware of the links between social mobility and education (Boris, 2006).

With the private sector taking over the onus for education that was previously solely in the

jurisdiction of governments, the questions about who to fund and in what ways become more and

more pressing. How much obligation do (or should) philanthropists have to educate children in

their own communities? How about in developing world? How do these duties compare?

What is Justice? Who Resides Within your Sphere of Justice?

Justice is a dense concept that relates people and institutions to each other in a way that is

fair, ethical, lawful, and equitable. John Rawls explains justice as a rich social contract whereby all

people within the a given sphere of justice treat each other fairly (Rawls, 1971). The notion is that a

society is just if it is set up in a way such that anyone would choose to live in it even without

foreknowledge of their relative standing in that society. It is necessary to define a sphere of justice,

and delineate who is within it and who is outside of it from the outset. A sphere of justice compares

and justifies the relative standing of all people within it, and is defined by the links (political or

associational) that connect people within it. People in the same sphere of justice have a relationship

to the institution which encompasses them all. Through this relationship to the institution, they also

have a relationship to each other. This relationship is marked by an obligation of care -- an

expectation that the (Rawls, 1971).

While the goal of this paper is not to support domestic philanthropy over international

philanthropy (or vice versa), I do hope to show that in order to defend a high quality type of

educational aid in the international arena, philanthropists need to adopt a justice framework for their

philanthropy. To do this, they need to define the scope of their sphere of justice. If this sphere is to

extend across national boundaries, they need to demonstrate a compelling network of associational

ties that take the place of political ties.

 Rachel Dowling 9

Unlike in domestic circumstances, where the ruling nation-state government can enforce

taxation and redistribute resources between communities for greater equity, this is impossible in the

international arena. Without a nation-state government in place to guide standards of equity and

opportunity between nations, it is difficult to give a political defense of justice-backed philanthropy.

For better or worse, there is no supranational institutional structure, and there will not be one in the

foreseeable future. Yet forces of economic and political globalization have transformed our world

into one sociopolitical ecosphere of interrelated parts. The rise of transportation and exploration

since the mid 18th century, and the rise of information technology in the 21st century have flattened

our world (Friedman, 2005). It is easier now than ever before to connect with individuals in other

countries and develop relationships with them. There is increasingly an international community

(largely facilitated by online technologies, and international educational exchanges) that enables us to

feel sympathetic toward and connected to people who might have significantly different access to

resources. Yet if we are to conceive of all of our global connections as existing in a just sphere, we

need a way to work out a theory of justice that does not rely on formal political affiliations. There is

a need for a statement of international justice when it comes to philanthropy, since without it we

have no way of motivating a duty of care between individuals in the developed world and the

developing world.

Without the protective and coercive support of a nation-state as the locus of justice,

philanthropists are not compelled by any institution to give assistance to struggling nations or

foreign individuals, and philanthropy is generally understood to be voluntary. Yet philanthropists

proclaim themselves “seekers of justice” in a global system (Havens et al, 2006). Frequently

philanthropists loosely define (social) justice as “helping people help themselves” which they say is

akin to teaching a man to fish to feed himself. Alternately it is described as “tackling problems at

their source” (researching why men do not know how to fish), or altering the cycles and structures

of poverty so that the next generation will have a better chance of success than their parents did
 Rachel Dowling 10

(establishing fishing schools). The political philosopher's understanding of justice is closer to:

“mitigating systems of inequity that inhibit a just distribution of resources based on equal

opportunity for all people within a given socially or politically networked sphere.” The

misunderstanding between these two groups of theorists and the definition of justice has led to a

complete division between the fields. Philanthropists and philosophers each see the other as

irrelevant to their work, but I beg to differ. They have a lot to learn from each other, and this is part

of my motivation for trying to reconcile a way for philanthropists to engage in thoughtful global

justice action that actually deals with issues of obligation, not just sustainability.

What is Humanitarianism? Can it defend International Philanthropy for Education (IPE)?

In contrast to justice, humanitarianism refers to the moral obligation a person has to protect

the basic rights of other human beings based on their shared humanity. These basic, inalienable

rights, called “negative rights,” include the right to life, liberty and freedom, the right to freedom of

religion, the right to a nationality, etc (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). The list

of basic rights, however, does not extend to socioeconomic equality, or even equality of opportunity

(Nagel, 2005). Equal wealth is not a human right. The UN list does include a right to equal pay for

equal work, and the right to own property, but these do not amount to a right to socioeconomic

equality with everyone in a sphere of justice. Humanitarianism cannot easily be used to justify

international educational aid because education is meant to address socioeconomic equity, which is

not a human right.

Since education falls into this tricky category of a good that is intended to improve

socioeconomic equity, its defense is difficult to make. We need a justice account to defend elite-

quality education (in order to effect socioeconomic opportunities for students), but we cannot rely

on traditional political justice since there is no supra-national state.

 Rachel Dowling 11

Using a human rights approach ignores the contextual element, instead saying that education is

universally applicable.

Chapter 2 of my thesis will develop the differences between humanitarianism and justice in

more depth, but I believe that I have shown that international philanthropy for educational (IPE) is

a nontrivial matter. I hope to show that IPE needs to be justified within a justice framework because

of the inherently comparative nature of education. Ignoring this critical aspect would render

educational aid ineffective for socioeconomic development. Remembering it has tremendous

potential for positive improvement of equality.

Defending educational philanthropy within a justice framework also has the benefit of

simultaneously allowing philanthropic support for emergencies, genocides, and natural disasters need

to have philanthropic support, but their need does not present a excuse to stop funding longer-term

development initiatives in education. Understanding humanitarian aid and educational philanthropy

as fundamentally different types of needs, we see that philanthropy for education runs parallel to, not

in opposition to, philanthropy for humanitarian disasters.

Give Domestically or Internationally?

If there are parallel needs in the domestic sphere and the international one, how does the

donor decide between the two? Absolute need for education in developing countries is incredibly

high. Yet local need is quite real; developed nations experience tremendous educational disparity

within their borders. And the need of a fellow citizen carries a political obligation of care. Donating

money and energy to educational initiatives internationally therefore requires a delicate political

positioning of the giver in relation to distant individuals and foreign institutions. We need to take a

careful look at the feasibility of defending international educational philanthropy, considering the

specific justice concerns that exist outside of the national arena.

 Rachel Dowling 12

Every time philanthropists give money internationally, they must have a stronger justice-based

justification than when they give domestically. Domestic obligations of care for fellow citizens do

not disappear just because a philanthropist becomes interested in Africa. Political ties through

citizenship motivate unquestionable obligations of care; giving money to alleviate poverty close to

home is “automatically” required by justice. So to give any money at all to international recipients,

donors must present a case of obligation of care for non-nationals that supersedes their obligation

to help their co-citizens.

This leads us to the question: How much obligation does each one of us have to create a just

nation? a just world? If they are in conflict, which takes precedence? One of my aims for this paper

is to press philanthropists to answer why is it more compelling to give money to international rather

than domestic educational initiatives. It seems that a justificatory story is needed in order to get

international philanthropy off the ground.

This question would be neutralized if a sovereign supra-nation existed which granted

citizenship to all people. This imaginary supra-nation would grant the same rights and demand the

same obligations of all people. Imagining injustices still existed in the supra-nation, philanthropists

could pursue socioeconomic justice by developing education systems regardless of physical locality

and nation-state membership. We will not likely see a sovereign supra-nation in our lifetimes

however. The collection of dense networked INGO’s, trade groups, and interests across national

lines is not a substitute for sovereignty. Despite thick connections and multi-layered dependencies,

separate nations cannot obligate members of other nations to comply with their laws or participate

in their military. Responsibilities to people in other countries is fundamentally different and lesser

than the responsibility citizens of the same country have for each other. The power of the nation-

state as a locus of cultural identity and national unity is unparalleled (Anderson, 1991). In the

absence of an authoritative global state, associational ties between persons in different nations would
 Rachel Dowling 13

have to serve an extraordinarily strong role if they were to motivate obligations of care between

wealthy Western individuals and people in developing countries.

In the absence of a global obligation-demanding institution, we lack a way of defining

political or institutional obligation of association between individuals in different nations. If we

want to use a theory of justice to defend the right to education, our theoretical task is to find strong

associational ties between individuals of different nationalities that would create a shared identity

I posit that there may be a way to do this. Developing personal connection through shared

learning and intercultural experience may be strong enough to generate these ties. My suggestion is

to use a definition of global justice that resides in a moderate middle ground between the two

positions of Cosmopolitanism and Statist Global Justice. I will show in Chapter 3 of my thesis that

Cosmopolitanism, which holds that the demands of justice derive from our duty of fairness to all

other humans, is too restrictive in its demands. It would make any donation to American education

immoral if all students across the globe were not at least at the level of America’s worst-off school.

Not only is this is unpalatable for many American philanthropists, it goes against what we might call

a natural response to care for those closest and dearest to oneself. Associational ties are organically

developed between members of the same community, and it makes sense to allow these stronger

associational ties to shape the duty of care between individuals. I will need to defend this against the

“Russian doll” phenomenon that critics might suggest appears whereby individuals define their level

of commitment to a community by direct correlation to their proximity to it. I think this is feasible

considering how technology has enabled individuals to form social bonds with people far away from

them, instead of forming ties in direct proportion to geographic proximity.

Also in Chapter 2, I look at statist political global justice. It its traditional conception, strict

political global justice would require that all members of a sphere of justice to have a political bond

to a common institution, which since the mid 19th century has been to a sovereign nation-state.

Thus, we would need to build a giant nation-state that admitted as citizens both the donor and
 Rachel Dowling 14

recipient communities. Alternatively, we could build adequately strong associational ties to generate

the duty of care without a political framework. This would obligate wealthy nations (and individuals)

to give money for educational initiatives (diverting money away from clear humanitarian disasters),

and give large enough donations to educational initiatives to build high quality education. Education

quality makes a huge difference in attainment. If it is not done right, it will likely not lead to

economic development and the ability of students to defend their other rights. Merely reaching the

“minimum standard” of education does little for the state of justice in the world.

Impact and Standards

Looking at a cost analysis of education, many philanthropists have come to the conclusion

that their money makes more of an “impact” overseas. Using some measure of aggregate utility,

they determine that they can “buy” more social good by giving it to relatively more disadvantaged

people. But giving to international education has traditionally been incredibly inefficient (sending

books overseas is costly in comparison to giving books to children in your local needy school).

Amazingly, philanthropists keep pouring aid into international educational development,

even though more pressing humanitarian emergencies exist, and they do not have an obligation to

care for children who are not fellow citizens. There is something compelling about the idea of

offering a child a chance to learn. They give to an issue that they feel is most compelling, and then

seek to find the grantees who claim to be most effective at addressing that social need.

The triumph of “efficacy” has resulted in the widespread adoption of the impact model of

philanthropy. This model (or variants on it) emphasizes large social change with minimal investment.

The word “impact” implies a violent collision (between social classes, cultural values, and

personalities) wherein philanthropists force community recipients into a desired end-state position

that conforms to the ideals of the donor. Decision-making is generally always withheld from the

grantee and reserved for the philanthropist. This type of philanthropy strips community partners of
 Rachel Dowling 15

some degree of their human dignity because it describes them as objectified elements of need.

The associated metrics and methods of assessment and efficacy can generate a culture of

mistrust. They set up a situation of asymmetry whereby donors reduce individuals (grantees) to

social problems that need to be “fixed.” Recipients need to prove their own malleability, which can

be costly and demeaning. Couched in compassionate rhetoric, impact philanthropy promotes a

ruthless competition among nonprofits and pits them in many ways against foundations and donors

because the reporting and grant-making process is so arduous. The fervor for finding the perfect

grantee or “social investment portfolio” makes it easy to lose sight of the issue of justifying

exorbitant wealth (and exorbitant disparity) to accumulate in the first place.

Yet impact philanthropy is not all bad. It has helped to reinvigorate the nonprofit world with

a sense of accountability and a focus on outcomes. I address more of the complexities of impact

philanthropy (and its discontents) in Chapter 4.

What is an Alternative to the Impact Model?

A Cross-pollination of Literatures (Philosophy, Philanthropy and Service-Learning)

I suggest that developing associational ties between individuals in different nations might

now be possible thanks to advances in global technology, lower costs of collaboration, newly open

networks, and the sense of connectivity that we see transcending national boundaries in social

communities. The challenge for is now to expand these strong associational ties between individuals

to community levels so that an obligation of care between an individual philanthropist and a

community in need could be generated. I look to the literature of pedagogical studies in education

for a model to adapt to the case of philanthropy.

The strategy of Service Learning seeks to build relationships between students and

“community members” across divisions of power where there have historically been no previous
 Rachel Dowling 16

positive relationships. These relationships look much like the ideal associational ties that we are

seeking between philanthropists and recipients. Service Learning (SL) experts establish partnerships

between students and community partners, and ask participants to reflect on the roles that their own

identity and social status play in the state of justice in the world. By thinking about their own

identity and the identities of those they are partnering with, critical service learners begin to examine

the sociopolitical reasons that inequality exists. Thus, SL seeks to disrupt oppressive social power

structures. It gives students the critical lens to ask why their service is needed in the first place, and

the practical skills to do something about it. Community partners are equally involved. They play a

crucial role in questioning the reasons for their poverty and creatively imagining solutions to the

systemic factors that placed them there. SL aims to equip community partners with the skills and

curiosity to change the trajectory of their own lives. Simultaneously, it aims to show students that

their identity politic is not separate from the identities of the individuals they encounter “on site.”

