Bittersweet

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has just received a gift of $30 billion, thanks to Mr. Buffett. This will make it by far the largest charity on Earth.

On the surface, that is pretty cool. The foundation has done some outstanding things in world health and with access to education. For those of you who don't know, however, there is a dark spot in the foundation's educational philanthropy. It's name: small schools.

Now, if you read the page from the last link you will see all kinds of superficial buzz words about how kids are being left behind, there's an achievement gap, etc. It's basically stuff everyone already knows. What you WON'T find are solid reasons for implementing small schools the way they have been implemented so far. In general, it's a good idea: take huge urban schools and transform them into small ones. Brilliant! Kids get more access to adults, teachers, and other mentors. Great thinking, Bill & Melinda. The problem is: these dollars are NOT spent on decreasing class size, as one might logically infer from the site. Hmm...

What the B&MG Foundation means by small schools is NOT more teachers, NOT more resources, NOT more educational equity. What they mean is more administration, more red tape, more internal strife. The small school initiative basically turns the old adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" on its head.

"But public schools are broken," one might say; and he or she would be right. But these grants are the equivalent of fixing a flat tire by driving the car off a cliff. My wife and Mochi's wife work in one of the guinea pig schools in Boston. Maybe one of our better-halfs will be kind enough to post a follow up that will surely be much more insightful than this post, but I want to get the conversation started.

Let's do some simple math. A school before the grant had 'X' amount of money. X is a fixed number that's not likely to increase any time soon. Each school has to do the best it can with 'X'. Now the Gates come along and give the school a finite amount of money to divide itself into several smaller ones. This money gets blown through rather quickly on enormous logistical challenges: how do the new schools share the cafeteria, the gym, the library; how are team sports and arts (if the school originally had them) divided, etc. This is not to mention the substantial increase in payroll from hiring several new, highly-paid (relative to teachers) headmasters and their assistants. Then, at the start of the first year as several smaller schools, you have the same amount of kids per class and the same level of resources. The only difference, besides the new sense of intra-school resentment (I mean, healthy competition), is that there are several more headmasters.

Another old adage: "too many chiefs and not enough Indians." That is exactly where this formula leads. You have more administrators, who don't interact with the students as regularly as teachers, fighting over the remaining scraps of capital like starved, wild hyenas. What was the purpose of this exercise again? Oh yea, to help children.

The generosity that the Gates and Buffett families have shown over the years is amazing. They are to be commended. But such incredible gifts must be given only after careful research has been conducted. Otherwise, all that money and promise go to waste.