President’s Comment

Since 2015, the William T. Grant Foundation has funded research on programs, policies, and practices that reduce inequality in youth outcomes. We have supported a diverse pool of highly accomplished researchers, including some who have produced affirmative causal evidence on specific ways to reduce inequality (and others who have provided equally valuable evidence on what […]

Many of us may have hoped that the change in administration in Washington, DC, would have lessened the pervasive climate of hostility and xenophobia that we have experienced in the United States over the past four years. After all, a change in leadership is often regarded as prelude to culture change. Tragically, White supremacy and […]

In early September, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget issued a directive that barred federal agencies from providing staff training on concepts including critical race theory and White privilege. This directive, which characterized such training as “un-American propaganda” encouraged agencies to cancel contracts and divert funding from organizations that provide such opportunities. Later in […]

By institutionalizing collaborative research and building sustained knowledge-building partnerships with local service providers, universities can lead the way towards a more prosperous and equitable future.

As we make our way through this terrible time, with the health and economic devastation of the pandemic disproportionately manifested in communities of color compounded by searing examples of racial injustice, we reflect on what more we, as a funder of social science research on youth, can do to combat racial and economic inequality in […]

How can researchers find the motivation to continue to produce knowledge worth considering? And how can we, as supporters of research, best sustain our mission to support them?

Betty Hamburg was the first woman, and the first and only African American to serve as president of the Foundation, among many “firsts” in her distinguished career.

Recent years have witnessed important new works questioning the role of philanthropy in education research and education reform. Sparked by Rick Hess and colleagues in With the Best of Intentions (2005) and The New Education Philanthropy (2015), provocative new books such as Sarah Reckhow’s Follow the Money (2012), Megan Tompkins-Stange’s Policy Patrons (2016), and Michael […]

The Commission on Evidence-based Policymaking is an opportunity that doesn’t come every year, and may not come again. Let’s make the most of it.

One reason for all the attention to inequality these days is that, despite many efforts to improve opportunities for disadvantaged young people, inequality in many domains has been getting worse, not better. Education is one of those domains—and as someone who keeps close tabs on our education system, this is not what I expected. Back […]