Once they have this understanding of the interconnectedness of diverse groups of individuals, they

begin to see their own role in maintaining systems of oppression, and are awakened to the

responsibility they each have to right that injustice.

The methodology of service learning is revolutionary; it seeks to democratize the learning

process so that teachers are learners and students are teachers. SL focuses on human capital

development from all angles, recognizing and celebrating the wealth of knowledge and experience

that resides within all SL participants before they began the service experience. In my thesis, I will

use literature written from the point of view of the community parter to show how community

voices are crucial to re-humanizing individual recipients and developing strong associational ties.

Service learning researchers have developed ways to achieve and measure increases in justice

(potential) instilled in participants that have less to do with concrete ‘improvements’ (like 10,000 new

books donated) and more with the qualitative assessment of civic engagement, sense of engagement

in politics, understanding of justice issues, historical and contextual knowledge, and other scholastic
 Rachel Dowling 17

achievement that focuses on students’ and community partners’ personal and collective growth. I

hope to show that these metrics support the development of the right kind of international

educational development project, and do so not for the sake of “looking good on paper” or to

report back to finicky donors. I believe that philanthropists could learn a huge amount from service

learning researchers.

If philanthropists continue to objectify their recipients by treating them as results to be

achieved in an impact model, it is hard to see how strong associational ties might be made. I

hypothesize that it will be impossible to defend philanthropy for international education within an

impact model, and that we need to look beyond it in the coming years.
 Rachel Dowling 18

CHAPTER 2

Humanitarianism and Justice: A Comparison of Frameworks

In the first chapter, I showed it is important to decide if philanthropy for education is being

done in the name of humanitarianism or justice. Making this choice determines how much aid is

given internationally, how much domestically, and how donors see their donation as affecting

systemic social change. The justificatory framework selected by a philanthropist also has practical

import for the way in which he or she monitors success and evaluates progress.

Earlier I suggested that adopting a humanitarian justification for educational philanthropy

might undermine domestic philanthropy because the absolute need of people in developing nations

overshadows domestic absolute need. I will elaborate on this point in this chapter and also show that

using humanitarianism as a justification for IPE also calls for the implementation of a low quality of

education which many development professionals might find objectionable. The humanitarian must

define a minimal standard of education sufficient to uphold human dignity. By implementing this

principle, the humanitarian is put in the position of championing a philanthropic model that spreads

resources very thinly over as many people as possible. In Chapter 3, I will give some empirical

evidence that an approach which uses minimal standards to implement educational aid is simply

ineffective in accomplishing the goals that philanthropists have for improving the quality of life in the

countries in which they work. Raising the earning potential of individuals or increasing national

economic development of a country is only possible when equity is considered. I present an

argument for the rejection of humanitarianism as an appropriate framework for IPE on practical

grounds.

In the second part of this chapter, I explore a justice framework for IPE. I delineate the

basic premises of a justice framework and imagine what this would look like on an international
 Rachel Dowling 19

level. The question of justifying a world in which there are vast differences in wealth is a matter,

which I do not have the space to explore. Additionally I show that the theoretic philosophical divide

between humanitarians and justice-seekers manifests itself in the methods and styles of interaction

between donors and their local partners. Relationships with grantees will be defined largely by the

justificatory framework.

Humanitarianism as a basis for International Educational Aid

Humanitarian morality says there are non-contingent, universal rights which all people are

due. Action taken to defend those rights is done out of an associative relational network in which all

people are equally connected and separated. The mere fact of being a human being gives you a set

of certain unalienable rights as well as the duty to defend (or not obstruct) those same rights in all

other people.

Humanitarian philanthropy eliminate violations to these universal

world rights. It seeks to minimize the most extreme forms of
(filled w/
other sov. states)
suffering brought about by natural disaster, political

upheaval, or revolutionary chaos and rescue lives from

Soverign State B immediate danger. The salient theory behind the action
Soverign State A

is that extreme suffering ought to be alleviated

regardless of the nationality, race, or ethnicity of the

sufferer. Humanitarianism “holds in virtue of the absolute

rather than the relative level of need” (Nagel, 2005, p 119). This

means that humanitarian moral conduct requires addressing the most

egregious violations to human rights first, and only moving on to less immediate concerns after the

most traumatic abuses have been stopped. The humanitarian must not make others’ ends his own,
 Rachel Dowling 20

but he must live in such a way as to allow others to pursue their ends freely, healthily, and with

dignity.

Humanitarian philanthropy does not morally implicate givers in systemic injustices. It does

not say that exorbitant wealth is linked to excruciating poverty. Global inequality is a fact of life, and

remedying it is not crucial to remedying human rights abuses. Long-standing and wide-spread

systems of injustice are easy to ignore from a humanitarian point of view because the humanitarian

is not concerned with networks of obligation. All people have the same right to a defense of their

human rights as all others. Networks -- and nations -- have nothing to do with it. Thus, the emphasis

in humanitarian philanthropy is on most effectively addressing the most egregious violations of

human rights for the most people.

It is important to note that humanitarianism is not an egalitarian standard. Humanitarians

use an objective list of human rights to determine and locate abuses to human dignity. The contents

of these lists of rights vary according to the particular values that the humanitarian individual or

agency holds. So humanitarians act in ways that they deem will remedy breaches to this list. Rights

like the freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, the right to adequate nutrition, and decent

shelter are frequently included in humanitarian lists of rights. The United Nations’ 1948 Universal

Declaration of Human Rights in many ways set the standard by which all other lists are measured. It

describes rights that cover the full trajectory of a human life. It does not, however list

socioeconomic equality as a human right. Socioeconomic rights are fully associative -- they arise only

because we are linked to a common network over seen by a common authority (Nagel, 2005).

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights acknowledges that an unequal distribution of

resources is inevitable in a free society, however it stipulates that “everyone has duties to the

community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible” (UN, 1948,

article 29). So, in a sense, it says that all people a have a right to a supportive community (and an
 Rachel Dowling 21

obligation to uphold that community for others). The right to an education (Article 26) covers the

right to a free primary education, as well as access to secondary, tertiary and technical education.

The rights in the Universal Declaration are not listed in order of importance, but there is a

natural prioritization among them. Rights which defend an individual’s life are the most basic,

followed by the rights that defend their way of life. All human rights are important, but some are

absolutely vital to living to see the sun rise. Making do without education, while it is unfairly

detrimental to a person’s life prospects, does not prevent that person from living.

If philanthropists only use humanitarian concerns to order their philanthropic giving, they

will find themselves perpetually being pulled away from educational aid. Humanitarianism prioritizes

the most egregious offenses. If children are experiencing a poor education while other children are

experiencing starvation or genocide, there is no question which the humanitarian must support.

Compared to education, nearly every other humanitarian crisis takes precedence. And the

laundry list of human rights offenses and humanitarian crises is so long that we could put all

philanthropic dollars toward it and still not remedy them all. Treating people who have just

survived a devastating earthquake, for instance, would take precedence over building a school in a

stable but desperately impoverished community. Long-term education initiatives would almost

always be “put on the back burner” in deference to addressing health, nutrition, and violence. The

scope of global needs is overwhelming to the humanitarian. Therefore, it is challenging (perhaps

impossible) to motivate humanitarian funds toward education.

Socioeconomic Injustice -- still compelling despite its status as a non-human right

However, the fact that there are human rights violations in addition to injustices in

socioeconomic opportunity is not an argument to turn a blind eye to these injustices. Seventy-seven

million children, more than half of them girls, and almost all in developing nations, do not have

access to school of any kind (UNESCO). This fact is not changed by the atrocities that take place in
 Rachel Dowling 22

genocides or natural disasters. The moral responsibility we have to address each of these issues is

not determined by the speed or drama with which they occur. A failing education system does not

require as immediate a response as an earthquake, but it does not deserve to be ignored.

Let us imagine then, what a humanitarian approach to education would look like. The moral

mandate would be to bring children to a “human rights” standard of education. But what is a

human rights standard? Is this primary school? Secondary, tertiary, technical? Does it include a right

to learn in your mother tongue? Does it include a right to be a classroom with a teacher:student ratio

lower than 1:100? What about textbooks and computers -- does every child have a right to own their

own?

A human rights concept of education specifies universal standards. Humanitarians have a

mandate to bring all children to that standard level regardless of country context, opportunity for

future employment, or perceived utility of that education in that community. The idea is to level

opportunity for life prospects through a universal basic education.

The problem with this approach is that transnational empirical research has repeatedly

shown that leveling organized education (institutional input) does not level outcome (opportunities)

for students (Chabbott and Ramirez, 2002; Hannum and Buchmann, 2003). External additional

support that elites in a system can provide for their children means that even with a level scholastic

playing field, under-served communities will continue to be under-served in comparison to the top

echelons (Coleman, 1988). Elites will raise the bar for their children’s education; they will enroll them

in better than standard schools, give them extra tutoring, and support them in innumerable ways to

make them more competitive. Minimal standards, even seemingly high ones, are not effective at

leveling opportunity across socioeconomic lines (Baker and LeTendre, 2005, Ramirez, 1997).

Socioeconomic injustices can only be addressed in education by funding elite-quality education and

wrap around services for the least well off. Uniform standards just serve to set a
 Rachel Dowling 23

Humanitarian Relationships -- Beneficial in themselves?

While perhaps allowing for idiosyncratic or unnecessary philanthropic investments, the

freedom of choice is a unique strength of philanthropy and civil society. It promotes diversity of

ideas and value pluralism in a way that pure statist societies could not. If we lived in a place where

the state undertook all charitable work, then we would see a markedly reduced opportunity for

experimentation, expression of values, and opportunity for novel discovery. Philanthropists, with

their relatively low level of accountability and high level of power, are in a position to see their ideas

made real through investments in nonprofit activity. Yes, there is risk that a self-directed civil society

will make mistakes and act unwisely, but this is the price we must pay for the freedom of institutions

and individuals to engage in projects and dialogues that they find meaningful. The interaction

between conflicting points of view in civil society is our modern day agora where substantial

discussions about the role of society and individuals can be voiced (Tocqueville, 1835; Seivers, 2010).

Michael Waltzer pursues the line of thought that the giver-recipient relationship has

inherent worth. He says that charity ought to be preserved for its own sake. Allowing voluntary gifts

to flow from one willing individual to another is a good that cannot be replicated in any other way

(Waltzer, 1982). In his view, the act of giving actually generates positive externalities that transcend the

money given or services provided. Giving teaches compassion, empathy and kindness, which he

argues are inherently virtuous things. We would all want to live in a society where neighbors give to

each other in need and look out for each others interests. Giving to one another, and gaining a

pluralistic understanding of the world through civil society has significant deontological value for

Waltzer (Waltzer, 1982).

There is a conceptual problem with defining a duty to undertake a certain amount of

humanitarian aid. Because humanitarianism dubs any quantity of aid (any improvement in human

rights abuses) good, there is no minimum threshold of engagement. Hence, humanitarianism caters

to the giver’s desires and inclinations. With no required minimum, and no minimal standard of
 Rachel Dowling 24

quality demanded, the philanthropy is entirely giver-directed. No power is given to the community

partners to decide the direction of aid. Also selecting the recipient is up entirely to the giver; the

surfeit of humanitarian crises allows the philanthropist to select from a full menu of unresolved

social problems. There is also an implicit assumption that donors have a right to “advise” their

funds, and give to the causes they personally care about, regardless of the objective needs in the

world.

The humanitarian model is very forgiving to philanthropists. It says that any giving they do is

good. Reducing suffering and contributing to philanthropic projects, to any degree is always better

than refraining from doing so. There is no minimum quantity which is meaningful to give, so this

model does not condemn philanthropists who give less than would be necessary to solve a social

problem, even if they could give more. The act of giving is itself a good, so leaving the social

problem unresolved is actually preferable to resolving the problem because it perpetuates the

opportunity to have a giving relationship. We can see that in the case of international philanthropy

for education, using humanitarian justificatory framework will leave children either uneducated

(since funds will not be supporting IPE at all) or poorly educated (since funds can only

accommodate a minimal standard). As we will see from Chapter 3, minimal standards, even if they

are reasonably high, do not change socioeconomic equity.

Justice as a basis for International Educational Aid

I turn now to the concept of Justice. It is a topic that can (and has) has filled libraries with

rich literature, discussing communities as disparate as the ancient Greeks, and the modern internet

generation. So my attempt to give a brief description of justice here is really that -- a brief list of

salient differences between justice and humanitarianism. My purpose here is to illuminate the

practical differences adopting a justice framework would have for philanthropy in education.
 Rachel Dowling 25

Justice asks what we owe others in our political community, and what the community owes

to us. It describes a moral obligation to give each member a role in the collective network, and posits

that there are ethical considerations concerning the relative positions of individuals within the justice

sphere. In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls says that all citizens of a nation (a domestic sphere of

justice) deserve to be given equal moral consideration (Rawls, 1971). He argues that we ought to

limit arbitrary sources of inequality so that all people can have an equal opportunity to flourish. In

the case of education, an example of an arbitrary source of inequality would be being born in a

poor neighborhood with a low quality public school.

Justice places a responsibility on individuals and nations to care for

the people who are bound to them with institutional or

Sovereign Authority associational ties. In domestic justice all citizens of a

nation have a connection and obligation to a sovereign

authority. This network of individuals who are all

related to is a single authority, are - through that

authority-- related to each other. So, by being a

member of a country and having a relationship to an

authority, each member is also related to all other citizens.

