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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."
Educational philanthropy has nothing to do with philanthropy. The theory of public education has only one blunt response to "why do we teach people how to read?": because they make better factory workers. So now the tech sector is attempting to shift the economy away from making stuff, and to do that they have to buy out all the schools that take kids and turn out factory workers, and replace them with code academies, GM-style.
None of this, not a single iota of it, is actually in any way intended to help mankind.
to soothe the guilt one feels when looking at the facts of bilking millions of normal folks for their hard earned $$'s...
If you'd vote people to congress who'd be willing to actually tax the 1%, they wouldn't need to do this.
Is it being done purely to provide educational opportunities for whatever direction in life the student is interested in, or is it only to make good little workers for whoever (Bezos, in this case) is footing the bill? Beware the Privatization of Education, lest we end up with a generation that's trained like slaves would be trained, to do specific jobs not of their choosing, and to hell with whatever the students are interested in.
The bug is not how billionaires waste their money. At least someone else gets a slice of the pie. The bug is the media's excessive coverage of celebrities, including billionaires. The assumption that celebrities know more than your average expert in a field that the celebrity is not in, is pervasive and pernicious in idiot-centered celebrity culture.
When I saw the headline 'Jeff Bezos starts $2B fund for the homeless' I assumed he was going to feed and shelter them. Why would he be allowed to have his own preschool curriculum when this is already laid out by people who know much much more about childhood education? If he wants to open preschools, that's great, but stick to the current curriculum. Anything else is just scary.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
The answer is yes.
The bug is that you have an education where help is needed from outside.
The feature is that programs like these can be used as a tax deduction and/or a way to influence.
Having companies have influence in schools is something that is bad, as far as I can see it. When I was young, representatives of TetraPack came to the schools to explain to the kids how their package was better than bottles. Yep, throweing was away better than keeping it.
I was too young to doubt adults, so I believed them. No doubt that many other kids did the same. The goal was that the kids would talk at home how they learned about this great new way of throwing away things was better than old fashioned glass. (Better for the enviroment as well, somehow)
So kids where used directly to influence.
I do not trust companies about the information they give me as an adult. They have been lyinh and cheating enough for me not to trust them. So I certainly not trust them in educating these small humans.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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.
When I firstly saw this, I thought that it was just the typical billionaire's charitable action for the usual reasons (see some of the previous posts to get ideas). After reading "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", I have changed my mind and started building a big Bezos statute in my own living room. LOL.
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
1: Steal money off people by getting them to pay your share of the tax bill
2: Give some of that money back as a "gift" with your name in big lights.
3: Go back to blackmailing states to not implement minimum wage laws.
4: Count the money!
It's an ancient scam.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
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)
If he did he wouldn't have opposed Seattle's small tax to help the homeless. https://www.vanityfair.com/new...