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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

Ok, OP here (finally got back online) and first, the school is not Creative Minds, don't know why someone said that. Second, I totally disagree with this poster and the others who say that private funders have no bearing on how schools are run. As a person who works for a foundation myself (and who knows quite well what it takes to put together grant funding) I see EVERY DAY how the money I grant to organizations changes them, and we are a very lax funder with very little political agenda--but the truth is there are power dynamics at play, and due to funding constraints, mission creep is a real thing. So to the PP who said that absolutely the Walton foundation and Gates Foundation can affect a school's environment, this is why I am asking this question. Not to "get mad" at the school, or "waltz in" like an idiot, but to better understand whether, for instance, a focus on high-stakes testing or data-driven analysis is based on what the school thinks is good practice, or more a response to donor demands to get funding. These are funders with very strong and clear agendas--their GOAL is to get schools to implement high stakes testing and support privatization--and if I were writing a grant for a charter school I would do my best to respond to their criteria by, for instance, talking about how data informs classroom decisions.

Ultimately what I am trying to understand is the "true" educational philosophy of my child's school, and whether I can have honest conversations with teachers and administrators about their choices. I probably visited 15 schools during open houses, and at least 10 of these talked about their data-driven approaches, multiple assessments for pk, etc. I work in education policy and I don't really believe in all those things, but I am also a pragmatist who is open to hearing why they might be good in some cases. So this is why I asked the question.

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I think you need to understand the percentages at play here.  Take a look at DC Prep's (because they were in that Times article) financials in their annual report for 2012-13, page 31 in the this document (33rd page in the pdf):

http://www.dcpcsb.org/data/files/2014%20Annual%20Reports/2012-2013_Annual_Report_DCPrep.pdf

If you add up the various local and federal funding, it makes up 88.6% of their revenue for that year.  The private donations/grants make up 9.7%, and I think that is much higher than what it would be for most charters in DC.

Now, I am not denying that those donations are a force in how they make decisions, programs they run, etc.  It's $2 million.  It has to affect them.  But it's also less than 10% of their revenue.  If you have a full-time job and a 10 hour a week weekend gig for extra money, and there is some sort of conflict between the two, which has more importance?  I think it's basically the same here.  The oversight and guidance from the PCSB, OSSE, etc is much more important because it determines almost 90% of their funding, and, just as importantly, it determines their right to keep operating.  No foundation has the authority to shut them down if they do something the foundation doesn't like.  Maybe they can claw their money back.  But if you really mess up with PCSB, your charter is revoked and your organization dies.

And DC Prep gets a lot of private money.  I think most charters in DC are probably in the 3-5% private money range.  Look at Perry Street Prep (Page 30):

http://www.dcpcsb.org/data/files/2014%20Annual%20Reports/2012-2013_Annual_ReportPerryStreetPrepPCS.pdf

That's around 1.3% of their revenue as private money.

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