In a sphere of justice, the activity and wealth of one person is never completely separated

from the activity and poverty of someone else (Pogge, 2003). Nations are “cooperative ventures for

mutual exchange” (Rawls, 1971, p 4). Since all citizens are all related in bonds of mutual

accountability to the sovereign, they are all related in bonds of mutual accountability.
 Rachel Dowling 26

Justice is different from humanitarianism in that it can makes demands for equal citizenship,

equality of opportunity, nondiscrimination, and relative parity between individual’s wealth status. It

can do this in two ways: through direct taxation and redistribution, or through indirect cultural

mechanisms. Nations can generate norms of mutual care transmitted through nationalism, cultural

tradition and history (Anderson, 1991; Ramirez, 1997).

Globalization theories held by Thomas Friedman, Pogge and others do contend that

extreme wealth is linked to extreme poverty elsewhere in the world. All of the world’s people are

linked in one way or another. “Nationalist explanations must be complemented by substantial

inquiries into the comparative effects of global institutional factors upon the incidence of severe

poverty worldwide” (Pogge, 2003). Commerce and trade, war and coercion, dialogue and global

norm diffusion have linked the world in a network that necessitates we consider global justice to be a

reality.

Global Justice

What would it mean to talk about a global justice? Since there is no sovereign authority that

encompasses the whole world, we cannot rely on membership in an institution to motivate concern

(either obligatory or cultural) between individuals. For the idea of global justice to get off the

ground, there must be some other way to generate associational bonds between individuals, or a

supra-national sovereign state must be generated. This later idea is called a political conception of

global justice.

Political (Statist) Conception

The political (or statist) view of global justice asserts that global justice is based on

associative and institutional ties to a government (or several nested governments in a federal system)
 Rachel Dowling 27

(Nagel 2005). The idea of a political global justice is currently only hypothetical since we do not

have a supra-national state. Some theorists suggest that the dense network of international

organizations, treaties, and associations amounts to a sovereign power. It is difficult to determine

with certainty whether or not these connections and obligations constitute a new site of justice.

Given the increasingly connected nature of the 21st century, some theorists claim that political

justice can and does exist outside of the nation. P. van Parijs identifies four distinctive qualities of

sovereign sites of justice:

1) they are systems of economic co-operation with more internal trade than external with

nonmembers;

2) they are groups who engage in a social contract whereby some rights are exchanged for

collective protection and other mutual benefit;

3) they are social communities with a shared identity;

4) they are democratic political communities (Miller, 2009).

Political philosopher David Miller concludes that “there is no similar convergence of features at the

transnational level, even through taking each [above] feature separately, it is of course possible to

find examples of that feature occurring at that higher [international] level” (Miller, 2009)

Sociologists Benedict Anderson and Francisco Ramirez agree: the nation-state is still the dominant

political force and locus of justice (Ramirez, 2006; Anderson, 1991). No international sovereign

political institution exists, and until it does, we need to find another way to build institutional ties

that would link individuals together in a field of justice.

The fact that there is not a supra-national state is actually a strong reason to defend the

existence of philanthropy. Perhaps the vast wealth accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few is

symptomatic of a massively unjust world, but without a global state, there is no way to effectively tax

and redistribute this wealth more equitably. Thus philanthropy is necessary to act as a redistributive
 Rachel Dowling 28

mechanism internationally when governmental development aid is not substantial enough to

eliminate vast need.

Cosmopolitan Conception

This version of global justice does not rely on a common sovereign state. It says that all

humans inhabit a natural sphere of justice that encompasses the entire world. Similar to

humanitarianism, it believes that the bonds between humans exist in virtue of our shared humanity.

The difference is that it takes a comparative approach, saying that all people have an equal right to

socioeconomic opportunity, not just a right to human rights. A cosmopolitan global justice account

for education philanthropy would force us to set universal, equal standards for children across all

countries. No distinction can be made based on difference of location, culture, race, or citizenship.

Human dignity -- the idea that all people’s lives are inherently valuable, and all people have a

right to live in a world where they have a fair opportunity to choose their own life path -- forms the

basis for cosmopolitanism. Ronald Dworkin’s ethical-individualist view of Egalitarian Liberalism is

also centered on the importance of human dignity. The two elements of human dignity as Dworkin

sees it are 1) Human dignity is intrinsically valuable, which means that objectively speaking, it is of

equal importance that each person’s life “go well.” 2) Human dignity entails personal responsibility

to choose what one will do with one’s life. Conduct which infringes on others’ rights to make

choices about their own lives is not ethically tenable (Dworkin, 2007). Cosmopolitans see human

dignity as the central raison-d’être for global justice.

While this idea might at first be attractive, consider an unattractive consequence. In a

cosmopolitan global justice framework, it would be morally wrong for a wealthy American to donate

any money to a struggling American school, since the American school is relatively well-off in

comparison to a struggling school in Afghanistan. Giving philanthropic support to an American

school would be ethically wrong to a cosmopolitan. Doing so would be perpetuating global injustice
 Rachel Dowling 29

insofar as it helps those who are already relatively privileged. Addressing domestic injustice (by

donating to Teach for America, or any of the hundreds of nonprofits that address inequity of

education in America) is unethical. The global educational divide would be perpetuated if

philanthropists did not address the absolutely least well-off.

Only after all children in the world have achieved some modicum of equity can a wealthy

philanthropist ethically give to his alma mater, or to a charter school in East Palo Alto. The

cosmopolitan global justice view is very hard on philanthropists who wish to remedy inequities close

to home. The view suggests that the associational ties people have to their home communities are

morally irrelevant, as are the political ties citizens have to their fellow citizens.

Middle Ground: Community Based Global Justice

Cosmopolitan and Statist Political views of global justice are both unpalatable in some ways:

Cosmopolitanism because it does not admit the strength of proximal relational ties or the moral

significant of political frameworks, and Statism because it denies any moral obligation to help

noncitizens. Would it be possible to conceive of a global justice account that avoids these pitfalls?

This view of global justice cannot rely on political ties, yet it must appreciate the special

consideration due to fellow members of a community.

I propose a combined network of political and associational ties be the basis for a global

sphere of justice that reflects the communities of which one are a part. This sphere of justice would include

both individuals who are tied through institutional mechanisms (fellow citizens) as well as individuals

who are connected to them via associational ties (community members, friends, and their networks).

This combination of networks recognizes the obligation of care that certainly exist between citizens

of the same state as well as the ties that certainly exist between individuals who know and love each

other.
 Rachel Dowling 30

National identity and institutional membership in a nation-state certainly necessitate an

obligation of care to fellow citizens. So too does community membership and neighborhood. In our

new age of information technology and with our ever-widening capacity for transportation, we are

increasingly able to form bonds of friendship across national boundaries. Forming deep friendships

which come with feelings of obligation is increasingly possible even across national boundaries.

Since is it feasible to have many personal experiences with people in other countries, it is

now necessary to define a sphere of justice which accounts for the associations that are formed

transnationally. Ranging from the deep and long-lasting experiences of Peace Corps members, to the

shorter, more transient ones of Kiva.org donors experience, experiences that individuals have across

international boundaries are generating deep feelings of obligation (Aaker and Chang, 2010).

I contend that once an individual is linked in an obligation of care to another, she is also

linked in (in a less strong way) to that individual’s extended network. So for instance, if my

roommate at Stanford is from Botswana, I am now networked to her in a meaningful way. Our close

friendship, despite our cultural and citizenship differences, generates an obligation of care in me for

her. And because of my connection to her, I am now (more loosely) connected to her family in

Botswana. Somewhat more remotely, I am connected to her village there as well. I know what

difficulties she had to go through in primary and secondary school to make it to Stanford. I know

about her family, and know how important they are to her. I know that she did not have a local

primary school in her town, and that she had to walk 3 miles every day to get to the closest one.

Since I know about her situation (and care deeply about her), I am morally implicated not only in

her life, but in the lives of her immediate family and compatriots. They are meaningful to her, so to

respect her human dignity, I need to take her ends as my own to some degree (Kant, 1781).

Of course it was an arbitrary turn of fate that brought us together to be roommates, and a

somewhat voluntary decision on my part to befriend her, but the fact that I know about her context,

and care about her deeply now means that I have a moral obligation to help her now. In fact, the
 Rachel Dowling 31

arbitrariness of our meeting makes my obligation to care for her community that much stronger. It

could easily have been her sister or her cousin who was fortunate enough to come to Stanford. As

Rawls says, membership in political communities is arbitrary, but the duty to eliminate morally

arbitrary sources of inequality is not arbitrary (Rawls, 1971). We build friendships and form

communities in sometimes unintentional ways. But the duty that we have to care for one another,

after we have formed those communities, is not optional. While it is impractical to suggest that

individuals have an obligation to make these connections, it is not impractical to suggest that once

they are formed, the individuals involved uphold their duty.

This comes as welcome news to philanthropists interested in international education. By

choosing to start relationships with people in the developing world, they could generate an

associative bond which would give them a duty to care, and would allow them access to a justice

framework. In this justice framework, they would be able to justify delivering high quality education

above and beyond that which the humanitarian framework permits. Permitting international

education recipients into a philanthropist’s sphere of justice would justify giving educational aid

which is effective at reducing inequity of opportunity (elite quality education), not aid which just

reproduces inequality by maintaining disparity (minimal standard education). The philanthropist

would not be reneging on her obligation to humanitarian causes by giving what seems like a lot of

money to an education initiative since this aid is not considered in a humanitarian framework.

Neither would the philanthropist be reneging on her obligation to domestic education justice since

domestic children and the girl in Botswana are all part of the same sphere of justice.

This composite, Community Based conception of global justice also resolves the tension

brought up by the moral unit of analysis problem. The increasing stature of non-state entities

complicates the way we understand the moral obligation individuals have to care for a community or

a foreign nation. Philanthropists of high net worth have available to them the means to affect
 Rachel Dowling 32

nation-level change. In the past, nations have been the predominant institution acting on other

nations, but today vast wealth differentials and the availability of philanthropic channels to deliver

aid make it possible for mixed-size institutions to interact.

John Rawls explained a multi-part theory of justice that varied its obligations of care

depending on the size of the institution in question (Rawls, 1971). For instance, there are different

conventions of acceptable intervention when a household chooses to prohibit its children from

attending a religious service, than when a nation prohibits its members from practicing their

religious beliefs freely. In both cases, the freedom of religion is being infringed, but in the former

case, standards of family privacy and parental rights trump the children’s basic rights to freedom of

religion. The difference lies in the unit of moral analysis.

Obligations of care are determinable when both institutions involved are of comparable size

-- as is the case when individuals act on individuals or nations on nations. But when the actors’

institutional sizes are not the same, as in the case of large-scale philanthropy, the obligations of care

would either need to be commensurate with the giver’s institutional size or the recipient’s. It is not

clear which one should be used. This presents a challenge to traditional global justice considerations

that advocate a pluralist approach to obligations of care, and suggests that finding a single

conception of justice -- applicable to all institution sizes -- is necessary to avoid arbitrary decisions

about which unit of moral analysis to use.

Taking the Community Based approach to global justice, we identify a way to synthesize

mixed moral units of anylsis. Once a philanthropist has an obligation to care for an individual

transnationally, she has an obligation to respect his human dignity. Respecting the recipient’s dignity

means attending to his cultural tradition, his history of struggle, and his contextual placement. It

means appreciating that an individual’s status as a person in need is linked to structural inequalities.

Poverty is institutional (Mitchell, 2008). Therefore to help one person achieve their full potential a
 Rachel Dowling 33

philanthropist needs to become involved in the whole community. This is not additional baggage for

the philanthropist. This is an opportunity to radically change the life of an individual that she cares

about -- who is member of her sphere of justice -- in a way that was not permitted through statist or

cosmopolitan conceptions of global justice or humanitarianism. Community Based global justice

allows a philanthropist to access an obligation of care to a community through a deep connection to

an individual in that community.

Developing this obligation of care is important because it will justify deep philanthropic

giving in education that is effective at addressing socioeconomic inequality. Without a justification

for high quality education, the philanthropist has no incentive to give support for anything over a

minimal standard, which we will see in chapter 3 are ineffective at erasing barriers to equity

(Blossfield and Shavit, 1993).

 Rachel Dowling 34

CHAPTER 3

The Role of Education in Development:

What We Can Expect it to Do

In the first chapter, I introduced the role of equity in mass education and the need to

monitor both high-performing and low-performing students within an education system in order to

improve equity. I showed that tracking the changes in educational attainment of only underserved

communities is not sufficient for reducing inequality, and is in fact likely to perpetuate inequality by

granting non-institutional measures of educational advantage greater significance. Equal distribution

of a state’s resources for education to all children is relatively easy to demand (and it has the

advantage of seeming to promote fairness), but doing this does not stop higher net worth families

from giving after-school support, extra tutoring, and a host of other human capital improving tools

to their children which the poor cannot afford. So implementing policies of equal resource

allocation, non-intuitively, ensures inequities of educational outcome. This is where philanthropists can

act. They can allocate funding for wrap-around services for the least well off that will compensate

for the external advantages elites bring to their own education.

This discussion of educational equity assumes that education is a valuable good. We have

been laboring up until this point under the impression that there is a reason why education is linked

to the moral question of opportunity and well-being. But is this assumption valid? What is the basis

for this assumption, and what is education actually good for? Educational opportunity comes at great cost,

yet its purported benefits often go unidentified, unexamined, and unquestioned. In this chapter, I

return to the question of the value of education by reviewing some of the outcomes most

commonly attributed to educational expansion: social equality, wage-earning potential, national

 Rachel Dowling 35

economic development, community health, population size control, and political democratization.

