Almost four years ago we started supporting efforts to improve district schools and expand charter schools in Newark, New Jersey...To see what happened in Newark, read "Schooled: Cory Booker, Chris Christie, and Mark Zuckerberg had a plan to reform Newark’s schools. They got an education."
They got an education... and presumably they learned something. The local people might not appreciate the imaginative, dreaming experiment performed on their children. There seems to be a subtext that the subjects of the experiment have such bad prospects that it's hard to put them in a worse position.
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"Democracy" has been dead in this country for quite some time, not trumped, but killed by big money.
As a Princeton University study recently found, we live in an oligarchy.
The Bay, or at least SF, has turned hard against wealthy tech people. It's the clash of entitled douche mentalities, and it's fascinating to observe. Trustafarians who work in coffee shops are resentful that their costly, almost-out-of-reach lifestyle might become even more costly if the tech guys are permitted to snatch up property and amass wealth. The Google and Facebook buses are constant reminders that mom and dad aren't giving them enough to compete with the smug, rich nerds. The nerds are insufferable in their own way.
Much of the resentment is dressed up as distaste for the rich nerds taking from the community and not giving back. Wealth inequality is unfair! So this is a clever PR ploy by Facebook. Even if it's a failure, and he money is wasted, at least they're trying, right? It feels good.
One mother shouted, “We not having no wealthy white people coming in here destroying our kids!”
We can destroy our kids all by ourselves.
Why not use the money for vouchers to send kids who can benefit to private schools ? Of course, Obama is opposed to private or charter schools.
The headline needs to read, "Unions trumped big money gifts for educating children replacing public tax money being spent on protecting established Union power."
The unions are not dumb. Tax money is forever, while private gifts are temporary. And Unions are hereditary Duchies.
Par for the course. The social, biological, economic, etc. experiments will continue.
"But Newark’s industrial base had been declining since the Depression, and it collapsed in the sixties, just as the migration of mostly poor African-Americans from the rural South reached its peak."
And that's when all the teachers suddenly forgot how to teach.
The definition of insanity . . .
Here's a hint:
In the list of what is wrong with these schools, not enough money is low on this list.
As long as Public Employee Unions exist, there will be no changes for the better in public schools.
The Newark mayoral election results seem to indicate a majority of voters like -- if not the status quo -- then at the very least the idea of local politicians deciding the fate of their schools, and not people associated with Internet billionaires (even if the local pols are following the Detroit blueprint in municipal governance).
They'll take the $120 million, or whatever the amount is. They just don't want outsiders telling them how to use the $120 million...
The local people might not appreciate the imaginative, dreaming experiment performed on their children.
That's pastoral, the literary term.
The low have the same lives as the high.
Koch brothers! Sorry, I just read the tagline "Democracy trumped by big money" and had a knee jerk reaction.
Money can't change broken families that are broken due to the bad choices of groups of people. Money can't obliterate culture.
Poor urban Americans must change how they're living their lives. They must start making different choices to improve their own lives. They must be their own heroes.
Mark Zuckerberg won't ever be their hero even though he may be progressive America's hero for throwing his 1%'er money at something progressives care about, but don't seriously care about.
Anderson recognized that the schools needed more social and emotional support, but pointed out that Newark already spent more money per student than almost every other district in the country.
Very telling. So dumping money on the problem doesn't work. Not even at the VA which hasn't spent all its annual funding for five years.
Does it work anywhere? Unions, politicians---and culture---seem to be the villains.
I like the Carnegie impulse in rich folk.
I like it better when they don't simultaneously hide their money from taxes and lecture me to pay more.
-XC
I read the New Yorker article. The big takeaway I got was don't give money to the Newark school system. Maybe philanthropists should donate money to the Newark DA's office if they wish to effect change.
The education they got?
IQ in = IQ out
Pretty much that simple.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
...the subjects of the experiment have such bad prospects that it's hard to put them in a worse position.
Like when Chicago's urban planners bulldozed Swedetown and stacked poor people into Cabrini-Green highrises.
From the earlier Zuckerberg/Newark schools post:
The us is better for having the Zuckerberg/CChens around, but they have these fantasies about the educability of the children of Newark.
They got fleeced.
They got a big-*ss tax deduction and huge philanthropic street cred.
