Special Grants
EE Ford “Broader Efforts” — Flexible Agenda
2024
Deerfield Academy
Thriving in a World of Pluralistic Contention: A Framework for Schools
More than a year ago, the E.E. Ford Foundation approved a proposal submitted by Deerfield Academy Head of School John Austin to develop a “framework” that could serve as a guide for schools eager to have discussions around addressing the increased polarization and politicization in independent schools. The result: Thriving in a World of Pluralistic Contention: A Framework for Schools, offers three pillars for schools to consider: Expressive Freedom, Disciplined Nonpartisanship, and Intellectual Diversity.
For more information on the Framework, please contact Project Director Lee Levison / leelev78@gmail.com
2023
Florida Council of Independent Schools (FCIS)
Growing the Pipeline - Recruiting Top Talent to Independent Schools
In June 2023, The Advisory Board of the Edward E. Ford Foundation awarded a $75,000 grant to Florida Council of Independent Schools (FCIS). The purpose of the grant is to research the current challenges and opportunities related to the teacher shortage and the recruitment of top talent to independent schools. Over a period of months, through surveying instruments, interviews and site visits with a consortium of independent schools from across the nation, this research project will identify effective strategies to deploy in order to attract top tier faculty in an extremely competitive labor market. Particular attention will be placed on the unique challenges of recruiting Generation Z candidates. A summary of findings will be published including specific recommendations that can be implemented in response to the changing demographics in both independent schools and the workplace. Creating a deeper and more talented pool of aspiring educators is essential to the future success of our schools. FCIS will serve as the fiduciary and co-sponsor of this work in collaboration with the Independent Schools of the Southwest (ISAS). David Mahler and Mike Mersky, life-time educators and former Heads of School will lead and oversee this project.
International Council Advancing Independent School Accreditation (ICAISA)
Research Insights: Governance
In March 2023, The Advisory Board of the Edward E. Ford Foundation awarded a $10,000 grant to the International Council Advancing Independent School Accreditation (ICAISA). The purpose of the grant was to undertake research to better understand the governance landscape by collecting and analyzing major recommendations in accreditation reports from various independent school associations within ICAISA. By analyzing and categorizing these governance-related accreditation recommendations, this research revealed the specific types of governance challenges facing independent schools. The findings point to the importance of governance “fundamentals” - that is, the basic elements of good governance practices. The complete research findings can be found on the ICAISA website. ICAISA benefited greatly from research support provided by Jefferson Burnett (former Senior Vice President at NAIS) and research analysis by Patrick Schuermann, Ed.D (Founder of Strategic Compensation & Coaching Partners). For additional information about this research, please contact ICAISA Executive Director, Bonnie J. Ricci.
Click here to read the Report.
2022
Northwest Association of Independent Schools (NWAIS)
Promoting Executive Coaching and Cohort Meetings for New Heads through the Regional and State Independent School Associations
In November 2022, The Advisory Board of the Edward E. Ford Foundation awarded a $70,000 grant to NWAIS. The purpose is the successful replication and promotion of the New Heads Coaching and Cohort pilot program launched by NWAIS in February 2022. Through this program, NWAIS promotes and facilitates the matching of executive coaches with newly appointed first-time school heads at a reasonable rate which is lower than the prevailing market. In addition, NWAIS sponsors regular meetings of the new heads facilitated by a former head of school and executive coach. Ten new heads in NWAIS were matched with qualified coaches to work with them throughout their first year. Furthermore, they will meet as a cohort nine times during the 2022-23 school year for the purpose of supporting and advising each other, learning through presentations and developing into a cohort that will support each other into the future. Two other associations joined the pilot program, AISGW and ACIS, each of which has six new heads in the program. This grant’s goal is to facilitate the initiation of this same program in other independent school associations around the country. The grant covers all costs of starting the program, with the expectation the associations will pick up the costs of continuing the program into the future.
National Business Officers Association (NBOA)
A Comprehensive Examination of Independent School Models of Faculty Compensation
In March 2022, The Advisory Board of The Edward E. Ford Foundation awarded a $150,000 grant to NBOA. The purpose of this grant was to conduct a large-scale landscape analysis to gather information from a wide variety of independent schools on their approaches to faculty compensation, to gather data, distill, curate and organize this information into a set of broad models describing the distinct characteristics of each and the relevant models for considerations for schools concerning implementation and maintenance, the production of an associated guide to support schools as they examine and consider possible alternate models that might best serve their mission, to create a database of independent schools that have or are in the process of implementing innovative approaches to compensation, including a repository of expertise, and to make all of this available to NAIS schools through the NBOA website as the independent school world's "one-stop-shop" for learning about various models and accessing information and expertise to support their own inquiries. All in the hopes it may catalyze widespread conversations and reconsideration of this component of the independent school financial model.
