Money from philanthropic foundations such as Gates, Broad and Dell may be a small part of school district budgets, but it's essential to innovation, Joel Klein says in this SmartBlog on Leadership video.
Klein is the former chancellor of New York City schools. In Charlotte he's also known as Peter Gorman's new boss; Gorman left Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools this summer to join Klein in working for the Education Division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Klein says private grants let public school districts try new approaches, while public money covers the cost of running schools. "Our basic R&D venture money has come from private philanthropy," he says in the three-minute video.
Gates and Broad money has helped CMS explore new ways to evaluate, pay and develop the skills of teachers. As the school board seeks a successor to Gorman, the role of philanthropic "venture money" is likely to be a point of public discussion.
Friday, November 25, 2011
Klein: Philanthropy drives innovation
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13 comments:
Like Project LIFT?
The program that contradicts its own "mission" by leaving out other just as desrving schools and students?
All to close the elusive "achievement gap" that money alone will never accomplish.
So why try, right?
Can you give some examples of programs that have proven successful? The Gates funded small schools within schools headed by 5 principals and themed programs focused on esoteric things like Global Community Service Leadership for Tomorrow's Leaders didn't work in CMS. How much did this cost?
Please list the Dog and Pony Show programs that have proven successful in traditional public schools? Gates funds KIPP charter schools. How's KIPP doing? What has proven successful here that regular public schools aren't doing? I'm sick and tired of reading nothing but articles about urban education. Have suburban and rural schools fallen off the map? How are suburban, rural and urban schools different? How are they the same? Does one blanket educational approach work across the board? Or, do educational approaches need to vary based on an individual school's location and community makeup? How do magnet schools factor into the picture?
Sorry for being somewhat pessimistic but I lived through "New" math, "Whole" language, "Open" classrooms, forced busing and design your own college major with a pass/fail grading system while Bill was attending some fancy private school in CA (because his mother didn't think the public school he was attending was good enough) before flunking out of M.I.T. - or was it Harvard? I don't want my kids to be lab rats. Perhaps this is part of the problem. My generation of public school and public university attendees who are weary and skeptical of "educational reform" efforts led by a group of educational elitists from Choat and Andover Academy. Let's be honest here.
Nice job Mr. Klein on picking a superintendent that lasted one week! If private donations are "SMALL" part of the equation, then why do these companies get such a "BIG" voice in what happens to schools?
While I was attending a public university in New England, students at Brown Univ. voted to stock pile cyanide pills in their student health center due to the imminent threat of a nuclear holocaust caused by the Reagan administration. So, while everyone else's son and daughter was expected to go off to war when the Russians attacked and the rest of us trolled away at our little lives, Brown students decided they shouldn't have to experience their skin burning off while witnessing coach roaches taking over the planet. And why should they? These are the people who tend to have all the answers.
A late start time at Waddell was going to improve performance and make the sun rise. Poor little ones weren't getting enough sleep.
Has the BOE considered the hidden costs that come with donations or other corporate freebees. The overhead to the taxpayer is significant!
Staffing changes, infrastructure changes, scheduling, administrative and teacher time taken away from the classroom to focus on deciphering new methodologies and codes. Not to mention the cost of later swinging back to the established way that was in place to begin with.
The failed Garringer project where Mecklenburg children were test subjects of a corporate backed experiment which has been deemed significant failure is just one example.
Will the new BOE have the capacity to see through the eminence front put on by bread and circus offering profiteers…will the next Superintendent buy into the "corporate profiteers know better than educators" theory or reject it?
CMS should require freebees to cover all costs, including the costs of failure!
I am curious, if Bill Gates is so bent on fixing public eduation then why doesn't he invest money in great computer simulations that can help students in the classroom? Oh, I can answer that question: "Because it isn't profitable!!!!"
ANON 2:59
Maybe that is what Bill is up to?
Is all the testing and seeking data on what makes a good teacher so Gates can establish a model for a computerized teaching system. With all the data he is collecting would you think for a minute he is not using it? Sounds like a movie script, but with what we know about computer capabilities today...I could see Bill putting himself in the position of being the one to catapult education into full cyberspace. The Medium is the Message!!!!!!
Yep, that's exactly what people said about Bill Gates philanthropic activities during the 1990s when he was giving away millions of free computers. Was he doing this to further technology? No no, he was doing it to gain a hold on the market and strangle out competition. You may worship at the alter of Bill Gates but I do not worship a man who at his core is a monopolist and could not succeed without being so. Gates ideas are not his own "MS-DOS" which started everything was IBMs, Windows was a copied version of Macs system etc. etc. etc. We are failing in this country not because we a dumb but because we are equating being rich with being smart. One of these Bill Gates is and one these he isn't. Let us look at innovation, shall we? Steve Jobs verus Bill Gates "GAME OVER!" I will bet you Bill sleeps pretty good at night knowing he doesn't have to face Jobs anymore. What has Microsoft given us that is original and has not been acquired from buying others ideas and inventions? NOTING!!!
Gates, Jobs, Windows, Mac, Broad, gifts, donations, etc, etc...
Unless kids learn what the answer to 2+2 is, none of that means a damn thing.
At the rate CMS and public schools in general are going, all the money in the world won't make a difference.
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