Editor's note: In hard economic times and budget cuts at all levels of government, how can our state’s education problems be tackled? Below, the KDK-Harman Foundation discusses the role of public-private partnerships among civic organizations, legislators, educators and philanthropists in the Texas education system.

Private foundations and other charitable organizations have enjoyed decades of close partnership with state agencies, public schools and community based organizations. Public-private partnerships between philanthropy and state government have allowed resources to serve more Texans.

Each year, more private grantmakers provide tangible value to the countless nonprofit organizations and schools working to educate Texas children. In 2009, Texas foundations made charitable grants of almost $2.5 billion in total, and a large majority of this was in the field of education. Furthermore, over the last decade, at the request of and in close partnership with state government, Texas grantmakers have played a critical role in investing in innovative programs and cutting-edge strategies and ideas to address some of education’s most pressing challenges, including early reading and math instruction, improving high-school graduation rates, and post-secondary access and completion.

As the Texas public education system faces an historic crisis, the need for public-private collaborations and partnerships has never been more apparent. Foundations can be and are engaged partners in the continuum of entities responsible for providing high quality and effective public education. But our role and the demands upon us have undergone a significant shift as investment from the state has changed dramatically. The education grantmaker community is assessing and responding to this change in a collaborative manner.

During the 2011 Texas Legislative Session, legislators cut public education by $4 billion from the Foundation School Program in a state that already falls near the very bottom (44th in the union) of per pupil spending compared to the rest of the nation. Legislators cut another $1.4 billion in discretionary grants used for public-private investments such as full-day Pre-K, teacher performance incentives, and drop-out prevention, all this at a time when the Texas school-age population is growing by approximately 80,000 students per year, aging buildings need renovation and upgrades, accountability systems are changing, and technological changes require constant updates in networking, hardware and software. Never before in the history of our state have districts been required to do so much with so little.

The Legislature has only been out of session a few weeks, and already the foundation community is seeing the impact of these cuts. School districts and community based organizations that partner with districts are lining up to ask private philanthropy to fill the gaps left as a result of these budget cuts. Whereas our role in public-private partnerships has historically been one of seed funder and innovator for smart ideas in public education, we are now being asked to step out of that role and into one that provides basic education funding to keep buildings open, buses running, and after-school programs available to students who need them most—a role that the state has traditionally filled.

Although every student in Texas will feel the impact of these cuts, the students who will feel them most dramatically are the same ones that rely most on the system. These students are overwhelmingly low-income, English Language Learners, struggling to succeed academically, and most at-risk of dropping out.

In KDK-Harman's pursuit to further engage in our mission of breaking the cycle of poverty through education, we know we cannot ignore this education crisis. Our team stands as a firm believer that quality education for all students takes more than money. It requires collaboration, partnership, and knowledge about what works, as well as access to tools that help put that knowledge into practice. A key example to illustrate this concept is through the work of Central Texas Education Funders (CTEF), a membership group of over 50 funding agencies formed in 2008, whose mission is to improve the effectiveness of the education sector by providing opportunities for collaborative learning, funding, and advocacy among Central Texas education funders. Because of CTEF, grantmakers can make more informed and coordinated decisions about funding opportunities and the ways in which they can foster change in the community, both individually and collaboratively. A subset of CTEF members, including KDK-Harman Foundation, are interested in understanding the role that philanthropy can play in influencing policy and systems-level change as an important lever to ensuring all students in our region receive an excellent education.

Public-private partnership between the government and private philanthropy is critical to provide much needed research and development in education, as well as allow effective programs to scale to reach more students, but we can’t do this alone.

• See what KDK-Harman and education funders are saying to Texas Legislators
• See how you can support innovation in public education
• Learn more about KDK-Harman grantees and grants