2020
Association of Independent Maryland Schools (AIMS)/Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools (ADVIS)
ERV~ Essential Resources for (a time of) VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity
At a gathering on September 29, 2020 of The Advisory Board of The Edward E. Ford Foundation, a grant of $200,000 was awarded to the Association of Independent Maryland and DC Schools and the Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools outright. Independent schools are operating in an era of VUCA. Essential Resources for VUCA (ERV) addresses the critical challenge of sustainability faced by many schools in this unprecedented time of converging crises. The Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools (ADVIS) and the Association of Independent Maryland and DC Schools (AIMS) will collaboratively develop a (continuously) vetted and curated “Resource Bank” of quality professional consultants, together with a program to support ready access to their services, in order to assist their 250 combined member schools in four states within the mid-Atlantic region navigate and address critical issues related to school sustainability during this time of unprecedented challenge. ERV will serve as a prototype for providing much-needed access to expertise, especially for those schools most in jeopardy. As school leadership has ongoing need and desire to be able to turn to expert counsel to serve as a guide through major crises, ERV will also serve as a beta test for the value of a "seal of approval” on a curated “Resource Bank” of professional consultants.
Friends Council on Education
Institutional Strategy & Economics of Multicampus Independent Schools: Identifying Strategic Models and Schools that Succeed
At a gathering on November 18, 2020 of The Advisory Board of The Edward E. Ford Foundation, a grant of $35,000 was awarded to Friends Council on Education outright. To fill the data gap and improve schools’ ability to engage in comprehensive planning for their financial futures, Friends Council on Education (FCE) received a grant to pursue a research project to survey, analyze, and report on the form and performance of multicampus schools in a research project with Rational Partners (RP). Additional funding for this project provided by BLBB Charitable.
Flintridge Preparatory School
The Challenge of Leadership in Independent Schools
At a gathering on February 27, 2020 of the Advisory Board of the Edward E. Ford Foundation, a grant of $75,000 was awarded to Flintridge Preparatory School outright. The purpose of this grant is to fund a two-year pilot program in California that would: a). Investigate and produce a white paper on coaching/mentoring models, and b). launch a beta test of 5-8 coaching assignments undertaken by retired heads that would implement a common new heads curriculum that would be available to schools that may not be able to pay full coaching rates. The goal would be to create a model that could be replicated in other states across the country.
Peter Bachmann’s White Paper on coaching
Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS)
The Challenge of Leadership in Independent Schools
At a gathering on June 3, 2020 of the Advisory Board of the Edward E. Ford Foundation, a grant of $150,000 was awarded to the Southern Association of Independent Schools outright. The purpose of this grant is to develop and launch a nationwide database of independent school head tenures dating to 1990 that will a) centralize information about head tenure and head searches, b) allow easier analysis of school leadership trends, and c) be of service to heads, boards, search committees, consultants and others.
Collaborative Innovation Grant
2017
The Mastery Transcript Consortium
In April, 2017, The Edward E. Ford Foundation awarded a $2 million Collaborative Innovation Grant, the largest single grant in its 60-year history, to The Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC), a collective of high schools organized around the development and dissemination of an alternative model of assessment, crediting and transcript generation.
A group of more than 100 independent schools from around the world have joined forces to try to begin to change high school by inventing a new kind of transcript. Soon this group plans to add partners from public, charter and parochial schools to this effort.
The MTC hopes to change the relationship between preparation for college and college admissions for the betterment of students. It will focus on mastery standards and credits rather than letter grades and Carnegie units. This Mastery Transcript will be electronic and provide not only a one-page overview of a student’s achievement, but, with a mouse click, will reveal the underlying institutional standards that credit represents. And with one more mouse click, it will reveal the actual student work product and teacher feedback that earned the Mastery Credit. This new transcript presents a transparent, detailed and authentic picture of the whole student as it can provide documentation of the knowledge and skills learned outside, as well as within, the classroom.
The enormous power that the transcript wields over each student’s experience and each school’s approach to teaching also provides an enormous opportunity to make things better for everyone. The new Mastery Transcript isn’t built yet, but what follows is a vision of its projected features:
It will be a digital transcript readable in under two minutes. Every Mastery Transcript from every school will share a common design so that, once trained, college admissions officers will be able to navigate it easily.
Evidence of a student’s best work in high school will be two clicks away for any reader of the transcript. In essence, the Mastery Transcript will function as a homepage that will link to the actual evidence of student mastery the school certifies.
Rather than listing courses and grades, the Mastery Transcript will illustrate a student’s mastery of skills, knowledge, and elements of her or his demonstrated character traits.
Each school will develop its own Mastery Credits. This means each school’s teachers and administrators will determine what skills, knowledge, and character traits they want to credit based on the school’s mission, values, and vision.
As a result, the Mastery Transcript will offer much greater transparency and clarity than the current transcript that nearly all schools use. Colleges will know the shape of each student, and students can use their classes, extracurriculars, and even their summer work to stretch, strengthen, and know themselves.
Despite what some critics suggest, school using the Mastery Transcript will likely become more rigorous, not less. After all, there are no B-s on a Mastery Transcript.
The Mastery Transcript isn’t just about helping with the college process. It’s about clearing ground for schools to teach in ways that match our era and better align with what we’ve learned about how students learn best.
Mastery Transcript aims to foster an apprentice-based pedagogy that inspires intrinsic motivation, nurtures curiosity, demands deep understanding, and leads students to truly master what they have learned for the assessment. In other words, MTC is not just building a transcript; they’re creating a path to a better school experience for students.
Check out John Gulla's and Scott Looney's article Transforming High School by Changing the Transcript to learn more about this exciting and ambitious project.