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Is Tech Billionaires' Educational Philanthropy a Bug Or a Feature?
Long-time reader theodp writes: Some education watchers have adopted a wait-and-see response to Jeff Bezos' two-pronged $2B pledge to aid the homeless and to establish preschools for low-income children (Mark Zuckerberg's The Primary School interestingly prefers 'em even younger, noting "we admit students at or before birth"). Not so Audrey Watters, who presents her misgivings in a blog post, titled, "It's Like Amazon, But for Preschool" (tl;dr: read her URL), wondering what a chain of preschools that "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon" might look like, considering Amazon's own labor practices. She asks, "Are private preschool chains really the path we want to pursue, particularly if we believe that access to excellent early childhood education is so incredibly crucial? Can the gig economy and the algorithm ever provide high quality preschool? For all the flaws in the public school system, it's important to remember: there is no accountability in billionaires' educational philanthropy." Sharing Watters' concerns is author Anand Giridharadas, who argues in his new book Winners Take All that the wealthy pursue social change without uprooting the systems that produce inequality. Bezos has a "a stark opportunity to be a traitor to his class, to actually think about giving in ways that transform the system atop which he stands," Giridharadas said. "It is great to be a winner who gives back. It is even better to be a winner who thinks about how winners can take less."
Here is the actual data about taxation and the 1%; what would you change, given they are taxed at a rate over twice that of their share of income (40% of income taxes, 20% of income) and at a rate well ahead of any other group?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
How did Jeff Bezos bilk "millions of normal folks for their hard earned $$'s"? I'm curious how he conned people into giving them his money via fraud.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Umm, no. Or yes, only if you define taxes narrowly. Social security takes a huge bite out of the poor, and the highest marginal rate is the poor schmuck who cannot earn another dollar without losing his medicaid benefits.
Then, maybe we could fund our civic institutions without having to resort to "charity" from billionaires, and in a way which is held accountable. Even more effective, however, would probably be to root out tax evasion and offshore banking.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
Education by itself in its own little bottle does little to improve human kind. Those are the mythical academics who sit posh furnished college offices and debate the abstract idea of the day. No matter how smart you are if you are not contributing to the rest of the world you are useless.
Education for the longest time had a factor of one degree or an other to prepare people to be useful to the outside world.
Before Public Education, the masses just learned how to do what their parents did. Farming mostly. Then with the move from aquaculture to industrial the general population needed still that was one reserved for the few and rich, Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. So Public Schools were put in to insure we have a workforce able to handle the new jobs. K-8 Education was good enough to get you a job worthy middle class. High school education would get you an office job, or at least a Foreman/Supervisor role. College well that is upper management material.
Now that we are moving from an industrial economy to a technical/service economy. K-8 is worthless, High school will get you some low end job, College Degree you may get Middle Class.
The issue is the fact that these new jobs require less general education and more focused education. In many ways it is unfair to have kids make life decisions at an early age on what direction they should go, however if the Education System was altered to allow for more focused learning with majors before college and even high school. I expect we can get the skills needed a little easier.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I am not disagreeing that their are problems with today's unions. But the real issue is all the political pressure put on teachers.
They have to walk tight ropes around History and the roll of religion, racism, the times we have done bad things and good things, then Science coverage of Evolution, Geology, and now if the earth is even round! They are politicians elected into office and the school board, who have no idea about education and push sweeping changes, trying to cut the budget. There are parents who think they are Mr(s) bigwig and try to fire the Teachers just because their kid isn't as special as they thought, or the kid needed to be punished for their actions.
Unfortunately without the union taking a lot of the political heat for the teachers, we would just see massive turnaround in teachers, just because it would be a matter of time until anyone did something to piss someone off politically or personally.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It is vital to produce better workers, yes, but it's also vital to improving life expectancy (polyglots are resistant to dementia, for example), improving democracy and preventing blind subservience promotions.
An educated person can walk through the woods and know what is safe to eat. Yes, bushcraft is education. Those who think otherwise restrict education in order to create a category they can hate. I say can, because education isn't restrictive. Education is anything that shines a light on the ignorance and turns it to understanding.
An educated person has the skills to learn any new skill they so choose, for their own use or any other.
Education can never be achieved through for-profit schools. Their focus is on maximizing income, not learning.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)