7 ms·

>The proper way to improve education in a community is to get involved with the existing school systems That didn't work out too well when Zuckerberg tried it:

>The proper way to improve education in a community is to get involved with the existing school systems That didn't work out too well when Zuckerberg tried it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-newark-schools-partially-squandered-a-great-prize/2015/10/20/ffff660c-7743-11e5-a958-d889faf561dc_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-newark-schools-p...

seasonalgrit 9y ago
Thank you for sharing that link. I am not familiar with Russakoff's work and it looks very thought-provoking.
jacobolus 9y ago
Having unaccountable billionaires with no knowledge of the field dump piles of money down (along with dictating how it should be spent) in a splashy PR stunt is a horrible way to improve public institutions. Instead we should properly tax the billionaires, and then elect public officials who value public education, so they can figure out how to improve schools with the advice and help of all of the local stakeholders. But a lot of the rich folks’ education initiatives (including Zuckerberg’s, probably) turn out to be more about gaming the tax code and sometimes immigration laws (with a bonus of good PR) than really helping the schools out. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/04/why-hedge-funds-love-charter-schools/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/... As an added bonus (more relevant to the Koch brothers than Zuckerberg perhaps), charter schools help break teachers’ unions and destroy the public education system, which has a big knock-on political benefit for Republicans who want to undercut a major base of Democratic party support.
- Decade 9y ago
  It would be nice if the public officials actually cared about education, and weren’t using the position as a sinecure until a position with real power opens up. https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/who-are-all-these-candidates/article_98246948-a319-11e7-a03f-772054b65534.html https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/who-are-all-these-... I do not blame people who care wanting to work around this system.
  - jopsen 9y ago
    > I do not blame people who care wanting to work around this system. Agree.... But workarounds won't scale.
    - tea-flow 9y ago
      Why not?
- nemothekid 9y ago
  >Instead we should properly tax the billionaires, and then elect public officials who value public education, so they can figure out how to improve schools with the advice and help of all of the local stakeholders. So you're saying that Zuckerberg should run for president? I understand that what you are suggesting will be effective, I just don't see how that translates into something that Zuckerburg should do. Assuming Zuckerberg is honest in his intention on his education initiatives, Fixing the tax code would be noble for someone like him, but would pit him against other billionaires and would likely be a decades long detour on his immediate goal. Secondly, I don't see how he could suddenly influence general voting populace to suddenly care about education (save for propaganda delivered via facebook (maybe unethical), or going into politics (who wants Zuck to be POTUS))? As I understand it, you seem to be arguing that the problems are not Zuck's to solve, and therefore he shouldn't try (or his piles of money will cause more harm than good).
  - jacobolus 9y ago
    Good god no. Zuckerberg would be a terrible president (less narcissistic and less stupid than the current one, but perhaps just as dangerous), without the appropriate qualifications, experience, vision, talent, or track record (other than a boatload of money, which I guess in this post-Citizens-United world can substitute for anything else). The concept of having a cabal of CEO billionaires with no political or policymaking experience explicitly in charge of the US government not only leads to terrible outcomes in practice, but is un-American in principle. Zuckerberg should focus his attention on running his business in an ethical and civically minded way (a lot of low hanging fruit here if he wants to critically examine and do something about Facebook’s sometimes negative effects on people’s lives, news media, and on civic institutions in general), and should not try to single-handedly decide the future form of public institutions. If Zuckerberg wants to put his money to good use as a private citizen, he should donate it to a charity with a successful track record and expert leadership instead of trying to exert personal control in a field he knows nothing about or turn everything into a personal PR stunt, or he should spend his effort on lobbying against unlimited anonymous spending in political campaigns, probably the most civically corrosive recent trend in American politics.
- valuearb 9y ago
  Valuing "public education" means you don't value education per se, but you value the part that maintains your party a voting base of education unions and bureaucrats. Moving my kids from public school to a charter was the second best thing we ever did for them. The difference in the quality of their education was immense. Breaking public school unions would be the best thing we could do for public schools. There is ZERO justification for tenure at the school teacher level.
  - jacobolus 9y ago
    You can already see the results in several states. It’s pretty ugly so far, and likely to only get worse. Teachers are trending less qualified and less experienced, move from district to district more, turnover is higher, everyone is more stressed out, parents and students are less satisfied and less successful, schools are still poorly maintained and supplied, more money than ever gets siphoned off by business consulting firms etc. The super-wealthy in those states get a bit of a tax cut, but nobody else really sees any advantage. The primary way that charter schools juke their stats (to the extent they are able – often their outcomes are just objectively mediocre) is by selecting out a collection of students likely to be successful and kicking out the rest. Of course, there is a spectrum, and some charter schools (just like some regular public schools) are quite successful. Valuing “public education” means that you value education of the broad citizenry, instead of only valuing education for your own kids and screw everyone else.
laughinghan 9y ago
Note that this is an Op-Ed, not a news article. The claim that the problem with that effort was bureaucratic waste that was no fault of Zuckerberg is some heavy editorializing. Such a claim would indeed support Zuck starting his own school where he has even more control. Other reporting tells a different story: while rising-star politicians loved seeing their names in headlines next to big numbers, the effort was catastrophically disconnected from the local community. Unlike public money, private money needed no public review, so the effort was launched like a surprise attack on the local teacher's union; the million-dollar community-engagement campaign's centerpiece public forums drew hundreds of residents who volunteered to help their local schools, who never heard back; the superintendent appointed to carry out the effort was an outsider from California who at one point got a unanimous vote of no confidence by the school advisory board (with no effect because "advisory"); that superintendent spent $3 million on an international consulting firm to develop a plan to redistribute students in the school system so that the neediest students don't end up in the worst schools like they usually do, but then couldn't answer basic questions from parents when the plan was finally revealed. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/19/schooled https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/19/schooled Such a narrative would instead suggest that Zuckerberg should focus on more community engagement, rather than on consolidating more control over schools he wants to be better.

