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."

Comments

Add more income brackets

[Atmchicago]

Here are the tax brackets in the US. Why stop at 37% for income greater than $500,000? We could several more brackets, for example:

1. 45% for income greater than $1 million
2. 65% for income greater than $10 million
3. 85% for income greater than $100 million.

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.

Re:Relative to what?

[jellomizer]

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.