Giving Compass' Take:

• Common Core standards that create consistent and rigorous expectations for students need the support of donors to be successfully implemented. Through strategic donations, funders can make an impact where it is most needed. 

• What schools need the most help to serve their students? Beyond money, how can donors support Common Core? 

• Find out how school budget laws complicate tracking of Common Core spending.

The Common Core standards create consistent and rigorous expectations for what students need to learn and be able to do from kindergarten through high school to prepare for college and 21st-century careers.

Advocates consider the Common Core a once-in-a-generation opportunity to raise the quality of American public education — a pressing need given that only about a quarter of students graduate from high school prepared for college-level work. Detractors cite concerns ranging from Washington overreach to burdensome student testing. These concerns have prompted three of the 46 states that originally adopted the standards to reverse course and abandon them.

In this context, many donors remain uncertain about whether and how they should get involved.

My colleagues and I conducted conversations with 10 philanthropies and two philanthropy membership organizations to understand the questions on donors’ minds as they contemplate their role in the Common Core movement.

"Some funders may have been skeptical of the impact potential of investing in school districts, but the Common Core is a unique opportunity to do something constructive across the nation’s public school system," says Rachel Leifer, an education program officer at the Helmsley Charitable Trust. "This isn’t an add-on; it’s about core academic content, the substance of teaching and learning. Educators need support making the fundamental shifts that are required."

In short, some donors see the Common Core as an unprecedented opportunity to support large-scale, transformative improvements in public education.

Deciding to get involved raises a second question: Where are my investments needed?

Read the full article about funding Common Core by Amy Coe Rodde at The Bridgespan Group.