The empirical evidence found by researchers in international and comparative education may be

surprising to philanthropists and policy makers who hope to carry out development work through

education. But having realistic expectations for the use of education and the particular advantages

that different types and levels of education provide will be crucial to persons in positions to make

allocation decisions.

To briefly summarize the findings before I go into more depth: there is relatively strong

evidence to support the claim that increased access to education slows population growth in

countries experiencing untenable expansions in population size, improves health for men, women

and children, and positively influences wages (although the effects of different types of schooling

vary tremendously). There is, however, substantial evidence that shows that the effect of increasing

the number of individuals in school does not necessarily increase the number with productive jobs

after they leave school or the number who are able to escape poverty. The correlation between

educational access improvement in socioeconomic standing (at an individual level) is difficult to

determine and context dependent. The correlation between educational expansion and national

economic growth is very tenuous. And finally, decades of cross-national research shows that merely

expanding educational access (without a differential attention to the least well off) does little to

change social and economic inequality.

These empirical findings are salient to philanthropists who are seeking to address systemic

injustice through education. Understanding what we can expect education to accomplish, and how

to improve its ability to equalize socioeconomic opportunity is crucial to developing notions about

what types of projects to fund.

 Rachel Dowling 36

“Education for All” Blueprint

In their article called “Worldwide Expansion of Higher Education in the Twentieth

Century,” Schofer and Meyer chart the incredible global expansion of higher education between

1900 and 2000. They present an explanatory argument for this expansion that says that nations most

closely affiliated with the world polity are the ones which experience the fastest educational

expansion (Schofer and Meyer, 2005). In particular, “increasing democratization and human rights,

scientization, and the advent of development planning” is associated with institutional linkages to

the international community and subscription to international norms (Schofer and Meyer, 2005, p

917). Participating in international conferences, and belonging to international governmental

organizations, are all mechanisms through which nations transmit and receive broader cultural

norms. Imitation, coercion, and pressure to conform to norms are how information about national

expectations gets conveyed. Since World War II, that information has been: in order to be perceived

as a legitimate state, at a minimum they must have a free and compulsory system of primary education for all

children. (Ramirez, 1997; Anderson 1991). Expectations above a minimum level of primary education

also exist, but they are not mandatory in the same way. But if a country were to announce they do

not have free compulsory primary education, they would risk not being considered a sovereign state;

they would be considered unable to care for their citizens (Chabbott and Ramirez, 2000).

There is, of course a loose coupling (or sometimes a complete decoupling) between stated

aims of a national education system and the reality that it is able to implement (Boli and Thomas,

1997). Many, many countries just do not have sufficient funds or a strong enough infrastructure to

implement full universal access, even if their intentions were to fulfill it. Beyond this, expectations

for opportunities to attend secondary and tertiary school have come to be included in global norms.

As these norms are transmitted between countries, carried by consultants, and reiterated in

publications, they have solidified into an Education for All blueprint. This blueprint is seen as

central to human development, universally applicable, and highly exportable (Anderson, 1991;
 Rachel Dowling 37

Blossfield and Shavit, 245). Several decades ago, there were worldwide calls for the adoption of the

blueprint in countries that lagged behind in developmentally. They complied, agreeing that

increasing educational access would be away to tap into unused human capital (Shofer and Meyer,

2005). Now there are worldwide calls for countries to adequately implement their own education

goals. To a large extent these calls and international attention spotlights have made good headway in

increasing student enrollment, improving opportunities for girls, and making education more free

for students (Hannum and Buchmann, 2003).

The formally disadvantaged are making strides toward becoming better educated. But as the

clamor for universal educational opportunities becomes louder, the story about relative access

between elites and the lower strata is getting drowned out (Blossfield and Shavit, 258). A serious

problem with globally mandated Education for All policies is that it does nothing to address social

inequity within a nation. Education for All encourages and enables elites within a country seek

higher standards of education. This elite education happens “under the radar” of developmental

analysts, who find it easy to ignore the parallel growth in educational attainment of the people they

are not helping. But to ignore the increasing attainment of the elites (in secondary school,

university, and beyond) is to ignore issues of inequity which are highly damaging to national unity,

economic success and human rights.

I turn now to the three main rationales given for the expansion of the Education for All

agenda: the Economic Functionalist Rationale, the Human Rights Rationale, and the Equity

Rationale. I attempt to determine the validity of each of these very different theoretical

underpinnings for a universal education policy, and show how they can be understood in light of a

global justice framework.

 Rachel Dowling 38

Economic Functionalist Rationale for the Expansion of Education

One of the most deeply rooted ideas about the value of education lies in the assumed

relationship it has to occupational and economic empowerment. The expansion of mass education

in the last 150 years has been accompanied by the belief that education will increase an individual's

human capital, earning potential, health, and capacity for political involvement. The assumption is

that individuals who have a higher level of education will be able to get better paid work and achieve

a higher standard of living for themselves and their offspring. Higher credentialing would afford

workers greater access to higher paid work, which would increase a nation’s aggregate capacity to

produce and generate income, which in turn would lead to an expansion of economic dominance

and international power.

Francisco Ramirez describes five legitimizing myths that, taken together, provide an explanation

for the how the economic functionalist rationale gained such a strong foothold in America, Western

Europe and the wider world community. These myths originated in the metropole, but have diffused

to many of the world’s countries through the diffusion of world cultural norms, imitation and

coercive strategies. They are:

1) the individual is the central decision-making actor,

2) the nation is just the aggregate of individuals in the nation,

3) progress is possible! Both citizens and nations have the capacity to improve themselves,

make themselves richer, and develop capacities,

4) all people are sociable and educable,

5) the sovereign state is the rightful defender of nationality. (Ramirez and Boli, 1987).

These beliefs are so institutionalized in Western Europe, America and development agencies that

they have become part of the fabric of our subconscious. We do not stop to think about why
 Rachel Dowling 39

education is valuable; we assume that it is (at least in part) because of the economic opportunity it

affords individuals and communities. Interestingly, these myths arose as an internal legitimizing

mechanism for action being taken to satisfy external pressure, alluded to here, to increase education.

The myths have a “primary importance for our understanding of the process by which mass

schooling became a necessary part of the response to external challenges to state power” (Ramirez

and Boli, 1987, p 10). The external pressure, alluded to here, is the global norm that a legitimate

nation-state has an expansive education system and educates all of its citizens (Ramirez, 1997).

Nations that are trying to establish themselves on the world stage must prove to other countries that

they are modern, organized, capable, and interested in certain democratic principles. Thus they start

education systems. All non-superpower countries (countries with unquestioned hegemony), feel

pressure to abide by global norms that demand education. In the mid twentieth century, the United

States did not worry about its education standing in an international sense, but in the last few

decades, it has increasingly become obsessed with its relative ranking. Science, math, reading, and

graduation rates are of particular concern, as the United States’ children have not been “measuring

up” to children in Japan, Singapore, Germany, Canada, and many other countries (Drori et al., 2003).

This fact has been used as evidence that the US has lost its hegemony on the world stage. President

Obama and his predecessors have made education a priority at least in part because of the fear that

slipping scholastic achievement presages economic stagnation and scientific regression. Arne

Duncan and the Obama Department of Education support the belief that improving American

schools is a powerful mechanism for improving the nation’s economic outlook. Taking a

“pragmatist” approach, Duncan and his advisors advocate for investments in early education,

primary and secondary school, and college access. The Administration’s Guiding Principles are

centrally guided by economic concerns. They state:

 Rachel Dowling 40

Providing a high-quality education for all children is critical to America’s economic future. Our

nation’s economic competitiveness and the path to the American Dream depend on providing

every child with an education that will enable them to succeed in a global economy that is

predicated on knowledge and innovation. President Obama is committed to providing every

child access to a complete and competitive education, from cradle through career

(whitehouse.gov).

How Sound is the Economic Functionalist Rationale? Not Very.

A significant body of longitudinal, cross-national research suggests that the relationship

between increasing mass schooling and economic development is problematic (Hannum and

Buchmann, 2003; Pritchett, 1996; Krueger and Lindahl, 2000). Some studies show a beneficial

relationship between increasing enrollment rates in school and national economic development (for

instance Barro, 1991), but it is unclear which variable is the causal one. Is the country developing

because more children are in school, or are more children in school because the country is

developing for other independent reasons? It is almost impossible to isolate education development as a

factor in the complex web of social forces, so determining the real role of education on

development and development on education is incredibly difficult. Yet some clever, new studies

have been able to tease out the causal factor. They conclude that there is little connection between

mere increases in school enrollment and national economic development. (Hannum and Buchmann,

2003; Chabbot and Ramirez, 2000). Pritchett, in particular shows that “the rate of growth of

educational capital is not significantly related to growth in GDP per worker” (Pritchett, 1996). This

is a crucial finding to highlight for philanthropy professionals; changing a country’s economic

trajectory is not as simple as increasing mass education expenditure or increasing school enrollment

rates. Merely being in school is not enough to give a child the same benefits that wealthier students

have when they are in school. More extensive supportive networks and “wrap around services” are
 Rachel Dowling 41

needed so that children may access the same benefits wealthier children have when they are in an

“equal” school environment.

Francisco Ramirez reviews evidence that more years in school increases individual students’

personal earning potential (Ramirez, 1997). Yet this evidence does not hold universally across all

countries; in fact developing countries do not experience as strong a correlation between length of

enrollment and earnings. This may be because developing countries do not have an adequate job

market where graduates can use their education (Collins, 1979). In general, students in developing

countries find more personal economic benefit from primary school expansion than from increased

secondary and tertiary school expansion. The reverse is true in developed countries. Particular

benefit comes from increased expenditure on science and technical education (Chabbott and

Ramirez, 2000).

The failure of the economic functionalist explanation for education for all asks us to find

another justification for the global norm of education for all. Can the defense of human rights

justify the expansion of universal education? Does universal education actually defend human rights

effectively, and if so, is this the rationale that philanthropists should use to defend their international

aid?

Human Rights Rationale for the Expansion of Education

The Human Rights rationale says that education, like housing, bodily integrity, and nutrition,

is a basic right of all people. Proponents of this theory say that education is fundamental to what it

means to be a human. A human rights defense of education demands educational standards for

individuals regardless of their citizenship or the ability of their government to adequately provide

for them. The idea of personhood trumps citizenship in some ways, and makes membership in specific

nation-states less relevant to the rights individuals (ought to) have. Personhood is “a conception of
 Rachel Dowling 42

human persons in abstract, universal terms, supported by legal, scientific and popular conventions”

which form the normative foundation for human rights (Soysal, 1997). When education is

conceived of as a human right, theorists must define a objective minimum standard of education

that all people are due. The 26th Article of the United Nation’s Declaration on Human Rights

describes the right to education as they understand it:

• (1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary

and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and

professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally

accessible to all on the basis of merit.

• (2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the

strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote

understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and

shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

• (3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their

children (UN, 1948).

In the global discourse on education, the human rights rationale has gained considerable

prominence, with support from the International Development Agency, most Western nations, and

the general international aid community (Ramirez, 2006). Individual welfare rights are now the

defining characteristic of human rights discourse (Chabbott and Ramirez, 2000). Agreement in

international conferences, scholarship, and global norms has formed around the the idea of the

individual as the unit of moral analysis whose particular nation-state membership is not relevant to

her right to an education. This is thanks in part to information technology and the “flattening” of

the world through globalization. We are now able to see the rates of “education poverty” (the

number of people who have had fewer than four years of schooling) around the world much more
 Rachel Dowling 43

easily. When disparities between rich developed countries and poor developing countries have

become much more obvious, the reflex to adopt international standards based on the primacy of the

individual are quite strong.

Yet there is significant debate about how to define the minimal standard of education that

would satisfy a human rights rationale. Minimal standards for education are not constant across

nation boundaries. Depending on the development agent’s perspective, different levels of education

seem necessary. In 2000, The Millennium Summit gathered together 147 world leaders to establish

18 quantifiable development targets, now known as the Millennium Development Goals, or MDG.

Among them, achieving absolutely universal global primary education by 2015 for both boys and

girls, and “eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and

in all levels of education no later than 2015” (UNESCO, 2000). But what was not addressed in the

MDG was the level of primary education to be taken as “standard” nor the ways in which

differences in quality across national boundaries would (or ought) to be addressed. A larger looming

question is whether giving all children a primary level education will be useful to them in improving

their quality of life, improving their outlook, and aiding them in contributing to their local and

global communities. Beyond that, there is the worry that providing access will not effect national or

community development. As I have shown in the previous section on the failure of the economic

functionalist rationale, empirical evidence does not support the conclusion that educational

expansion will necessarily lead to improvements in quality of life either individually or nationally.

Because issues of equity between top performing students and low performing students were

not addressed in any of the MDG education goals we can infer that the MDG were aimed more at

population and health metrics, but not economic development ones. The economic development

benefits of education are only accrued by leveling inequality, not by expanding mass education

(Hannum and Buchmann, 2003). The MDG, and any goals that are based on a minimal standard

approach, are limited in changing individual and national measures of economic growth and equity.
 Rachel Dowling 44

Even though the human rights rationale might seem intuitive and attractive, it is problematic

for international philanthropists. Sovereign governmental policy makers and domestic philanthropists

can (more) easily engineer a human-rights approach to education because they are in a position to

address the needs of all their citizens; yet philanthropists who are working with only a targeted

number of people in need and with significantly smaller funds cannot justify taking a humanitarian

approach to education.

