Newsom was endorsed by the California Teachers Association, and the CCSA had organized a group of donors to spend $23 million supporting the campaign of the more pro-charter candidate: former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa . In 2019, Newsom signed a bill that enhances the authority of local school boards to reject new charter schools, with other restrictive charter bills in the pipeline . Charter advocates are now uncertain about the future of charter schools in California, with some predicting a turn back to vouchers in the education reform community. Massachusetts was also an early charter adopter, passing its initial charter law in 1993 as part of a “grand bargain” on education that offered greater funding to high-poverty districts in exchange for competition and accountability. Massachusetts was highly selective about authorizing charter schools and maintained stringent caps limiting the sector from growing quickly. The result has been slow charter growth. But the schools that have emerged are some of the best-performing charters in the country . The success of this formula generated a bipartisan consensus supporting limited charter school growth combined with strict caps and authorization procedures that persisted through the 90’s and early 2000’s. This began to change with the election of Deval Patrick as governor in 2006, who took the reins from pro-charter Mitt Romney. The Massachusetts state legislature was also growing more anti-charter with the departure of key figures who had driven forward the landmark 1993 education bill. Advocates were able to raise charter caps in 2010, but with help from the federal RTTT, and also with major strings attached. In particular, new charter school spots would only be available to charter networks already operating in the state. Even with pro-charter Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican, elected in 2014,rolling greenhouse tables lack of support in the State Senate limited prospects to raise caps again and open new schools. Some charter advocates determined that their best shot at raising caps was a ballot initiative.
They were able to marshal a huge amount of financial support for “Yes on 2”, particularly from Michael Bloomberg and the Walton family. But the teachers unions, who drove the campaign against the initiative, were also able to raise a huge pot of money. Ultimately, the initiative lost badly, and was widely seen as a disaster for the charter movement in Massachusetts. Since then, there has been little support for new efforts to raise caps and open new charter schools. Both the California and Massachusetts cases highlight the role of major philanthropists in funding pro-charter political advocacy in states with developed charter sectors. In California, philanthropists provided critical support for the powerful CCSA, and in Massachusetts, philanthropists funded the campaign to raise charter caps in 2016. Yet, these cases also highlight how, as the charter sector has grown, the politics has become more fraught in liberal-leaning states. With charter schools posing a greater threat, teachers unions have used their political sway in these states to make it more difficult for growth to continue. Changing public policy is much more difficult than preserving the status quo, and enacting reforms that challenge vested economic interests is particularly difficult . In these cases, even when new policy is made, changes are susceptible to erosion and rollback. New policies’ susceptibility to rollback depends to a great degree on whether they dislodge the political power of incumbent interests, and also whether they contribute to the growth of proreform interest group coalitions . Charter school policy represents a case in which some reforms challenging incumbent education interests have been achieved and sustained, even though the incumbents have for the most part held onto their political power.
What is more, this has occurred even as charter schools themselves—the organized interests most vested in the preservation and expansion of pro-charter policies—remain politically weak relative to their opponents. This paper argues that a critical factor in the successes the charter movement has seen was the emergence of a foundation-funded pro-charter advocacy network. The emergence of this network depended on the ability of policy entrepreneurs to enact charter laws during a favorable “window of opportunity.” These laws allowed charters to form, which provided a proof-of concept and demand for resources that drew attention and prioritization from certain foundations. Foundations, in turn, followed up their investments in seeding new charter schools with investments in political capacity to defend and expand pro-charter laws. This case helps inform our understanding of the role of philanthropists in driving policy reform in the American political economy. Whereas historically philanthropists were seen in the political science literature primarily as patrons to civil society organizations , philanthropists increasingly directly engage in politics —particularly when it comes to education policy. Newer foundations with living donors have been more likely to promote reforms and fund jurisdictional challengers like charter schools . Foundations, I show, provided the pro-charter advocacy coalition with critical resources to build political strength before charter schools had the resources to support themselves politically. Thus, the pro-charter coalition was able to compete with powerful incumbent interests even before the challenger pro-charter industry had developed. Yet, this case also highlights the dangers of relying on philanthropic foundations to build political strength. The political winds have shifted on charter schools. While core elements of the Democratic party were strong supporters in the past, the party has increasingly aligned more closely with teachers unions against chartering. Support from Republicans remains lukewarm, with many focusing to a greater extent on promoting school voucher programs.
