Thinking and Linking by Joanne Jacobs
It’s the first day of school in Joplin, Missouri, which was devastated by a killer tornado in May. Despite the destruction — six schools destroyed, three badly damaged — the district is ready, reports the Tulsa World.
The high school is a heap of rubble: Freshmen and sophomore will have classes at a middle school, while juniors and seniors go to Shopko, an empty department store that got a $5.5 million makeover in 12 weeks.
Donors have helped teachers replaced lost school supplies.
Over 260 classrooms in Joplin, Missouri were destroyed by the May 22 tornado that devastated the city. Teachers are working to restock classrooms and create a warm, familiar atmosphere. Through Donors Choose, you can help fund Joplin teachers’ classroom projects.
Calculate the cost of your schooling at Building Tomorrow. According to the calculator, Illinois public schools in the ’50s and ’60s spent $21,029 to educate me from first through seventh grade. (I assume that’s adjusted for inflation.) A generation later, my daughter’s California schooling cost more than $50,000 through seventh grade.
Building Tomorrow is raising money for primary schools in Uganda, where it costs $350 to get a student through seventh grade.
Donors Choose lets public school teachers put their wish lists on the web for donors to find. This year, a caller asked Charles Best, the founder, how much it would cost to fund every California teacher’s project, reports the SF Chronicle. Best said, “Something over $1 million.”
Twelve hours later, the woman, Hilda Yao, executive director of the Claire Giannini Fund, sent Best an e-mail.
It said, in short, OK.
A day later, Yao mailed a check of more than $1.3 million to cover the entire California wish list, 2,233 projects in all, with an extra $100,000 tossed in to help pay for other teacher needs across the country.
The projects funded by the donation range from $100 for pencil sharpeners or paper to thousands of dollars for technology, Best said.
Pershing Square Foundation is funding public school teacher’s history, government or civics projects on DonorsChoose — if private donors get together to fund the final $98. You can give any amount. There are four days left to give.
For example, an American history teacher in a high-poverty Louisiana school hopes to buy a CD player, junction box, history books on CD and some beanbag chairs for a listening center. She also wants a class set of Grace’s Letter to Lincoln books.
By cutting off new students from aid, Congress has condemned Washington, D.C.’s school voucher program to a “slow death,” say leaders of D.C. Parents for School Choice. There was no Christmas miracle for the program, despite evidence that scholarship students do better in reading than similar students who lose the lottery.
Instapundit suggests that private donors step in to fund scholarships to enable low-income children to escape unsafe, chaotic, low-performing schools.
Update: Save DC Kids is trying to keep the scholarships alive with private funding.
You can help the Book Wish Foundation build a library for refugees from Darfur. A $2 donation buys a brick. The library will require 5,000 bricks.
New York City’s hedge fund multimillionaires are backing charter schools, reports the New York Times.
“If you’re at a hedge fund, this is definitely the hot cause,” said Joe Williams, the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, a nonprofit group that lobbies for charters and is financed by hedge fund heavies. “These are the kind of guys who a decade ago would have been spending their time angling to get on the junior board of the Met, the ballet.”
. . . Charter schools appeal to the maverick instincts of many who run hedge funds.
. . . “At heart we are still the kids who in eighth grade were in the backyard doing science experiments while the cool kids were at football practice,” said (Ravenal) Curry, 43.
Many of the city’s charter schools share space with district-run public schools that can’t fill a building. There’s a lot of conflict over space — who gets to use the library? — and jealousy because the charters may use private funding and flexibility to pay for smaller classes, technology, new learning materials, cleaner classrooms and a longer school day.
Charter managers can’t scale up quickly enough, writes Tom Toch. Yes, that’s a huge challenge.
DonorsChoose, which lets givers fund public school teachers’ requests, now offers gift cards. For example, the recipient might choose to help a high school teacher buy fun books for a class library.
In some cases, donations will be matched by the Gates Foundation.
If you help a public-school teacher buy classroom supplies or fund a special project through DonorsChoose, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will match your donation.
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