As I have shown in chapter two, taking a humanitarian approach to philanthropy essentially

precludes philanthropists from acting in the education sector at all. So many more urgent

humanitarian crises (like responses to tsunamis, starvation, and civil war) crowd out the calls for

education. Thus, a human rights rationale is insufficient for motivating a justice framework for

international educational philanthropy.

It should be noted that humanitarian-backed educational philanthropy, should it exist, cannot

justify giving any aid above the established minimal standard. At least until all children reach the

agreed-upon minimal standard, no child anywhere in the world ought to receive additional support. A

consequence of this would be that philanthropists could not legitimately support educational

deficiencies in their own nation if there were greater deficiencies in other nations. For example,

philanthropists in America could not rationalize giving money to under-served communities in

California while more dire absolute need existed in Malawi. This is clearly an undesirable

consequence. Proximal relationships link individuals to the people and communities closest to them.

The nature of these connections gives donors intimate knowledge of the suffering of their

neighbors, and they have a compelling to try to alleviate some of this need. Giving to fellow citizens

is also politically obligatory in the sense that membership in a centralized institution demands a

certain degree of care for needy fellow citizens (. Thus keeping the defense of education merely in
 Rachel Dowling 45

the realm of minimal or adequate standards, obscures the inherent source of value for education,

namely a comparable opportunity to succeed among a group of peers.

Equity Rationale

Perhaps we can to construct a rationale for expanding universal education by arguing that it

will increase equity. This would be the reason that the justice-framework would demand, and which

would allow a thorough justification for international educational philanthropy. Will ensuring that all

children are in school, give them a level playing-field from which they will be able to compete for

scare resources and earn a living wage?

Research shows that the impact of resource equity within a national education system has the

same magnitude of positive effect on national performance in international math and science assessments

(like the TIMSS) that the impact of average national wealth has (Baker, LeTendre and Goesling,

2002). In other words, the degree to which education funds are evenly distributed is comparable to

the effect the GDP of the country has on education outcomes.

This and other evidence suggests that watching the top performers in education and

increasing equity have strong positive effects on the whole system. But how should this be carried

out? Creating high quality schools and improving the experience of the underserved so that it is on

par with the experience of the wealthiest students, not by merely expanding low-performing schools

at the bottom, could achieve this goal.

In their article “Persisting Barriers,”Blossfield and Shivit show that “educational expansion

actually facilitates to a large extent the persistence of inequalities in educational

opportunity” (Blossfield and Shavit, 1993, pp 258). Their research examined 13 (primarily

developed) countries in Europe and Asia and America, and concluded that despite universal

educational expansion, educational inequity remained stable in the last century. Without raising the
 Rachel Dowling 46

quality of education of the disadvantaged students in a system to a comparable level with the elites,

inequity of life prospects will persist.

Hannum and Buchmann do a thorough review of comparative education literature and show

that “education does not in fact narrow social inequities by promoting a meritocratic basis for status

attainment” (Hannum and Buchmann, 2003). Merely expanding educational access without leveling

quality does not promote equity.

Objections to the Equity Rationale

Would it be enough to institute a higher minimally adequate standard of education? If we

could determine what children need in order to pull themselves out of poverty, then maybe creating

a truly equitable system is not necessary. There are some education professionals who advocate for

this type of development strategy -- saying that raising the bar sufficiently high will allow all children

to succeed. And it is true, in some contexts where the gap between the highest performing and the

lowest is extremely large, it seems that instituting a minimum would be a reasonable and appropriate

way to get the ball moving on equity. For instance, in Malawi, where extreme poverty and extreme

differences in wealth exist, starting a Free Education for All program in 1994 after the first

democratically elections seemed wise. But school materials, teachers, and school building space were

all desperately inadequate to handle 1.4 million new schoolchildren, and a national fiasco soon

ensued. Emergency temporary teachers were recruited, yet the primary school teacher to pupil ratios

rose to as high as 100:1. In schools with enormous differences in demand and capacity, the quality of

instruction plummeted, and students from wealthier families fled the public school system for

private schools (UN, 2010). So despite the effort to give all students a free elementary education,

increasing mass education without adequate preparation and proportionately higher spending on the

least-well off further entrenched inequality in Malawi rather than erased it. The choice to start Free

Education for All in Malawi arose out of popular demand and a cobbled-together patchwork of

supposedly one-size-fits-all development education blueprints that the global world polity codified as
 Rachel Dowling 47

“best practices.” This is just one example of how an equity-motivated plan for education expansion

failed because there was insufficient attention paid to the elites. Perhaps if philanthropists had been

involved and had been able to contribute funds earmarked to help provide school materials and hire

teachers in the poorest neighborhoods, where situations were most dire, a smoother and more

equitable transition to a universal elementary education could have been facilitated.

Some say that it is too difficult to create a system of education that truly enables the most

disadvantaged children to have an elite-quality education. They argue there is a natural differentiating

process whereby some children do not become college educated. They say that because society

needs workforce differentiation, we cannot all be university professors! But to a large extent the

resistance that is put up to equity based prorated education can be attributed to the self-preservation

instincts of the wealthy. Privileged families do not have an incentive to to see their children’s

credentials “diminished” by wider availability. They support a political agenda that is not aimed at

increasing equity for the reason that it does not seem to benefit them. While this is a fact of politics,

it is not ethically tenable from a perspective that seeks to value all human lives equally, nor is it

tenable from a broad picture which shows that the whole system will be improved if equity is

increased.

Certainly, allocating equal lump sums to all schools is the easier solution; it is

bureaucratically simple, politically clean, and intuitive. But doing so ignores the inevitable parental

contributions that elites will make to their children’s education. Social and economic capital transfers

-- having more books in the home, hiring tutors, taking trips to science museums, enrolling their

children in private schools, etc. -- need to be counter-balanced by proportionately more spending on

the less-advantaged through either governmental or philanthropic channels. In countries where

internal governments cannot afford this type of spending, philanthropists have a justice-based

obligation to deliver high quality education to the least advantaged.

 Rachel Dowling 48

Equity vs Quality?

In the last 20 years, there has been a shift in the literature away from supporting efforts that

promote “educational equity,” to “educational quality.” (Baker and LeTendre, 2005, p.71) Yet despite

this somewhat counter-intuitive change in rhetoric, this change does not signal a dismissal of the

importance of equity. In fact, it underscores the importance of equity by reorganizing the dialectic

from inclusivity to terms of inclusivity. That is to say, the emphasis on quality that we see today

describes an emphasis on delivering quality education to people who currently experience the lowest

quality of education. In a sense this marks success (many tens of millions more children have access

to primary education in 2010 than they did in 1960). Development agencies, governments and

philanthropists are self-congratulatory about their success in bringing children into schools who had

been entirely excluded before. These professionals are seeking to change the discussion to focus on

improving education for the most vulnerable children. This is absolutely essential if education is

intended to effect socioeconomic outcome. I mention this shift in dialectic to warn against

complacency. We have not yet reached equity, despite the new rhetoric suggesting that equal access is

being replaced by newer concerns. Some seventy-seven million children are still out of school

around the world today.

Clearly we still have a long way to go to get to full inclusivity, but there is substantial hope that

the vast majority of the world’s children will have access to some kind of primary education within

the next two decades (UNESCO). Although it should be noted that this hope has been held since

the 1960s when the obsession with target setting began in ernest and we have have yet to make good

on most of those targets (Jansen, 2005). Setting targets for achieving universal primary education

have failed every time they have been set. First in Addis Ababa in 1961, then in Jomtien, Thailand in

1990, and most recently in Dakar in 2000. Despite ever-longer time horizons, countries and

agencies have not been able to reach their goal (Jansen, 2005). What is the use of setting targets if

we are not able to meet them?

 Rachel Dowling 49

Politically, it is untenable to suggest that universal primary education is not possible, even

though the World Bank estimates that we are $5.2 billion short of being able to achieve that goal

(UNESCO, 2003). It is no longer legitimate to contend that some children do not deserve an

education or to admit that there is no money to provide for it. All countries of the world tout

Education for All as both a human right and a way to tap into human capital for national progress

(Ramirez, 2006). Philanthropists may have an important role to play in closing this gap between

policy and practice where funding is the limiting factor.

Yet even in this political atmosphere where it is necessary to aim for universal primary

education, it is still that case that the more credentialed citizens will always outcompete the less

credentialed. So if reducing poverty, increasing earning potential, and increasing equity are of

concern, education policies must be equity focused. No standard of minimal education is high enough

to grant equal opportunity.

Conclusion

Education is a uniquely important aspect of development. It acts in a special way to allow

educated persons to engage in a fulfilling occupation, to protect their basic rights (to nutrition,

healthcare, freedom of religion, and many more), to improve their children's health and their own,

and to communicate meaningfully with others.

But education’s power for economic development (both for individuals and a nation) rests

largely on its ability to deliver comparable educational outcomes to all the children in the sphere of

justice. The benefits of education are accrued from the relative standing it affords children.

Therefore, maintaining comparable educational quality between elites and disadvantaged people is

crucial. For philanthropists interested in international educational inequity, only a justice-based form

of aid is possible.
 Rachel Dowling 50

As discussed in Chapter 2, this justice sphere must include both wealthy Western donors and

the developing nation’s institutions. It follows that the education Western donors supply must be on

par with their own version of “elite education.” This means that building low quality school-

buildings, cutting corners in teacher salary, and shortchanging wrap around services are not

consistent with the demands of justice. Elite-quality educational resources are necessary to reduce

socioeconomic inequity. Even if this means reducing the number of students who can be helped,

philanthropists have a duty to treat their recipients with dignity, and to help them have equal access

to the highest quality education available. Philanthropists are in a bind about acting in a justice

framework.

The Cowell Foundation in San Francisco carries out what it calls “place-based,

complementary” grant-making. It works within a justice framework by focusing on fulfilling a

community’s whole needs in order to effectively improve educational outcomes (S.H. Cowell, 2010).

This type of aid is much more expensive since it covers many more social services than mere school

materials and teacher support, which means that they are able to help fewer communities and reach

fewer people. But they work very effectively to resolve some of the discrepancies that go beyond

school based inequality that affect education outcomes. The Cowell Foundation might fund maternal

health programs, low-income housing projects, water safety initiatives, de-worming drugs for

children, vitamin supplements, and anti-diarrhetic medications. All of these things do not seem to be

directly related to educational development, but they do in fact have a hugely positive effect on

educational opportunity. Communities with adequate basic needs are able to support their children

in a way that will allow them to compete with elites who already have these advantages. This is just

one example of justice-based educational philanthropy among many approaches. Taking a holistic

approach to the needs of a community, and acknowledging systemic reasons for educational gaps

between social classes is a trademark of justice-based educational philanthropy whether international

or domestic.
 Rachel Dowling 51

CHAPTER 4

The Impact Model of Philanthropy:

Appropriate for International Education?

The philanthropic sector is a lively one, replete with compelling stories and contradictory

theories of change. In this chapter, I sketch the major dimensions of what I will call the impact model

in modern philanthropy. The impact model is a spectrum of philanthropic approaches in which the

philanthropist makes analytical decisions about allocation based on perceived measurements of

success, funding efficiency, and intensity of change. I represent some of the central practical and

linguistic trademarks of the philanthropic endeavor and show that, far from being unimportant, the

rhetoric used to discuss philanthropic work is critically influential to the practical decisions

foundations make. The particular words and tone used to describe interactions between

philanthropists and grantees actually color the aid that is given and affect in a real way the work that

is being done in the field. I highlight some positive assets the Impact Model has brought to

philanthropic practice, and ask what challenges it presents to accomplishing philanthropic missions.

Then I turn to the Partnership Model (alternatively called the Relationship Model, the Service-

Learning Model, the Social Relations Model), and delineate how it resolves some of the difficulties

that the Impact Model presents by focusing on mutual giving and learning paradigms. Finally, I bring

the discussion back to the case of philanthropy for international education, and ask which model (or

combination of models) best supports the necessary conditions of justice-based aid.

 Rachel Dowling 52

The Impact Model

The impact model describes a philanthropic practice whose central motivation is to make “as

big a difference” with as few resources as possible. It came into popularity in the 1990s as successful

business-people began to be involved in the donation of their own newly acquired wealth, and still

grips the philanthropic world today. Dot-com millionaires who had business expertise felt a natural

predilection to apply business tactics to philanthropy when they became involved in their own

wealth disbursements. The impact model grew out of a historical public goods model, in which

philanthropists tried to fulfill a public need, or satisfy a public good which government and market

actors were incapable or unwilling to address (Sievers, 2010; Kymlicka, 2001). The public goods

model of philanthropy does not stipulate a particular concern for minimizing input resources, but

rather focuses on eliminating the need for future funding support by eliminating the social ill. In

contrast, the impact model focuses intensely on minimizing the donor’s input (Duncan, 2004).

Emphasizing efficiency of organizational action, impact philanthropists try to stretch every penny to

the farthest extent to wring out its potential to make positive change in the world. Using cost-cutting

measures and demanding a high return (of social goods), the philanthropist acts like an investment

banker or businesswoman. The only difference is that she is not expecting money in return for her

investment, but rather progress on a social mission.