With political support eroding, some foundations have distanced themselves from the charter school issue. They are able to do so, in part, because they have less at stake in the politics than charter schools and advocates themselves—not to mention teachers unions and others in the anti-charter camp. The foundations are not really vested interests. Unlike these other groups, foundations’ organizational maintenance, at the end of the day, does not depend on the trajectory of charter policies. The very feature that makes them powerful—their resources, and the fact that their resources do not necessarily depend on winning political victories—also makes them unreliable coalition-members. Due to the success of antiretroviral therapy and an increase in the incidence of HIV infection among older adults, the proportion of older persons living with HIV in the United States is rapidly growing . Therefore, it is important to evaluate physical and emotional health among the changing demographics of PLWH. One of the most prevalent psychiatric conditions among PLWH is major depressive disorder ,ebb and flow rolling benches with PLWH at a two- to seven-fold greater risk for depressive disorders compared to the general population . PLWH have a higher prevalence of both MDD and subsyndromal depression symptomatology than HIV- individuals of the same age or the general population . A multi-site cohort study of over 1500 PLWH found lifetime depressive symptom rates of 63% and across multiple studies diagnosis of lifetime MDD ranges from 22–54% in PLWH, compared to 4.9–17.1% lifetime MDD diagnosis in the general U.S. population . These high rates of depression among PLWH represent a major public health concern, as depression has been linked to worse psychological and medical outcomes in PLWH, including lower reported quality of life, increased viral load, and a higher likelihood of mortality . Untreated depression in PLWH has also been related to increased cognitive complaints and worse reported daily functioning compared to PLWH without depression . These medical and psychological factors may be exacerbated in older PLWH who are often burdened to a higher degree with HIV-related medical and psychological factors, in conjunction with aging related problems . Despite the high prevalence rates of depressive disorders among PLWH, depression is often under diagnosed and inadequately treated within this population, though . Given the prevalence of depression among PLWH, it is vital to evaluate other co-occurring factors that may be associated with elevated depressive symptoms. Multiple studies have found an association between higher depressive symptoms and worse quality of life , even after controlling for demographic factors . PLWH with elevated depressive symptoms report lower mental and physical health-related quality of life , supporting the idea that depression affects multiple aspects of quality of life . However, there is a dearth of research regarding the association between depression and positive psychological factors, e.g. resilience, grit, and self-rated successful aging among PLWH. Two studies have found an association between higher resilience and lower depressive symptoms among PLWH . Similarly, in PLWH greater grit has been negatively associated with major depression .
In older adult persons without HIV, lower levels of depressive symptoms have been associated with increased self-rated successful aging ; however, few studies have been conducted to evaluate positive psychological factors and quality of life in relation to depressive symptomatology in PLWH compared to control participants. Given there is an increase in the population of older PLWH and that depression is a highly comorbid condition among PLWH, assessing the relationship between depressive symptoms and other psychological factors across different age decades may provide insights for clinical interventions. Therefore, we hypothesized that: 1) PLWH aged 56–65 would have the highest proportion of elevated depressive symptoms compared to HIV- participants; and 2) elevated depressive symptoms would be associated with lower ratings of HRQoL and positive psychological factors across groups, with strongest associations in the oldest PLWH.One hundred twenty-two PLWH and 94 HIV- individuals from the Multi-Dimensional Successful Aging Among HIV-Infected Adults study conducted at the University of California, San Diego HIV Neurobehavioral Research Program and the UCSD Stein Institute for Research on Aging participated in this study . The study was approved by the UCSD Institutional Review Board, and all participants provided written informed consent after the study was explained to them by a trained staff member. In order to enroll a representative cohort of participants, minimal exclusion criteria were applied and included: 1) neurologic condition other than HIV known to impact cognitive functioning , 2) psychotic disorders , and 3) positive urine toxicology on the day of testing for illicit substances other than cannabis. Inclusion criteria were: 1) aged 36–65 years, 2) fluent in English, and 3) ability to provide informed consent.The present study provides unique findings on the interplay of depression, HRQoL, and positive psychological factors among middle aged and older PLWH and HIV− individuals in a multi-cohort design structure. In our sample, PLWH were significantly more likely to report elevated depressive scores compared to HIV− individuals. This finding supports prior studies that have found PLWH endorse more depressive symptoms than HIV− individuals . Contrary to our hypothesis, the youngest cohort seemed to drive this finding, with a significantly larger proportion of PLWH reporting elevated depressive symptoms compared to HIV-individuals within this age group. That is, the proportion of elevated depressive symptoms did not differ by HIV status among the middle aged and older age cohorts. This difference highlights the importance of age in relation to depressive symptoms. For example, rates of elevated depression among PLWH were similarly high in all age groups. In contrast, only the youngest HIV− group had relatively low rates of elevated depressive symptomology, with higher rates in older cohorts. This is consistent with research estimating high prevalence of sub-syndromal depression among middle-aged to older adults, especially those with greater medical burden, disability, and lower social support . Overall the H+/D+ group reported the lowest physical and mental HRQoL; however, the relationships between the four groups differed depending on age cohort. While depressive symptoms in PLWH consistently related to lower mental HRQoL across ages, elevated depressive symptoms most prominently impacted physical HRQoL in the oldest H+/D+ group. These findings are consistent with prior studies that have reported a correlation between worse HRQoL and depression among PLWH . However, our novel findings highlight that the relationship between depression, age and HRQoL differs for mental components compared to physical components. Importantly, there were no differences on HRQoL or positive psychological factors between the two non-elevated depressive symptom groups . Similar to prior research, the H+/D− group reported comparable grittiness, resilience, and successful aging to the H−/D− group, which indicates that in the absence of elevated depressive symptoms PLWH rate themselves as having favorable positive psychological factors .