Hands-On Approach Becomes a Nationwide Effort

A small, little-known Japanese corporate foundation with a hard-to-pronounce name is helping stimulate fundamental educational reforms in San Diego and a half-dozen other school districts around the nation.

Both the intent and operation of the Matsushita Foundation--pronounced (“Mott-SHOOSH-ta”)--are unusual for philanthropic organizations.

Rather than soliciting proposals for pilot projects from individual teachers or schools, the foundation targets particular cities where its efforts can bring innovations across a whole school district. It emphasizes the restructuring of schools, with the goal of giving teachers and principals more of a say in improving the way their students learn.

More Than a Donor

In those districts the foundation selects for help, it prefers to establish an ongoing relationship in which it provides consultants and technical assistance, rather than simply dispensing money and then leaving the scene.

The hands-on approach is being tried in San Diego; Santa Fe, N. M.; Seattle; Baton Rouge, La.; Miami; Rochester, N. Y., and Englewood, N. J. Miami and Rochester in particular have stood out in recent years as school districts on the cutting edge of efforts to revamp teaching and administration as a key way to boost pupil achievement. The foundation would be interested in helping the mammoth Los Angeles school district if the district’s agreement with teachers last month calling for more teacher involvement in school policies bears fruit.

“Matsushita lives its restructuring commitment,” San Diego city schools Supt. Tom Payzant said. “It has a lean, clear mission with no requests for proposals, no paper work exchanges, no outright grants. I like the way they bring knowledgeable people here to discuss with us key issues and point to where they see hope for change--in essence being facilitators.”

The foundation has pursued its “lean mission” since being established in 1984 on the 25th anniversary of the Matsushita Electric Corp. of America. That is the U. S. subsidiary of the mammoth Japanese concern that markets products under the Panasonic, Technics and Quasar brands. Its initial endowment of $10 million was intended originally to support Japanese studies and study of American-Japanese issues.

But Sophie Sa, foundation executive director and one of its two permanent employees, said the focus quickly moved toward broader kindergarten-through-12th-grade issues concerning educators nationwide.

“Better teaching, better learning, more community and parental involvement--all of those things we wanted to approach in a way to affect an entire system,” Sa said.

She gave as an example New York City, with several individual schools considered among the nation’s best but with an overall system considered among the nation’s worst.

“So we want our efforts to have an effect systemwide, and we want to be around long enough so that maybe projects will sustain themselves, which means five to 10 years rather than the three years or less under simply making a grant,” Sa said.

Matsushita’s involvement with San Diego began almost by accident, after school board Trustee Susan Davis heard one of the foundation’s consultants give a speech at a conference in Seattle on the potential for restructuring.

That led to a dinner between Payzant and Sa, and a visit to San Diego by Matsushita representatives in the fall of 1987.

“Clearly, San Diego was receptive to our way of thinking, especially in that all of the major groups--the superintendent, the board and the teachers union--seemed to be involved in thinking about new ways of doing things,” Sa said.

Added Michael Holzman, a Matsushita consultant, “It was impressive to see a district thinking out loud.”

For more than a year now, some two dozen consultants--mostly teachers and principals from exemplary schools across the United States--have been visiting San Diego on a regular basis to meet with teachers and principals at more than 30 city schools that have volunteered to look at changing their methods of making decisions and carrying out instruction.

Depending on the personality of school personnel, the consultants will suggest, cajole or sit back and take notes, and, in most cases, are available indefinitely for follow-up by phone or for additional in-person visits.

“We sort of hover,” Sa said. “We do give suggestions and ideas, but we are very aware that change has to occur from the bottom up, because we have observed teachers being left out of the reform movement.

“So what we do is help schools be better informed about research, about their own kids and about how to think more deeply about what they are doing, what they think they can do. Then we can bring in consultants who are teachers in other schools who have tried things that have made a difference.”

Matsushita also works with central office departments and middle-level managers to show how their roles can, and in some cases must, change under restructuring.

“In San Diego, we haven’t had to do as much as elsewhere in this area because we have found middle management responding positively to reform, in large part because the superintendent is committed,” Sa said.

More Return on Dollars

Matsushita is committing some $800,000 a year to the various districts nationwide, including so far about $150,000 in consulting services, conferences and travel for San Diego.

In addition, it has shown San Diego administrators how to use its own money--such as that spent for teacher training each year--on projects more relevant to reform, thereby getting more return on existing dollars.

“We do have a public commitment for between five to 10 years,” Sa said. “It’s like a marriage. If it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t matter what’s down on paper. If a new Board of Education isn’t interested in reform, then things would probably end.”

But Matsushita expects to alter its focus in the district as time passes.

“The district needs to tell us where things are going to move,” Sa said. “We would like district people to take on more of the advising role, the facilitating role, in individual schools that we have done in the past.

“But there is no precise method. We always say that a school or district is restructuring, not that it has restructured. And we have not yet figured out a formal way for assessment, although we do have hopes that all the schools involved will see teacher absenteeism go down, teacher turnover drop, suspensions become less and parental involvement increase.”