25 Twenty-five Years of Grantmaking THE SPENCER FOUNDATION 1996 ANNUAL REPORT The above quote was found in Lyle Spencer’s notes on the formation of the Foundation. The handwritten draft reads: “All the Spencer dough was earned, improb- ably, from education. It makes sense, therefore, that most of this money should be returned eventually to investigating ways in which education can be improved, around the world. Broadly conceived, wher- ever learning occurs.” The Spencer Foundation 25thAnniversary of Grantmaking TABLE OF CONTENTS iii Table of Contents v Directors, Advisors, & Staff 1 Introduction 2 Lyle M. Spencer I. THE FOUNDATION 1971-1995 6 Twenty-five Years of Grantmaking 14 Major Research Grants Program 20 Fellowship Programs 27 Small Research Grants Program 32 Current Foundation Initiatives 34 The Foundation and Chicago 36 Administrative and Financial History 40 Directors, 1971-1996 II. 1996 ANNUAL REPORT for year ended March 31, 1996 44 President’s Comments 46 Report of the Vice President 48 Application and Review Information The Foundation’s Programs: Research Programs: 52 Major Research Grants iii 53 Small Research Grants 56 The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation/ Spencer Foundation Professional Development Research Grants Fellowship Programs: 57 Spencer Dissertation Fellows 58 NAE/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellows 59 Spencer Fellows at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences 60 Spencer Senior Scholar Grants Experimental Research Training Grants Spencer Mentor Awards 61 AERA/Spencer Doctoral Research and Travel Fellows 62 Other Grants 63 Major Research Grants-in-Progress 67 Publications Received from Grantees 70 Report of the Treasurer 72 Financial Statements III. SPENCER GRANTEES, 1971-1995 79 Grant Listings Address The Spencer Foundation 900 North Michigan Avenue Suite 2800 Chicago, Illinois 60611-1542 312-337-7000 (telephone) 312-337-0282 (facsimile) 1996 ANNUAL REPORT DIRECTORS, ADVISORS, & STAFF BOARD OF DIRECTORS Cynthia M. Bentel PROGRAM ADVISORY COMMITTEE David S. Tatel Program Assistant Courtney Cazden Chair Elizabeth Carrick Vivian Gadsden William Julius Wilson Program Assistant to the Vice Pamela Grossman Vice-Chair President Patricia Gumport Frank L. Bixby Josephine Craven Stephen Raudenbush Patricia Albjerg Graham Systems Administrator/ Marcelo Suarez-Orozco Magdalene Lampert Office Activities Coordinator Robert A. LeVine Mary Patterson McPherson Doris E. Fischer DISSERTATION George A. Ranney, Jr. Administrative Assistant FELLOWSHIP SELECTION COMMITTEE John S. Reed Kathryn A. Gray Jennifer Hochschild Albert Shanker Program Assistant Lee S. Shulman Carol D. Lee Craig M. Joseph James Leloudis Research Associate/ Robert Margo STAFF Systems Planner Susan Florio-Ruane Geoffrey Saxe Patricia Albjerg Graham Judith Klippenstein Enrique Trueba President Administrative Assistant Angela Valenzuela John H. Barcroft to the President Vice President and Treasurer R. David Matthews Ines M. Milne Staff Assistant PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH Secretary and Controller Carrie A. McGill & DOCUMENTATION Program Assistant ADVISORY COMMITTEE Rebecca Barr v Sarah Gonzales Senior Program Officer Mary Jo Miller Paul Hill Program Assistant Catherine A. Lacey Jacqueline Jordan Irvine Senior Program Officer Mary Ellen Natonski Janice E. Jackson Peggy Mueller Assistant Secretary to the Susan Moore Johnson Director, Professional Foundation Harry Judge Susan Lytle Development Research Grants Martin A. Robinson Harold Richman Program Financial Assistant Tony Rotundo Lisa R. Lattuca Jennifer P. Savarirayan Associate Program Officer Program Assistant PRACTITIONER RESEARCH COMMUNICATION & Therese D. Pigott Patrick M. Sheahan MENTORING ADVISORY Associate Program Officer Research/Administrative COMMITTEE Mark E. Rigdon Associate Martha Rutherford, Chair Dixie Goswami Associate Program Officer Janet S. Szymanski Diane Waff Nidhi Mehrotra Program Assistant Assistant Program Officer Courtney Cazden Senior Advisor on Research on Practice * As of September, 1996 The Spencer Foundation TWENTY-FIVE25 YEARS OF GRANTMAKING Introduction very year since its formal this section to be the ensemble work grant-making began in 1971, of most of the current profession- Ethe Spencer Foundation has al staff, we celebrate and analyze published an Annual Report, our past with many different voic- describing grant programs, listing es. grants made, displaying the finan- Section II contains the cial condition of the Foundation, “Annual Report” on our twenty- providing information about appli- fifth year of operation, the year cation procedures, and noting any which ended March 31, 1996. significant events, activities, or pro- Section III contains a full list gram changes. This is the 26th of the grants made and fellowships such publication, and it serves a awarded by the Spencer Foundation, dual purpose. 