The highly stylized scientized rhetoric of the impact model parallels the rhetoric of for-profit

business and market strategy. It came into vogue for its optimistic sense of possibility and its sense

of rigorous productivity. Business-savvy philanthropists favored the nonprofits that promised to

give the most bang for their buck. So, in deference to these business-minded donors, nonprofit grant

seekers began to modify their grant writing rhetoric. Grantees were successful when they adhered to

the code of impact vocabulary; it made them appear accomplishment-focused, efficient, and

accountable. Impact terminology began to be used as a way to compete for scarce funding, and as a
 Rachel Dowling 53

way to prove organizational legitimacy to donors. Being versed in the language of maximization,

cost-effectiveness and margins of returns made grantees more successful in earning grant money.

The impact model has now risen to near unassailable dominance in the discourse on

philanthropy (Duncan, 2004). We now live in a world where “philanthrocapitalism” is a commonly

understood (and mostly venerated) portmanteau. “Applying the skills of moneymaking to the

philanthropic enterprise” is seen as the gold standard of philanthropic practice (Bishop and Green,

2008). It is no longer acceptable for nonprofits to use narrative accounts, photographic evidence or

persuasive non-quantitative results as their only form of reporting. They are expected to prove both

their efficiency and effectiveness or risk losing their funding to other prospective grantees with a

more demonstrable “social return on investment.” Modern philanthropy has to a large extent

become a search for the best way to maximize social returns with minimal investment.

For the most part, philanthropists have excellent intentions when they use impact language.

They want their dollars to be “highly effective,” and they want to be able to “do the most good” for

any given amount of money that they are willing to donate. They want to reduce waste and target

money where it is most needed (Brest, 2010).

The Psycholinguistic Effects of “impact vocabulary” on donors, grantees, and their

relationship

• What impact has this new vocabulary had on the philanthropic sector?

Whatever your response to that question, you probably found it an intelligible one. This is

proof that the word “impact,” and metaphorically charged language more generally, has become

assimilated into common parlance. Yet we are unconscious of the subtle ways it may be guiding our

thinking. I argue here that the use of market-based rhetoric has reshaped the donor and grantee

roles, and the way that they interact.

 Rachel Dowling 54

Psycholinguists have found that metaphor is an incredibly strong tool for influencing

listeners. When a word is used in a metaphoric way, its metaphoric meaning is easily understood and

requires no additional transmission of data to explain its meaning. “Studies of metaphor

comprehension have found no differences in the time taken to understand metaphorically- and

literally-intended expressions” (Glucksberg, 2003). Thus when “high impact,” “force for

change,” “leveraging input,” “getting the most bang for your buck,” etc. are used to refer to what

philanthropists are doing to their grantees (or problems) we not only hear the intended meaning, but

also the also the connotations the original words have. For this vocabulary, the overriding

metaphoric implication is that a forceful collision is taking place. You might imagine a strong

baseball player at bat. When the ball is pitched to him he whacks it with tremendous impact. If he has

the right positioning, skill, and strength, he can get a home-run and improve his batting average.

What is this metaphorical picture saying about the social problem (represented by the ball) and the

philanthropist (represented by the player)?

The Player The Baseball

(the philanthropist) (the social problem)

*is powerless
*has unquestionable position of power
*is the object of the impact
*is not impacted himself
*becomes lost and unimportant as soon as
*gains personal advantage from a
it has been used to get a home-run
successful impact (gets a home-run)
*has no choice about how it is treated or
*determines the method and style of the
impacted
impact

Now if we examine the content of the “social problem” we see that it is often instantiated in

people. Suppose it were the lack of quality education in Africa. Then the problem is, in a sense, the

uneducated people in Africa. Or if it were poverty in Harlem, then the problem would be the poor

people in Harlem. Or if it were HIV rates in Thailand, then it would be the sick people in Thailand.

Changing social problems means changing people.

 Rachel Dowling 55

Thus the metaphor is premised on the objectification of individuals. It says that the recipient

ought to be manipulated by (wealthier) people who can help him escape his social situation. Impact

metaphors deny that the grantee has any value -- only problems. It suggests that the philanthropist

knows the best way to change the grantee and does not need information or reflection from the

community partners. It does not foster collaborative association and information exchange because

it is so simplistic in its notion about the roles that philanthropists and grantees ought to play. Power

and information are exclusively held by the donor’ problems and need are the sole purview of the

grantee.

Impact philanthropy valorizes the descriptive power of a forceful collision, saying that the

bigger the change that can be brought about on the “impactee” the more successful the

philanthropy. This kind of implied imagery defines the giver-recipient relationship as diametrically

opposed. It anticipates conflict and suggests that the grantee would be resistant to change.

Because donors and recipients often come from different backgrounds, their collision would

entail a clash of cultures. The effect has been colonizing. That is to say, impact language supports

the notion that the donor’s ideals are inherently worthy of implementation, and so encourages the

prioritization of their cultural approach. It has encouraged bold (sometimes risky) behavior to

forcefully change social problems. To some extent, it has emboldened philanthropists to “dream

big” and to tackle large problems creatively. But it has also encouraged the acceptance of extant

power structures by supposing that there is a natural actor and a natural object-like recipient. I worry

that it has also had a dampening effect on discussions around the subtle philanthropic relationship

and its potential for bringing about systemic reducations of injustice. If achieving impact is sufficient

to fix a social ill, what need is there for critical discussion about the notion of power-stratified

relationships and systemic imbalance of power?

 Rachel Dowling 56

The Supski Foundation in San Francisco, which is actively committed to the practice of

knowledge sharing and disbursement of responsibility, has found that foundations which exhibit

impact tendencies have these problems:

• Obsession with strategy,

• Predisposition to hoard,

• Lack of curiosity,

• Simplistic view of issues (lack of a systems orientation),

• Fear of what might be learned,

• Misunderstanding of unique potential of foundations/philanthropy” (Culwell, 2008).

Conceptualizing of themselves as banks that dole out money to nonprofits, impact philanthropists

shut themselves into a narrowly defined role. They foster the same market tactics (intense

competition, diversification, individualization) that caused the original dramatic wealth differential.

They are using the method that generated the social ill -- a market approach -- to address the

problem.

Because impact philanthropists do not see the importance of learning outcomes and do not

engage in dialogue with their grantees, donors lose their opportunity to learn significantly about the

nature of the social problem (Enright, 2010). Engaging stakeholders can be a powerful way to learn

about the field and to understand the most meaningful work being done. Listening to what grantees

say is effective on the ground is a tremendous way for philanthropists to improve their giving

strategy (Sievers, 2010). Obsessing about impact reduces the opportunity to develop a trusting

relationship with a grantee.

As an aside, it should be noted that to some degree, the word “impact” is used as a linguistic

crutch. It’s easier to say that a program “impacted lives” than that it increased college acceptance

rates among underprivileged youth in the Boston area, or reduced the number of people living on a
 Rachel Dowling 57

dollar a day in a particular district in Malawi. So perhaps we can chalk some of the word’s rise to

dominance to lazy reporting, or oversimplification. If the report to the funders must be brief, the

word “impact” seems to carry linguistic punch where “increase,” “improve,” and “remedy” do not.

It is ironic, but impact terminology might actually work to conceal meaning rather than illuminate it.

Efficiency and Effectiveness

Outcome is important. But the assumption that increasing efficiency increases effectiveness

is not necessarily valid. Achieving certain philanthropic missions requires significantly more program

expenditure than others. So it doesn’t make sense to compare a 0-5 early education program with a

college-preparatory program; they have different mechanisms and require different assessments. But

when nonprofits are asked to “sell themselves” or market their “social product” then we have

arrived at a commodification of social goods and lives that is ethically quite questionable.

Online sites that compare nonprofit grant seekers on the basis of impact (by which they

generally mean efficiency) primarily use “overhead costs” as a measure of impact. This is an even

more crude estimation than the “cost per impact” measure that UPenn and others use. It conflates

organizational efficiency with effectiveness of the program for solving a social problem. Charity

Navigator, GuideStar, GiveWell, and others publish efficiency ratings for nonprofits which users and

individual donors can use to make funding decisions. The public perception that this accountability-

class creates can be incredibly influential to the nonprofit’s success of finding funding. Giving gold

stars (soft accreditation) to nonprofits that they deem most efficient will bolster that nonprofit’s

ability to raise funds and show legitimacy. Doling out approbation to inefficient-appearing

nonprofits has the potential to generate significant skepticism. A low rating on Charity Navigator or

GuideStar implies to a donor that a nonprofit is inefficient, incompetent, wasteful, or even corrupt.

Using 990 tax forms and other public records, these sites claim to be able to determine

organizational merit by assessing the percent of funds that “go directly to the cause.” But in the
 Rachel Dowling 58

highly competitive marketplace of nonprofits competing for donations, we see a culture emerging

that places an exorbitantly high value on appearances and third party recommendations.

Unfortunately however, in many cases the information that is being used to determine the

nonprofit’s efficiency is woefully out of date. It is up to the nonprofits to ensure that their forms are

updated, but because of lags in bureaucratic delays other factors out of the nonprofit’s control,

information is frequently online that is up to 3 years old (Somerville, 2010).

Nonprofits are put in the difficult position of justifying all expenditures for staff

compensation and operational functioning even when those expenses are valid. This creates a

culture of distrust. Donors do not believe that nonprofits know how to spend their money, which

leads to a distrustful relationship, and a distrustful network. In an atmosphere where donors and

grantees are supposedly working together to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems,

internal skirmishes and power struggles are not helpful. The class divide between philanthropists

and grantees that distrustful efficiency ratings promote does not supportive of an atmosphere of

congenial partnership.

Is Impact Ethical?

To some extent, impact model philanthropy makes ethical sense. It seems that the

philanthropist wants to do as much good as possible given inherently limited resources. Perhaps she

wants to be able to help as many people as she can, or perhaps she wants to maximize the

achievement of a certain number of people. I think a lot of people begin giving money in this way;

it makes intuitive sense to seek value. And to a large extent, the tenets of impact modeled

philanthropy have pointed out unnecessary inefficiencies in the nonprofit world which hampered

the sector’s work (Boris, 2006).

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But this form of Utilitarian philanthropy is stridently consequentialist. It attempts to

maximize the social good result in a process-blind way. If ten people can be fed with ten dollars,

why spend fifteen dollars to buy them higher quality food? Calories are calories, they would say.

It also doesn’t differentiate between helping a large number of people a small amount and helping a

few people a large amount, because the product (the multiplied total change) is the same. So while

the impact model can be naively understood as an attempt to help as many people as possible (or to

help a certain number of people as meaningfully as possible), it can also be interpreted more

cynically as an attempt to reach a certain endpoint with minimal inconvenience to the donor. The

impact model of philanthropy suggests that maximizing net change and minimizing expenditure are

the only things that matter.

If change is what philanthropists seek, then they are incentivized to keep people in need.

Donations can only have an impact on recipients if there are recipients in need. This might help

explain why foundation giving is very often no more than 5% of total endowment. They need to

hold onto enough money so that they can continue to exist and can continue to make an impact year

after year (Vesterlund, 2006). From this perspective, we see that they are not focused on fulfilling

social needs, but rather on seeing a change that they can attribute to themselves (Duncan, 2004).

This type of philanthropy creates dependency. Nonprofits and grantees would be happy to

continue to take money from philanthropists as long as they can, and philanthropists are not looking

for ways to create self-sustaining programs. Recipients have no reason to seeing the project to

completion if they can continue to get support from philanthropists in return for showing some

progress toward improvement. For them, there is no benefit to finding a donor “exit

strategy” (achieving sustainability). As long as both can demonstrate need and progress on achieving

mission, there is no need to ever eliminate the need altogether.

Almost immediately, a philanthropist acting within the impact model faces the difficulty of

measuring the outcomes of his donation. Since maximization of returns is required, the donor must
 Rachel Dowling 60

know exactly what his returns are in order to determine what a sound decision would be. It is easy

enough to know how much money you have given, but the social returns yielded by a donation are

not easily converted to monetary or quantitative measures. The improvement of education quality,

for example, or the success of early literacy programs on college entrance rates, or the consequences

of maternal health centers are not easily captured by assessment, particularly short-time horizon

assessment. Success is notoriously difficult to define and claim in the social arena. Philanthropists

have a tendency to demand positive results from their grantees, who in turn are pressed into

generating optimistic data or else risk losing grant support. Nonprofits are incentivized to produce

positive-looking results to show to their donors in the impact model, while not incentivized to

creatively seek new approaches to problems or to take risks.

REDF (formerly The Roberts Enterprise Development Fund) is one example of a

foundation that has attempted to incorporate social returns into a quantitative measure of success.

True cost accounting, social returns on investment (SROI), Ongoing Assessment of Social Impacts

(OASIS) are meant to quantitatively capture the social impact of an investment in a project (Bishop

and Green, 2008; REDF, 2001). The SROI estimates how much is being saved from government

and private funds that would have had remedy a particular given social problem, or compensate for

it later. Essentially SROI represents the costs that are diverted from other sources thanks to this

particular investment. It tries to internalize various externalities (like healthcare costs, environmental

costs, loss of productivity, etc), to quantitatively measure social outcome. Then by analyzing the

SROI outcome and the amount of investment, REDF says their method is able to flag efficient and

inefficient nonprofits . REDF confidently says: “As a result of our in-depth data collection and

analysis, we are able to say with certainty that our portfolio of social purpose enterprises is having a

lasting, positive impact on the lives of employees [we help]” ( REDF, 2010).

