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Zuckerberg's $100 Million Education Gift Solved Little
An anonymous reader writes "In 2010 the state of public education in Newark, New Jersey was dire. The city's school system was a disaster, replete with violence, run-down buildings, and a high-school graduation rate of only 54%. Newark's mayor at the time, Cory Booker, teamed up with governor Chris Christie to turn the schools around. At the same time, Mark Zuckerberg was looking to get his feet wet in big-time philanthropy. The three hatched a plan, and Zuckerberg committed $100 million to reforming the schools. Four years later, most of the money is gone, and Newark's children are still struggling. Tens of millions were spent on consulting groups, and yet more went to union negotiations. Plans to change how teacher seniority affected staffing decisions — in order to reward results rather than persistence — were dashed by political maneuvering. The New Yorker provides a detailed account in a lengthy piece of investigative journalism, and MSN provides a summary."
Throwing money at every problem doesn't make it go away. Who woulda thunk it?
While I appreciate the research potential of this experiment I just don't think people are looking at the human element when it comes to social problems like education and welfare. Our politicians don't seek a better answer because they don't care that people are wasting their lives on reality TV and booze as long as they get their pockets lined from it.
there was a time when they paid more taxes, and they were still rich (and also employed many others in this same country).
mfwright@batnet.com
If the money was wasted by upper management, then that should be a big red flag that the problem is most likely with upper management.
I don't, no. Compared to other large-scale human endeavors decently funded universal public school districts receiving strong societal support are among the most efficient institutions known to man.
But compared to for-profit charter "schools"? Public schools - even the really bad ones - are havens of efficiency and good results.
sPh
Anyone who is a parent with a kid in public education can see that there are flaws. The whole system is setup to reward CYA behavior. Don't get me wrong, the vast majority of educators are well meaning and pretty hard-working. But the system itself thwarts them. There is no reward for going above and beyond. There is no reward for reaching out to parents - quite the opposite, since this will make more work for you and increase your risks with absolutely no benefit to your own situation. Problem kids are kept in the system. The system is set up to assume that budgets will always increase - even a mild decrease results in mass hysteria. Construction is shoddy government lowest bidder crap, and maintenance is nonexistent.
I have my kids in public school to expose them to a diversity of classes and cultures... I feel that being able to relate to people not entirely like oneself is an important life skill. But there is definitely an allure to private schools, where the vast majority of the students are there to learn, most of the parents care enough to spend inordinate amounts of money on education, and the entire system is geared towards keeping your business and keeping those Ivy League acceptance rates up instead of ass-covering.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Technically, some states do give charter funds directly to what were historically considered private schools. Although see Louisiana for why the charter crowd turned out not to be so happy with the consequences of that one.
But that's not my point. I didn't say that "charter schools" were private. Some are, most aren't. But "charter schools" are not part of a universal free (and equal) public school system, and are in fact specifically designed to destroy free universal equal schooling. So charters are in no way shape or form public schools. You might want to check back with your private school logic teacher for a bit of a tune up.
sPh
This can be confirmed by what happens when charter schools fail: their students are sent back to "the public schools" - namely the local universal public school district.
Not that it's surprising. It's about the most American concept in existence: ignore a problem chronically until ignoring it further would cause chaos... then smother it with money and hope it goes away.
The education system
The financial crisis
The war on drugs
The war on terrorism
(goddamn, America loves its wars)
No real plan, no forethought, just vulturous agencies and contractors circling the poor starving bastard, waiting to feast on that juicy pile of cash that they know will come soon enough.
Show me a national problem where this response isn't the default.
The problem is that even *decadently* funded universal government schools that don't have the ability to discipline or expel problem behavior students suffer from the tragedy of the commons in the worst way - a small set of bad apples ruins the whole damn bunch.
When children succeed in schools, it has much less to do with the school than with the child's family and it's attitude towards education. Asserting that success stories are due to money, and failures are due to the lack of money, is to ignore the first order terms in the equation.
How on earth do you spend tens of millions on consulting groups? Let's say its 20 million, in 4 years, that's 5 million per year or 416 thousand per month. You can pay a hundred people 4000 dollars a month to work full time (!) for 4 years and still have money left over. It boggles the mind...
And union negotiations? How much money does it cost to have a meeting with the unions? Do the unions actually charge money for this?
Unbelievable.
How about just talking to the school directors, asking them what they need most, and then giving it to them? You could repair a lot of run down buildings with 100 million.
Consulting groups are for governments looking for ways to waste money. If you're doing philantropy, it's your own money so you just go out there and decide "this is what I'm going to do with MY money to help these people". Screw the consulting groups.
not to mention, charters have a NUMBER 'unfair' advantages that public schools don't:
1. by hook and by crook, they reject low-performers... (guess where they end up ?)
2. (in florida) their teachers DO NOT have to be certified...
3. they are NOT having to comport to an INSANE testing regimen which FORESTALLS actual teaching...
4. they do NOT have to accommodate 'special needs' children... (guess where they end up ?)
5. the kicker: virtually ALL articles/studies on the subject find that -in general- with ALL THEIR HUGE ADVANTAGES, they STILL do not perform significantly better than public schools on the all-fucking-mighty tests... (oh, and they CHEAT on the tests, too...)
note, NOT that there are NOT good charter schools with good practices which make for a better learning environment; but MOSTLY it is a SCAM: rich pukes are 'investing' in these because they get all kinds of tax breaks to fund NEW SCHOOLS, but not a fucking penny to upgrade existing ones... it is a money-making proposition, has NOTHING to do with actually educating the rugrats...
'the problem' with public education, is NOT public education (or unionized teachers, you fucking conservatard dingleberries), it is the socio-economic disparity: education/learning tracks EXACTLY with socio-economic status: you come from a middle-class or above family that has books and some discretionary income to go to museums, etc; you do okay in school... you come from a poor family that doesn't have one book in the house, you generally don't do well in school.. gosh, who would have thought that ? well, EVERYONE *EXCEPT* the education scammers who are making money from bad-mouthing public education...