I wonder if anybody ever informed Zuckerberg that the various problems with our countries public education system aren't simply a result of a lack of money. We spend more money per student than most other of the nations on Earth.
One thing's for sure, they can't really exist on the same plane. Charter and Public schools are matter and anti-matter. Query - Why are the public schools so good in Madison yet so poor in inner city Chicago 130 minutes away?
Sows' ears. Silk purses.
Peter
So, if the democratic process leads to schools that don't educate, is merely a jobs program for the otherwise unemployable, why is it any implication on the rest of society when that system creates cohorts of criminals and welfare sponges?
Teacher unions are a big impediment to improving schools in America.
Individual teachers should flock to a system that rewards innovation. It's the unions.
My daughter, a principal hired last year to turn around a failing elementary school, had applied for a federal grant which would have provided a large grant to pay for additional resources. She had gotten sideways with the union over forcing the transfer of a few particularly poor teachers, and as payback, the union representative tried to block the school receiving the grant.
Once the teachers at the school found out what the union rep was doing, they bypassed the rep to support the grant.
And yes, those poor teachers weren't let go-- they were transferred by the district to another school. Such is the power of the unions.
They got an education... and presumably they learned something. The local people might not appreciate the imaginative, dreaming experiment performed on their children.
The local people don't give a shit. That's why their schools suck in the first place. What Zuckerberg (should have) learned is that local teachers' union officials and politicians expect a big slice of the "big money." If you want to do good, the first step is to grease the palms of those doing bad.
This is Bill Gates' foray into charity version 1.0 all over again. Throw money at a problem where huge amounts of money haven't solved it. Buy more computers, consultants and pretend that the human problems can be bought off. The real issues in education are not PC and cannot be discussed openly.
What Zuck and spouse are really doing is PR, image rehab and a feel-good donation like when I toss $5 to the santa at Target.
Gates later admitted that the first several hundred million he spend on education were wasted.
Newark's "local people" don't appreciate that four years and $100 million dollars later, their children haven't seen a penny of Zuckerberg's money. But the teachers sure did, to the tune of $42 million.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2014/05/15/newark-parents-say-mark-zuckerbergs-100-million-has/
Was that democracy or unionocracy?
Wasn't democracy "trumped" by corruption and neglect in 1995, when a court took away local control of the Newark schools?
I know immedialty when I saw your post on Memeorandum that you would be agaist giving money for schools.
What a mess! One has to respect Cory Booker's willingness to buck the Democrat establishment on behalf of the children. Sadly, the execution left much to be desired. Zuckerberg threw $100,000,000 at well meaning politicians with little to show for it. As usual in political situations the money went to consultants and bureaucracy If the money had been spent on private charter schools which operated alongside the traditional public schools the outcome would have probably been better.
Interestingly, the Black immigrants from the South who overwhelmed the Newark public schools in the first place probably made a mistake by moving.
150 years ago the Catholic church faced the same dilemma with Irish immigrants fleeing the potato famine. These immigrants had been severely traumatized, were destitute, were starving, were prone to alcoholism and other social ills, and were largely illiterate. The status of Irish immigrants was so bad that the English settlers often viewed them in the same context as they regarded slaves.
Just like it had done after Western Europe was overrun by the barbaric Germanic tribes, the Catholic church began to rebuilt the Irish immigrants from the ground up with spiritual guidance and education. Secular reformers have made big promises to the Black people but have not demonstrated the same acumen in reforming the Black community that the Catholic Church did with the Irish. Indeed many of their programs make things worse.
The inclination to comment is severely affected by the delay in moderation. I'll see you sometime.
Test, to see if something happened to the blog today, or if an event of infinitesimal probability happened.
Gee, maybe the object of all these "reforms" is a bit intractable?
For some reason this makes me think of Obama and the Annenburg Challenge.
The first million of Zuck's Newark money was spent on a door-to-door survey to find out what "the community" wanted from its schools. No scientific design, no diagnostic usefulness, just walking-around money.
The biggest chunk of the money, over $30 million, went for retroactive pay increases for Newark teachers who are among the highest paid in a state where local schools are funded lavishly and inner-city schools get state support that tops up at 30 percent or more than that. Who knows know why anybody thought more back pay would improve Newark schools going forward?
If all the extra spending on Jersey's challenged districts resulted in equal results, I would be fine with that. Sadly, it has yet to show even marginal gains for students.