Impact philanthropists are much more likely to give program-specific allocation. They are

interested in measuring their returns on investment, which are much more visible if they go toward
 Rachel Dowling 61

specific operations, not to general operating overhead of the nonprofit. Paul Brest, the Executive

Director of the Hewlett Foundation, says that any foundation which does not allocate a

“reasonable” amount for general operating budget on top of their program grants is free-riding off

those who do (Brest, 2010). It is unacceptable and unethical to expect other donors to support the

necessary overhead bills in order for your impact reports to look extraordinarily “efficient.” Without

paying the employees of the nonprofit, or paying to “keep the lights on,” how can philanthropists

expect the work that they want to get done to get done?

On the surface, an Impact Model seems reasonable. It makes sense to try to eek out the

most “value” for purchased goods. Yet this approach ignores the distinctions that exist between

different social goods --some of which are better adapted to being maximized. The impact model

assumes 1) that measurement is possible, and 2) that social returns ought to be purchased. I address

these two assumptions now.

Is Measurement Possible?

The Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania has devised a

“back of the envelope” equation for determining the efficacy (cost per impact) that an education

program provides: This equation represents a typical, albeit simplistic, approach to converting social

returns into quantitative measures of impact. There are dozens of different reporting tools that

various foundations have developed (Foundation Center, 2010). The Acumen Fund, Ashoka, The

James Irvine Foundation, Venture Philanthropy Partners, the Robin Hood Foundation, the Annie E.

Casey Foundation, the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, and the Bill and Melinda Gates

Foundation are just a few organizations that host different assessment tools designed to measure

efficiency and drive decision-making. In fact, the field is flooded with notions, many of them

conflicting, about how to derive an “objective” measure of philanthropic impact.

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One of the most significant problems with assessing social good, however, is the degree to

which it is subjective. Just in the above example, how can you determine if a student has been

“changed” by a program (in the way that you want her to be changed)? Scholar Bruce Sievers calls

impact philanthropy “layers of subjective judgements masquerading as rigorous analysis.” At some

point in the calculation / assessment, there is always a subjective decision about how successful a

program has been in changing lives. Claiming that impact assessment is an absolute science is

counter-factual.

The massive quantities of information make measurement of social impact an enormous

empirical problem. The best forms of measurement take into account dozens or hundreds of

factors. Yet philanthropic donations, especially ones that affect the lives of people (as opposed to

environmental goods or other objective measures) have innumerable social effects that cannot be

represented in even the most accurate models. This is a large part of the reason that philanthropists

engage in philanthropy; they are interested in catalyzing a beneficial cycle of positive actions that

lead to sustained positive effects. In their own estimation, successful philanthropy sets in motion

positive changes that lead to more positive changes. In other words, successful philanthropy has a

ripple effect which makes true measurement of all effects impossible.

Unsuccessful philanthropy also has outcomes that are impossible to measure. Unintended

consequences abound in any social interaction and that holds true for philanthropic activity. So even

if it were possible to measure all the intended improvements to human life, and environmental

wellbeing, there would still be many, many consequences that were not anticipated and hence

unmeasured. By not knowing about those consequences, and not being able to account for them in

the measurement of success, it makes it difficult to know the net benefit (or harm) of a donation.

Beyond this, there is also a concern about the temporal limitations of measurement.

Between the start time (the moment of investment) and the end time (the moment measurement is

completed) a certain amount of social good has been made. This amount of good can be measured
 Rachel Dowling 63

if specific indicators are put in place. But because measurement necessitates a shorter time horizon

than the philanthropic donations have, measurement will only be able to measure the effects that

have already been generated. For investments in education, this is an especially salient concern since

the time horizon of positive effect is particularly long. It might be 20 years before an investment in

early education “pays off ” by allowing students to achieve college placement or placement in the

workforce or a healthy family. But impact model philanthropists demand data well before this type

of measurement can be carried out.

Here is an oft-cited example: the philanthropist who sponsored Barack Obama’s father’s

education in the United States could never have known that this would enable him to father Barack

Obama, who would subsequently rise to the presidency. Even with an ideal measurement, the

philanthropist would only have been able to guess that his scholarship student’s life would be

enriched through his education. He could not have captured all of the effects of his donation, which

wouldn’t be obvious for another generation. Thus, even ideal measurement is only an approximation

of quantitative and qualitative results given the constraints of time.

There is also an epistemological worry about measurement. How can we know the full

concept of success of an education program if we are only studying certain narrow definitions of

success? How indicative of complete programmatic success is the success of measurement of one

axis? Scores on the TIMMS test, while a powerful measure of children’s math, science and literacy,

do not necessarily measure the holistic success of an education program. TIMMS scores cannot be

extrapolated to measure the improvement of community health, population size, or earning

potential. These things may be the ultimate goal of a philanthropist, but because they are difficult

and time-intensive to measure, the philanthropist will settle for international school test scores as a

short-cut measurement of the real outcome he is interested in. It is a mistake to assume that

scholastic retention, mass education expansion, and higher international test scores indicate health
 Rachel Dowling 64

and socioeconomic population improvements. Knowing what data sets represent, and what they do

not represent is absolutely critical if measurement is to be useful at all.

Measurement Maintains Systems of Power

There is a tremendous asymmetry of in the monitoring and evaluation of success. In

traditional philanthropic relationships, the duty to report is placed fully on the grantees. There is no

corollary accountability for the philanthropists. They are in the unassailable position of power to

affect social structures as they see fit -- which exacerbates the existing position of power they

already had in virtue of their elite and wealthy status in society.

As Shari Berenbach, President and CEO of the Calvert Social Investment Foundation says

“My individual investors want to know that value is being added but they are not interested in

reading substantial reports about how that is happening. They want the social value proposition

reduced to simple output indicators” (Stepanek, 2010). The value proposition must be proven by the

grantees to the donors -- quickly and quantitatively. Traditionally, the demands made by donor

foundations for measurement and reporting costs between 15 and 20% of every grant made in

employee time (Somerville, 2010). Yet investor-donors are impatient with the costs involved with

this type of heavy assessment. “In the long run, it's a good thing to have impact measurement but

organizations need to keep the cost of these measurements in proportion,” Berenbach concludes

(Stepanek, 2010). Investors want hard proof that their money is being used efficiently, but they don’t

want to pay for the cost of getting that proof.

There is always going to be a trade-off between degree of certainty of effectiveness and cost

of proving that certainty. As long as nonprofits are not given enough resources to prove their

effectiveness, they are being incentivized to take short cuts in assessment, and to generate reports

that are very “glossy.” Nonprofits have tremendous pressure from foundations to find success or

risk losing their funding. Therefore nonprofits try to report their progress as positively as possible
 Rachel Dowling 65

regardless of their actual success. Accountability for the accuracy for reporting has been traditionally

very low, so this has been possible in the past (Bishop and Green, 2008). The temptation to “fudge”

books, to list certain expenses as programmatically related instead of operational, and to finesse

990s is enormous in an impact model of philanthropy. Foundations and donors what they want to

see: 1) a very high percent of donated funds go directly to programs, and 2) these programs are

tremendously successful. In order to prove these things, nonprofits must bear the burden of

measurement, assessment, and report-production, which can account for 14-20% of each grant

(Somerville, 2010).

Despite these problems, attention to success and failure is important. The impact model has

done significant good in the nonprofit sector by turning attention to outcomes. Expecting

nonprofits to achieve what they say they will, and centering the narrative of social change around

results, has helped to refocus philanthropy toward effective groups. But the sense that there is one

best nonprofit or one best way of achieving success is a limitation of the impact model. There are

many, many excellent programs and nonprofits in the world which are not adept at demonstrating

“impacts” that are not easily converted into SROI terms or that have a very long time horizon of

effect. This is not a reason not to fund them, but it might be a reason to look more closely at their

methodology, their theory of change, their experience in the field, and their rapport with their

beneficiaries. It might be a reason to act as a better conduit of information between several grantees,

and to increase grantee awareness of other effective practices in their field.

We have seen that there is a theoretic failure involved with the descriptive process of impact

philanthropy. No measurement or combination of measurements will ever be able to capture the full

effect of a philanthropic donation. (The large number of factors and long time horizon prevent

measurement from providing this desired omniscient viewpoint). Thinking that impact model

assessments are objective renderings of success is a limitation. It seems that “efficiency” may not be

the mot juste in philanthropy.

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Should Human Capital Social Goods be for Sale?

Beyond the feasibility of measurement, we may wonder if there is an ethical problem with

the idea of purchasing human capital social goods at all. Can we buy an education in the same way

that we can buy a carton of milk? Many nonprofits offer a “menu” of social goods from which a

donor can choose. For instance, Heifer International lets donors choose to buy a flock of chickens

for $20, or a goat for $120, or a water buffalo for $250 to give to a family in a developing nation.

Heifer International wants to make donation more transparent and explain how “far” a donated

dollar can go. Concretizing donations is an effective tool for helping donors connect with their

grantees, and for starting to generate a network of concern (if not an obligation of care)

internationally (Aaker and Chang, 2010). Donors are more likely to give, and to feel confident that

their donation is going to a good cause, if they can imagine what their money is doing.

How does this equation change when we consider a social good as related more intimately to

the lives of persons? In the case of education, when we address social ills, we are addressing and

changing children’s and adults’ lives. Intuitively, this seems to be morally distinguishable from a flock

of chickens. Yet the impact model asks us to think of human capital improvement as a commodity.

To conceptualize of human-based social goods as exchangeable, purchasable goods runs the risk of

violating human dignity. Co-modifying education comes dangerously close to co-modifying the lives

that are changed by that education.

Let me illustrate this with a soup kitchen example. The value-hunting philanthropist would

not care if the food being served was exceptionally healthy, locally grown / organic, or culturally

appropriate (for instance, not serving meat on Fridays in a predominantly Catholic neighborhood).

This philanthropist would want to give the minimal standard meal to the most people. The food

would not be as tasty as the food the philanthropist herself would eat, but she would be satisfied

knowing that her dollars were feeding as many people as possible. This is strikingly elitist, but
 Rachel Dowling 67

perhaps this is acceptable in the case of food where absolute need trumps concerns about equity. A

case could be made here that the philanthropist should fund the cheapest ingredients to serve the

highest number of people based on humanitarian concerns.

But as we have already seen, education does not work this way. Education is not like soup.

There simply is no minimally effective education that can be doled out in bulk. Education is only

effective at increasing equity of opportunity when it is of comparable quality to the best education

in that system (Baker and LeTendre, 2005). So to seek the best “value” in education-related projects

is a slippery slope that must be moderated by an appreciation for the demands of equity with a

system.

The idea that human capital social goods are for sale suggests that buying even a small

amount of them is sufficient for acting morally. If they were really for sale, then any donation (any

incremental improvement in life quality that they could buy) would be morally praiseworthy. While I

do not have the space to investigate the full case of philanthropic sufficiency, it should be clear that

giving a minimal amount does not satisfy the demands of justice between two people in the same

sphere. People might easily make the mistake that a nominal donation is equally morally

praiseworthy as giving enough to satisfy the demands of justice.

For instance, if a billionaire gave ten dollars to a philanthropic cause, he would be acting

well. Yet can we say that a billionaire who only gives 0.00000001% of his wealth away is morally

upholding his duty to justice? Is giving any amount fulfilling the obligation to give? Humanists like

Peter Singer would say no; a wealthy person has an obligation to give a substantial percentage of his

wealth to alleviate human suffering, and if he does not, he has not acted well. Giving as much or as

little as you want, wherever and whenever does not amount to ethical action (Singer, 2002). While

Singer’s approach is that humanitarian needs trump all others, which is not the view of this thesis, he

would agree that giving minimally is not sufficient for moral action.
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Purchasing human social goods is problematic if treating recipients with respect and dignity

are also goals for philanthropy. Buying a change in someone’s life suggests to the grantee that to

some extent his or her life is “for sale,” which is unquestionably detrimental to the grantee’s sense of

human worth.

Does Impact Philanthropy Answer a Humanitarian Call, or an Appeal to Justice?

Many philanthropists, particularly ones who work in education, claim to seek social justice.

In fact, this is a large part of the reason that education is the number one priority for high net worth

individuals (Havens et. al, 2006). Education is still perceived as the method through which social

change can best occur (Ramirez and Boli, 1987). So philanthropists wanting to enable a paradigmatic

shift in oppressive social structures act by attempting to educate children (Krueger and Lindahl,

2000). Yet the way that it is still being done is largely in ways that allow inequalities to persist. By

taking a maximization approach, and giving low quality education to as many children as possible,

philanthropists are not giving those children any more hope of succeeding socioeconomically. But

giving educational aid that does not address the advantages that elites have which are largely outside

the school system -- like good nutrition, supportive families, books at home, social capital habitus --

philanthropists are not actually increasing the likelihood that children will be able to compete with

elites or escape poverty (Bourdieu, Coleman, 1988).

Philanthropists who are interested in education are seeking to interrupt institutionalized

social stratification and to start sustainable mechanisms for systemic social change (Havens et al,

2006). Yet, taking a look at the way that international aid is delivered, we do not see “game-

changing” philanthropy for the most part. We see impact models that valorize gross enrollment

rates, increases in international test scores, and equitable distribution of government expenditure per

pupil. None of these things increase socioeconomic equity (Hannum and Buchman, 2003). Ensuring
 Rachel Dowling 69

equal distribution of inputs does not ensure equal outcome of education opportunity (Coleman,

1988). In fact, it perpetuates the maintenance of the extant social order (Pritchett, 1996).

As Chapter 3 has shown, international philanthropy for education (IPE) can be a powerful

tool for increasing equity if it brings the least well off up to par with the best off in that same

system. Education is only able to reduce socioeconomic disadvantage insofar as it equalizes access to

high quality education. To reiterate: IPE requires a justice framework to be effective.