seasonalgrit 9y ago

Thank you for sharing that link. I am not familiar with Russakoff's work and it looks very thought-provoking.

jacobolus 9y ago

Having unaccountable billionaires with no knowledge of the field dump piles of money down (along with dictating how it should be spent) in a splashy PR stunt is a horrible way to improve public institutions. Instead we should properly tax the billionaires, and then elect public officials who value public education, so they can figure out how to improve schools with the advice and help of all of the local stakeholders. But a lot of the rich folks’ education initiatives (including Zuckerberg’s, probably) turn out to be more about gaming the tax code and sometimes immigration laws (with a bonus of good PR) than really helping the schools out. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/04/why-hedge-funds-love-charter-schools/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/06/... As an added bonus (more relevant to the Koch brothers than Zuckerberg perhaps), charter schools help break teachers’ unions and destroy the public education system, which has a big knock-on political benefit for Republicans who want to undercut a major base of Democratic party support.

Decade 9y ago
It would be nice if the public officials actually cared about education, and weren’t using the position as a sinecure until a position with real power opens up. https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/who-are-all-these-candidates/article_98246948-a319-11e7-a03f-772054b65534.html https://www.thebaycitybeacon.com/politics/who-are-all-these-... I do not blame people who care wanting to work around this system.
- jopsen 9y ago
  > I do not blame people who care wanting to work around this system. Agree.... But workarounds won't scale.
  - tea-flow 9y ago
    Why not?
nemothekid 9y ago
>Instead we should properly tax the billionaires, and then elect public officials who value public education, so they can figure out how to improve schools with the advice and help of all of the local stakeholders. So you're saying that Zuckerberg should run for president? I understand that what you are suggesting will be effective, I just don't see how that translates into something that Zuckerburg should do. Assuming Zuckerberg is honest in his intention on his education initiatives, Fixing the tax code would be noble for someone like him, but would pit him against other billionaires and would likely be a decades long detour on his immediate goal. Secondly, I don't see how he could suddenly influence general voting populace to suddenly care about education (save for propaganda delivered via facebook (maybe unethical), or going into politics (who wants Zuck to be POTUS))? As I understand it, you seem to be arguing that the problems are not Zuck's to solve, and therefore he shouldn't try (or his piles of money will cause more harm than good).
- jacobolus 9y ago
  Good god no. Zuckerberg would be a terrible president (less narcissistic and less stupid than the current one, but perhaps just as dangerous), without the appropriate qualifications, experience, vision, talent, or track record (other than a boatload of money, which I guess in this post-Citizens-United world can substitute for anything else). The concept of having a cabal of CEO billionaires with no political or policymaking experience explicitly in charge of the US government not only leads to terrible outcomes in practice, but is un-American in principle. Zuckerberg should focus his attention on running his business in an ethical and civically minded way (a lot of low hanging fruit here if he wants to critically examine and do something about Facebook’s sometimes negative effects on people’s lives, news media, and on civic institutions in general), and should not try to single-handedly decide the future form of public institutions. If Zuckerberg wants to put his money to good use as a private citizen, he should donate it to a charity with a successful track record and expert leadership instead of trying to exert personal control in a field he knows nothing about or turn everything into a personal PR stunt, or he should spend his effort on lobbying against unlimited anonymous spending in political campaigns, probably the most civically corrosive recent trend in American politics.
valuearb 9y ago
Valuing "public education" means you don't value education per se, but you value the part that maintains your party a voting base of education unions and bureaucrats. Moving my kids from public school to a charter was the second best thing we ever did for them. The difference in the quality of their education was immense. Breaking public school unions would be the best thing we could do for public schools. There is ZERO justification for tenure at the school teacher level.
- jacobolus 9y ago
  You can already see the results in several states. It’s pretty ugly so far, and likely to only get worse. Teachers are trending less qualified and less experienced, move from district to district more, turnover is higher, everyone is more stressed out, parents and students are less satisfied and less successful, schools are still poorly maintained and supplied, more money than ever gets siphoned off by business consulting firms etc. The super-wealthy in those states get a bit of a tax cut, but nobody else really sees any advantage. The primary way that charter schools juke their stats (to the extent they are able – often their outcomes are just objectively mediocre) is by selecting out a collection of students likely to be successful and kicking out the rest. Of course, there is a spectrum, and some charter schools (just like some regular public schools) are quite successful. Valuing “public education” means that you value education of the broad citizenry, instead of only valuing education for your own kids and screw everyone else.

laughinghan 9y ago

Note that this is an Op-Ed, not a news article. The claim that the problem with that effort was bureaucratic waste that was no fault of Zuckerberg is some heavy editorializing. Such a claim would indeed support Zuck starting his own school where he has even more control. Other reporting tells a different story: while rising-star politicians loved seeing their names in headlines next to big numbers, the effort was catastrophically disconnected from the local community. Unlike public money, private money needed no public review, so the effort was launched like a surprise attack on the local teacher's union; the million-dollar community-engagement campaign's centerpiece public forums drew hundreds of residents who volunteered to help their local schools, who never heard back; the superintendent appointed to carry out the effort was an outsider from California who at one point got a unanimous vote of no confidence by the school advisory board (with no effect because "advisory"); that superintendent spent $3 million on an international consulting firm to develop a plan to redistribute students in the school system so that the neediest students don't end up in the worst schools like they usually do, but then couldn't answer basic questions from parents when the plan was finally revealed. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/19/schooled https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/19/schooled Such a narrative would instead suggest that Zuckerberg should focus on more community engagement, rather than on consolidating more control over schools he wants to be better.