1971 through 1995 (the 1996 list is As an annual report, it in Section II), on the principle that includes the information noted we should provide what an histo- 1 above for the fiscal year which rian might call the “primary ended March 31, 1996. However, sources” for our reflections and this is not only an annual report; interpretations of the Foundation’s it is also a twenty-five year report, grant-making. This list faithfully seeking to capture the experience reproduces, by year, the grants and of twenty-five years of support for fellowships published in each of research on education by the the Foundation’s Annual Reports Spencer Foundation. The volume beginning with the first such report is in three sections. in 1971. We believe that these annu- Section I contains essays by al reports were complete. However, current staff members of the we would be grateful to know of any Foundation, reflecting on twenty- omissions or inaccuracies. five years of work, mostly by our Patrick M. Sheahan predecessors, to whom we are Editor deeply indebted. Since we wished THE SPENCER FOUNDATION ganized as a commercial firm in 1939 and have been going up ever since.” In 1964 the firm was pur- chased by IBM, but Spencer con- tinued as chief executive and guid- ing spirit until his death in 1968. His colleagues at SRA and friends in higher education referred to him as a businessman who was always an educator, a man who was a researcher all his life. Charles Dollard, Spencer’s friend and an Lyle M. Spencer original director of the Spencer 2 Lyle M. Spencer was a twen- Foundation, noted, “Lyle had a ty-seven-year-old graduate student passionate belief in education as in sociology at the University of the modus vivendi of a democra- Chicago in 1938 when he founded tic society. He was particularly Science Research Associates (SRA), concerned both professionally and the educational publishing firm personally with the education of which provided the basis of his the young. He liked to say that it wealth and ultimately made pos- was quite as important where one sible the creation of the Spencer went to kindergarten as where one Foundation. Speaking to employ- went to college.” While leading his ees of the firm in 1961, Mr. Spencer business career, he served as a noted that SRA was initially a non- trustee of three universities, was profit organization and “we near- a director of what is now the ly went broke in the first year before United Negro College Fund, and we gave up that idea....We reor- was on the visiting committees 1996 ANNUAL REPORT 1911-1968Lyle M. Spencer for education at Harvard and the his notes on the role and pur- University of Chicago. pose of the Foundation have been Mr. Spencer spent much of preserved: his childhood in Appleton, Wisconsin, but went to college in “Improve learning process, includ- the Pacific Northwest. He received ing diffusion into developing his undergraduate and master’s countries. Maybe non-cognitive.” degrees in sociology from the University of Washington in “Prejudiced against bricks and Seattle, where his father was pres- mortar.” ident from 1927-1933, then he “All support periods finite.” continued his graduate work in sociology at the University of “Projects where other money not Chicago. readily available at this point.” 3 He established the Spencer Foundation in 1962. In the same “Tend to bet on people even more year, he presented testimony to than the project itself.” Congress, as President of SRA, in which he commented, “In my judgment, hard-minded, sensi- On August 21, 1968, Lyle ble investments in educational Spencer died of pancreatic cancer, research can provide the most and was buried in Appleton, effective single method of Wisconsin. Almost thirty years strengthening our schools.” later, the grants of the Spencer After the sale of his firm Foundation keep alive the intel- to IBM in 1964 it was clear that lectual vitality and the curiosity the Spencer Foundation might for knowledge and its uses which be of significant size. Some of characterized his life. The Foundation, 1971-1995 ince 1971 the Foundation has sup- Sported a wide range of research on educational topics — from how children learn to the culture of the classroom; from the effects of teacher interventions to the 4 economics of school finance; from the roles which ethnicity and gender play in edu- cation to the promise of new technologies. This section contains essays on the diverse ways in which the Foundation has sup- ported research aimed at understanding education and improving its practice. 5 THE SPENCER FOUNDATION TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF GRANTMAKING Patricia Albjerg Graham, President University, Lawrence University, and the University of Chicago. During the settle-