The impact model of philanthropy, for the reasons given in this chapter, does not prioritize

equity or equality of opportunity. Leveling out disparities between rich and poor is not the goal of

impact. Impact philanthropy measures its success in net social change -- which is measured in given

minimal standards (eg: kindergarten readiness, college entrance, adult literacy). We conclude that

despite rhetoric to the contrary, the prevailing impact model of educational aid uses a humanitarian

-- not a justice-- framework.

We further conclude that impact philanthropy will not be very effective at addressing

educational development for socioeconomic growth. The incompatibility of humanitarian concerns

and IPE for socioeconomic progress prompts us to suggest the rejection of the impact model for

IPE.
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CHAPTER 5

Moving Beyond Impact:

Using Service Learning to Inspire Partnership

The work of replacing the impact model has already started. There is a groundswell of

movement around the ideas that have been voiced in the previous sections. There is a growing

understanding that grantees have a vital role to play in the administration, assessment, and decision-

making (Enright, 2010). I will attempt to show in this last chapter the benefit of using methods

found in partnership models that emphasize reciprocity and mutual learning paradigms.

Humanitarian Impact Philanthropy --> Justice-Driven Partnership Philanthropy

Ultimately, the goal of the philanthropist for international education is to conceive of a

justice - based philanthropic practice so that the educational aid can be effective at changing

socioeconomic opportunity. We need to do this by building very strong associational ties between

individuals which may then be expanded to connect individuals and communities (or even nations)

in the same sphere of justice (see chapter 2). The challenge is then to find a way to generate these

strong associative connections in an authentic way. Can we re-envision philanthropy as partnership

building?

Service learning also attempts to build authentic connections between people and across lines

of differnece. It attempts to change the social outlook of community service “do-gooders” by

showing them that they not only have something to give, but have something to learn. It seeks to

disrupt oppressive power structures by engaging students and community partners in reflection
 Rachel Dowling 71

about the causes of injustice, and the systemic reasons why it persists. The model of reciprocity in

learning and giving is central to service-learning.

What is Service-Learning? Why Use it?

Service learning educational research wrestles with many of the same questions of social

justice, wealth differential, and community difference that international philanthropy does. Both

fields investigate not only the best ways to shift resources from one group to another, but also the

best ways to call into question the existing power structures that permit social injustice. Both

international philanthropy and service learning empower and encourage participants to create

paradigmatic shifts toward a more just conception of the world.

Instrumental to both disciplines is also the belief that learning through experience, engaging

in thoughtful theoretical framing, and honest reflection, will generate more authentic and self-

perpetuating future actors on the world stage. Philanthropists contend that merely addressing

charitable needs (say, hunger) without a thorough understanding of the underlying reasons for the

philanthropic need (the environmental and educational lacks that prevent farmers from feeding

themselves) will never solve the problems that plague our neediest populations. International

philanthropy for education, as I have shown in Chapter 3, needs to be administered under a justice

framework if any effective improvement in the quality of lives is to be expected. Likewise, service

learning needs a justice framework to adequately embed practitioners in a network where actions of

one person affect the lives of others. The need for both service learning and IPE to reside in a

justice framework in order to be effective, and the mutual goal they have to improve the quality of

life of the least well are sufficient reasons for a cross-pollination of best-practices to be considered.

There is a long tradition of philosophers and educators who hold that experiencing the

application of a theory in “real life” makes the learning experience infinitely deeper than it could be

with learning taking place in the classroom alone. American man of letters, W.E.B. Du Bois said that
 Rachel Dowling 72

the surest way to generate students fit for social revolution is to teach students that the “world is not

perfection, but development.” That is, that the world is in a constant state of becoming; it is not static.

A generation later, Existentialists came onto the philosophical scene with phenomenological ideas;

some of them said that perception alone constitutes reality, and others that the experience of a well-

lived life in the company of men was what constituted the Good (Sartre, Beauvoir, Kierrkegaard).

Sartre said “to experience as much of the world as possible would be the ultimate

curriculum” (Peura, 2008).

Valuing experience as a necessary component of learning, seminal philosopher of education

and pragmatist, John Dewey explored what he called “experiential learning.” He founded a school of

pedagogical thought that expands their notion of what a classroom can be, and where learning

happens. Dewey’s legacy in education can be summarized by his contention that “all genuine

education comes through experience." He said that all valuable education was fundamentally

participatory, transactional, and reflective (Dewey, 1938). His subsequent writings supported this

notion through empirical and theoretical studies. The four basic elements of influential experiential

learning are: 1) Concrete experience, 2) Reflective Observation, 3) Abstract Conceptualization, and

4) Active Experimentation are at the core of experiential education (Kolb, 1984).

In today’s research context, Dewey’s work has been reframed. We no longer call into

question the utility of experiential learning, but we do examine how experiential learning can be

most effective, and why it is so. Researchers are now more involved in the probing the difference

between “mere” experiential learning, and a critical community learning model that makes critical

reflection an essential component of the learning cycle. Critical service learning seeks to disrupt the

political, economic, and social structures that enable inequity to perpetuate itself. It gives students a

conceptual framework to understand why there is a need for their service (Mitchell, 2008).

Additionally, it aims to authentically affirm diversity in school, work, and community spheres; it
 Rachel Dowling 73

creates partnerships between socially disparate individuals who otherwise would never have seen

each other as peers.

Critical service learning is not an uncontested label, but the definition I will use refers to it as

“community service action tied to learning goals and ongoing reflection about the

experience” (Jacoby, 1996; Mitchell, 2008). Critical service learning engages community members,

students, and researchers in a network of mutual learning and respect. More than merely teaching

students about the systemic roadblocks that exist for some communities and individuals, service

learning aims to create socially aware individuals who are civically awakened, and motivated to take

part in social action (Berdan, 2006). In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paolo Freire contrasts “traditional”

teaching with critical, experiential learning. Traditional “banking education” is limited and limiting

because it treats teachers as depositors of knowledge into empty ‘“deposit boxes”: the students.

Whereas banking education anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing

education involves a constant unveiling of reality. The former attempts to maintain the

submersion of consciousness; the latter strives for the emergence of consciousness and critical

intervention in reality” (p. 62)

There is an obvious parallel to be drawn here between this banking model of education and the

banking model of philanthropy that Alexa Culwell warns against. Both conceive of the giver as the

sole repository of information and wealth, and imagine the act of giving as an off-loading of

knowledge and wealth into empty recipients.

Critical service learning pedagogy, described by Robert Rhoad in 1997, asks participants to

question what systems of oppression or societal failures generated a need for the service being

performed. What is the reason that service (and philanthropy) is necessary? What sociological and

historical events preceded the service learning, and how is the historical pattern of community

involvement evident in the service experiences the students encounter? Critical service learning
 Rachel Dowling 74

encourages students to take responsibility for the injustice they they have encountered and to think

creatively about ways to eliminate the need for service in the future (Eyeler, 2001).

As Kolb says, critical reflection not only encourages active learning, but it positions the

educational pedagogy as an effective tool for combatting social injustice (Kolb, 1984). Students are

no longer docile listeners, they are “critical co-investigators” who engage in educational dialogues

with their teachers and seek to achieve social justice. From a standpoint, students can tackle larger

questions about human need and human obligation to care. “Responding to individual human needs

is important, but if the social policies that create those needs is not also understood and addressed,

then the cycle of dependence remains” (O’Grady, 13). Arming students with tools for thinking

about ways that they might be able to change the dynamics of the greater social context in which

service happens in successful critical service learning. Tania Mitchell reports on service learning

practitioners’ consensus has settled on three essential elements: “working to redistribute power

amongst all participants in the service-learning relationship, developing authentic relationships in the

classroom and in the community, and working from a social change perspective” (Mitchell, 2008, p.

1). Some aspects of critical pedagogy are especially exportable to the philanthropic context, namely:

the mutuality of exchange, the importance of long-term investment, and the practice of the highest

levels of cultural respect and sensitivity.

What Can Service Learning Teach the Philanthropic Sector?

Justice-based philanthropy and service learning are both “fundamentally an attempt to

reframe relations of power” (Butin, 2005, p. x). They attempt to reverse oppressive cycles and

systems of justice through personal interaction and voluntary action. Yet despite this very explicit

overlap of goals, researchers in the two fields (as well as political philosophers) do not usually

exchange ideas in formal ways, or read possible solutions from each other’s work. but I do not think
 Rachel Dowling 75

that this has to be the case. Theory and practice should be well informed in order to deliver the

highest quality and most lasting social change.

Here I adopt five best practices in service learning to language suited for philanthropists.

These are based on Wilczenski and Coomey’s research into best practices for the pedagogy of

critical service learning across and through diversity (Wilczenski and Coomey, 2007).

1) Acknowledge that the philanthropic exchange is fundamentally multidirectional.

2) Philanthropy for international justice requires a dedication to achieving a paradigmatic

shift in world-wide power relationships,

3) Balanced dialogue between recipients and donors is necessary,

4) Grant recipients and donors share a joint responsibility for successful achievement of

mission, as mutually defined by all parties at the outset,

5) All participants must be critical and informed investors.

On a practical level, this would mean that philanthropists ought to engage their community partners

in dialogue, not just about how the aid project should be carried out, but also how sociological

explanations for the division of power about the reasons why the power structure has developed in

the way that it has. Taking the time to engage in a discussion with their community partners and

grantees about why social ills exist will generate more useful learning for the philanthropists

(Enright, 2010).

Redistributing power could be done by changing the measurement techniques of

philanthropy. For example, the Beneficiary Perception Report from The Center for Effective

Philanthropy takes into account the opinions, criticisms and knowledge of grantees and other stakes

holders. It uses issue mapping, stakeholder consultation, logic models, and qualitative measures. Bill

Somerville, president and founder of Philanthropic Ventures, suggests putting as much

administrative cost on the philanthropists as possible to facilitate the grantee's work and maximize

the potential for collaborative work and trust (Somerville, 2010). He says that in his “grassroots”
 Rachel Dowling 76

philanthropy, he does not require formal or lengthy applications, but rather does the research

himself, and writes the philanthropic “contract” for the grantee to save time and effort for them.

This is a radical reversal of the status quo which usually requires nonprofit grantees to spend 30

hours or more on a single grant proposal.

Susan Ostrander describes a social relations model of philanthropy which “sees a value in

donors’ and recipient groups’ working together in as nonhierarchical and mutually collaborative

relationship as is possible to determine the use of philanthropic gifts” (Ostrander, 2007). She shows

that it is possible to re-humanize grantees through a process of philanthropy that does not valorize

impact. It is possible to generate obligations of care across national boundaries, and revise Benedict

Anderson’s thesis that nationality is definitively constitutive of obligation. Philanthropy has the

power to help us re-imagine communities and though them, spheres of justice (see chapter 2’s

discussion of Community Based global justice).

Conclusion

If philanthropists are indeed interested in improving equity through education, they need to

address the relative standing of children within any given justice sphere. Merely expanding

educational access -- which is the style of aid most humanitarian educational initiatives take -- does

very little to change systemic inequality within or between countries. However, increasing equality

between elites and the disadvantaged by supporting high quality education and wrap around services

can address systemic socioeconomic inequality.

The impact model of philanthropy is incompatible with this style of the justice-based

philanthropy. Drawing a metaphorical connection between the now-antiquated “banking model” of

pedagogy, I suggest that the philanthropic impact model is similarly antiquated. Adopting a more

grantee-centered model of philanthropy will mirror the successes that adopting student-centered

models for pedagogy. Instead of conceptualizing of the global educational inequity as a problem
 Rachel Dowling 77

that wealthy donors have a responsibility to “pour money into,” we ought to understand global

educational inequity as a problem that community partners can help to address. Service learning

methods can transform philanthropic recipients into co-investigators and co-investors with their

wealthy partners. Emphasizing human dignity, respect, and reciprocal exchanges, service-learning-

style philanthropy will work to dismantle static power structures not only in a consequentialist way,

but also in its own process. By giving power (especially decision making power) to grantees,

philanthropists signal that they trust their partners and are dedicated to seeing a reversal of the

stratified power systems of the past (Somerville, 2010; Enright, 2010).

As a first step, moving away from metaphorically charged language that pits philanthropic

participants not as partners, but as dehumanized targets, or as malleable objects psychologically

undermines philanthropy’s own goal to upset power relations. Creating and measuring philanthropic

impact, despite its good intentions, implies violent cultural collision, and may lead to treatment of

partners as data points instead of as partners in creating paradigmatic change. Introducing multi-

partner stakeholder language and a bidirectional flow of information will help to establish a true

dialogical discourse.

The Community Based global justice framework facilitates an understanding of community

that can extend beyond national boundaries. To form this community, which has obligations of care,

we look to service-learning critical pedagogy for inspiration. It models an ideal co-learner, co-giver

relationship where all participants have the opportunity to develop close ties and friendship. If

philanthropists adopted a corollary system of practices, they might be able to construct a meaningful

sphere of justice through personal experiences with their grantees. This, in turn, would allow them

to undertake deep philanthropy focused on addressing equity -- in other words, philanthropy for

education. Generating this kind of sphere of justice is important since it removes education from

the competition for humanitarian attention. Urgent disasters are still compelling, but so too is the

shocking socioeconomic injustice that we see around the world.

 Rachel Dowling 78

Service-learning provides a way to generate intimate connections across international

boundaries. It may be just the tool philanthropists need to generate a Community Based sphere of

justice internationally.
 Rachel Dowling 79

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