I have no reason to believe that the Chan-Zuckerbergs know what to do to fix education, and I don't mean to challenge their good intentions, but being rich doesn't make you an expert in such matters.
The fundamental problems with districts like Newark's, if not those in Silicon Valley, are so interwoven and intractable that I sadly despair that anything can be done to fix them.
Only a very few very smart people have been successful in more than one industry. So I would recommend Zuckerbrg stick to social media and his wife stick to medicine.
Education reform bears a remarkable resemblance to health care reform: more money. That is always the solution, to the exclusion of addressing actual causes of dysfunction.
Hey, let's say something stupid.
of course the problem can be fixed. It's just not "fixable" by the lib-progressive society we live in today.
Ever see a bear ride a bicycle?
A cattle prod up your ass will inspire you to learning heights undreampt of by civil society.
Obviously, I am being absurd in the method, but the manner still holds...discipline.
Ahhh....what Newark needs is its own "Gom Jabbar" test!
As impressive as $120 million sounds, it's hardly a dent in education spending, especially over 5 years - my local suburban district of about 3000 students will spend almost double this amount over the same time, and that's with a budget that's been dipping into reserves and slashing sports/activities/non-core academic programs.
Democracy can certainly be undermined when local officials take "free" cash in return for the attached strings, but that would make the federal government by far the biggest underminer of local democracy in the country. Compared to the Department of Education's goodie basket, Zuckerberg's a relative piker.
That said, the portion of this initiative invested into charter schools is likely to do some good, although I expect a large amount of this effort to be spent on consultants, who always seem to attach themselves to projects like this. I've seen 6 figure totals paid out along these lines.
Bad schools, and bad students.
Its not the schools, however bad they might be: little or nothing can be done to educate kids of low intelligence.
SomeoneHasToSayIt said...
The education they got?
IQ in = IQ out
Pretty much that simple.
Ouch.
If Z really wants to help some "inner city schools" children, he should build a free private school for ICS students who: (1) have tested for IQ over 100; (2) are motivated to learn; (3) have families who are similarly motivated; and (4) will not disrupt other students. This would at least "save" the bright and motivated students from the hell that is ICS. These children and their families are the true victims of the system we have now.
Buy out the teachers' unions, giving all that money to all of teachers and staff, something wildly generous...10 year salaries for everyone in a lump sum. Fire all of them. Start over...without unions. Contract out education to private suppliers. Problem solved.
Michael K said...
The inclination to comment is severely affected by the delay in moderation. I'll see you sometime.
Yes, it's unfortunate that some (really, just a few) uncivilized commenters ruined an enjoyable part of this site. I don't have an answer.
If Z really wants to help some "inner city schools" children, he should build a free private school for ICS students who: (1) have tested for IQ over 100; (2) are motivated to learn; (3) have families who are similarly motivated; and (4) will not disrupt other students. This would at least "save" the bright and motivated students from the hell that is ICS. These children and their families are the true victims of the system we have now.
6/1/14, 7:34 AM"
Tank that is hell of a good idea. Imagine if 50 such schools were set up through out the country and what the results would be?
And this surprises who, exactly ?
After 50 years and trillions spent on a variety of welfare programs, we still have the rotted cores of Newark, Detroit, East St Louis, Camden, etc.
" They just don't want outsiders telling them...." Yea, because they've done such a bang up job so far.
" But the teachers sure did, to the tune of $42 million." But all of the spending, all of the demanded "more " is always " for the children ".....my ass.
“We not having no wealthy white people coming in here destroying our kids!” Sure, when you choose to be stupid, an ignorant ass. When you choose to be poor and uneducated. When you choose, for yourself and your offspring, to be permanently unemployable, when you haven't done anything to help yourself by choice. You should be allowed to enjoy the consequences of your asinine, idiotic lifestyle. You're too damn stupid and ignorant to realize and take advantage of an opportunity beyond belief, fine, enjoy the consequences of your stupidity and greed. And don't expect any further public monies to help you out. Live off of that which you have earned.
" and what the results would be?" Libs and other softheaded twits bellowing about discrimination or racism, or some such.
The only thing that new pedagogical ideas have in common is their unproven nature. Apparently, no data is required to foist ideas upon parents--using children as de facto test beds for the ideas. Lives ruined? Not a big deal.
