3/11/08
Anyone Know a Billionaire?
Interesting article in the NY Times education page from March 9th. It is a conversation between five educators about strategic and fruitful philanthropy to education. Lots of interesting ideas in there. I don't know, sometimes it seems like education is a broken down, unfixable machine. Here's some folks with some big ideas to change that around.
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7 comments:
When reading "Anyone Know a Billionaire" I was pleased to hear that, according to the Foundations Center, a quarter of all foundation donations goes to education and education programs.
HME
It seems like a daunting task to divide up a large monetary donation. I never realized that so much thought is put into dividing it up in the right way. I always thought that you just gave a lump sum and that was it. I realize now that it is a really selective process that involves a lot of hard work and cooperating parties.
Evan
This article brings up the interesting question of how money should be used to improve a troubled school or school district. There is a charter school in New York City that will be paying teachers $125,000 annual salary starting in the fall 2009, in an attempt to recruit the best teachers. The philosophy of this "educational experiment" is that increasing the pay of teachers will increase the quality of applicants, and thus improve teacher quality at the school. The charter school leaders believe that increasing teacher quality is "the most important factor in achieving educational equity for low income students." In this example, the majority of funds are being allocated to teacher salaries, over things such as elective classes and extra-curriculars.
What is the best way to improve troubled schools? Is it to allocate funds through a charter school or through a general school district? Should money (donated or state funds) be directed in one main direction, such as towards teacher salary/quality, or should it be directed in several directions to try to improve many aspects of school life? Many of these questions have no clear answer, and it will be interesting to see if the overall education for the students in this charter school is improved, as a result of the emphasis on using increasing funds to improve teacher quality.
-CM
The link for the Times article about the school:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/07/nyregion/07charter.html?pagewanted=2
The link for the TEP charter school:
http://www.tepcharter.org/
It is definitely good that the money is being donated to education, but why is more of it going to religious schools rather than public schools. Since many religious schools receive money from their students families in order for them to go there, they are already receiving money unlike the public schools. Yes the public schools do receive money from the government for their students but the government only has so much money to spread throughout the many public schools. Therefore the need for donations is needed in the public school systems. Therefore i believe that more of the donations need to be put where the majority of the students attend. Just my thoughts based on the article, there could be much money given to public schools that isn't discussed in the article, which is great. ~JT
Actually, the rate of tuition at many religiously based schools is usually less than half of the cost to educate a student there. The rest of the money comes from donations from alumni, the community, and fundraisers. Students who have graduated from a religiously based school are aware of this fact, and combined with a great sense of attachment they feel to their school, decide to donate money (often in large amounts if they can) to their old school so other students can have the same opportunities that they had.
It is good to know that money is coming in from other sources than just parents or students that attend there. I think the donations could be very beneficial, especially for the extracurriculars like music and sports. I also think some of this money should go to the teachers because they work very hard and I think a lot of the time are unappreciated for all that they do.
AV
After reading the article, "Anyone Know A Billionaire" I was surprised that a quarter of all foundation donations go to educational programs. I did not think that that much money was being distributed, thank you Bill Gates. I like to hear that it is not just paretns and taxes that create all the money, but that people actually want to aid the education system. There is a lot to do is helping, however, I believe that we are on track. The process is raelly intense and has steps to consider- it is not just throwing money at schools and expecting them to better a community. Teachers, principals, supervisors etc. put so much time and energy into each school I believe that we should give back and keep up the good work.
JMB
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