Zuckerberg and Gates go about this social philanthropy all wrong. Zuckerberg's biggest mistake (assuming his actual goal is to make a difference in modern public school education) is to simply select an underperforming school district to help, without first getting reforms in place that are worth funding to see if they will work. If it was my money, and I wasn't primarily interested in the applause of progs, I would set this up as a competition for underperforming districts. Come to me with the best, clearest plan for shaking up the school system and the preparation of children for learning, and you will get the money to implement that plan. Don't start by picking a hero district. If the best plan is from Akron, or Little Rock or Jacksonville, they get the money. If you're going to spend that money on experimental school reform, be real about making a difference, and don't just throw money at it.
@joucas, but, but... If you're a liberal, isn't that how all problems get solved, i.e., by throwing lots of money at them???
If this country has any sense at all, it would see that the Zuck is doing us a great favor: Proving once and for all that more money, even an unlimited amount such as he represents, can do nothing for the quality of education.
I taught in the public schools in another lifetime and figured out that if I could get rid of 5 to 10% of the students, those who clearly did not want to be there and who caused 90% of the problems, everyone else would get a much better education. Abolish compulsory education and we have taken the first of many steps to a better country.
"And Unions are hereditary Duchies."
Should read "douches".
"Ahhh....what Newark needs is its own "Gom Jabbar" test!"
I find this comment obscure and intelligible.
Yours,
The Kwisatz Haderach
The problem is not necessarily with the producers (e.g. administrators, teachers). They are an interest which will be as corrupt or virtuous as they want to be. The problem is with the consumers (e.g. students, parents). The call for vouchers, private schools, etc. only addresses one cause of the conflict and dysfunction.
Funny how Democracy isn't trumped by Big Money when it's Unions and Democrats spending the Big Money.
Tank said...
Michael K said...
The inclination to comment is severely affected by the delay in moderation. I'll see you sometime.
Yes, it's unfortunate that some (really, just a few) uncivilized commenters ruined an enjoyable part of this site. I don't have an answer.
I took his comment as being that Althouse posted this thread, then did not 'moderate'/approve any of the incoming comments for many hours. So, no chance for back and forth.
You know how you get grade A eggs? You separate out the grade B's and C's. Educators used to know this and deal with it. It's no longer allowed.
“Everybody’s getting paid, but Raheem still can’t read.”
What's with the names anyway.
Hey I know, let's make school fun! Make math relevant! Make science relate to everyday life!
Why hasn't anyone ever thought of this before!
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
When the alternative is to admit that the racists are correct, Progressives find insanity preferable.
If you're going to spend that money on experimental school reform, be real about making a difference, and don't just throw money at it.
When you just throw money at it you get Chicago Public Schools.
Highest paid teachers.
Worst performing students.
Hoop Dreams!
You know how you get grade A eggs? You separate out the grade B's and C's. Educators used to know this and deal with it. It's no longer allowed.
Exactly. The United States is the only country in the whole world that says every child gets an education. Until that is changed our schools will continue to suffer.
Hopefully the voucher program will lead to a system where only the properly raised boys and girls learn to read and write and we don't have to waste anymore resources on the children of those people who don't care if their own kids learn or not.
"If Z really wants to help some "inner city schools" children, he should build a free private school for ICS students who: (1) have tested for IQ over 100; (2) are motivated to learn; (3) have families who are similarly motivated; and (4) will not disrupt other students."
And all those students will leave Newark, never come back, and the Newark dregs will continue to reproduce. The Newark IQ will drop even faster, the crime will increase at a faster rate.
Worst of all, the ones who escaped and now live in safe white neighborhoods will use their newfound smarts to keep blaming de white man for Newark's ills and leverage white guilt into every higher paying jobs.
Nope. What Newark needs is not further outmigration and abandonment by the Talented Tenth. It need to follow Detroit's path by permitting people to carry concealed and refusing to prosecute respectable black folks who start offing gangstas.
Black folks used to lynch black miscreants with some alacrity. They MADE their neighborhoods safe the hard way: street-by-street. Giving them an easy out to abandon their people and leave their community will deprive them of a sense of self-respect and accomplishment.
And again the Kansas City Schools Experiment in the 1980's is ignored...
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/americas-most-costly-educational-failure
And yet again the 1980's two billion dollar Kansas City Schools experiment is forgotten...
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/americas-most-costly-educational-failure
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