Monday, June 26, 2006

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.

7 Comments:

Blogger Jack Mercer said...

Hi Smorg!

Thrilled to see you back and posting. Thoughtful post, and one that I have difficulty posting on because I am not very familiar with what B&MG fund is trying to accomplish. If it is simply smaller schools/smaller class size (thus spending more money on overhead) then their whole philosophy on education quality is put to rest (rather badly) by schools overseas. China, for example, spanks us soundly on all levels academically and they have huge classes, huge schools and students that perform 10 times what ours do even in small schools with small classrooms.

The problem I never seeing addressed is educational philosophy (except for maybe a few unheard voices on faculties like your wife and Mochi's). For example, I grew up on new math--at least that is what people refer to it over here. When I came back, I was doing the same mathematics (calc, structures, theory--everything!) in 8th grade in Australia that I was given to do in University over here. (I was also much more advanced in terms of sciences than my peers). Getting to my point, I spoke with my daughter's mathematics teacher one day and she was so thrilled about the way she taught math--it was the "new math". One day my daughter came home and she said that she needed help memorizing her multiplication tables. This puzzled me. Memorization has NO place in new math, and rote learning is discouraged. New math is an organic concept based upon structure and analysis not mechanics. Anyhow, I went to her teacher and asked her why the children were being made to memorize multiplication tables. She said it was necessary. Of course my reply was that I thought she was teaching "new math". She said she was, and so we got into a discussion about how what she was doing was counterproductive to the child obtaining the right thought process, etc., etc. The problem, Smorg, is that we have educators who have taught things such and such a way for so long that they are reluctant to discard the old and implement the new. They don't understand the need for a changed educational philosophy, because to do so would be either be the admission of failure or too much work. Our United States educational philosophy seems to be "patch up the old systems, the old ways of thinking, the old teaching methodologies, the old organizational structures" and call it something "new".

Smorg, until we have some progressive minds -- and I do mean progressive -- take an initiative in education, we will continue the path of mediocrity already set.

Not sure if this is in the spirit of your post or not, but I think I read your thoughts right in that respect.

Good to see you posting!

-Jack

5:36 PM  
Blogger Kevin Mark Smith said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

7:23 PM  
Blogger Kevin Mark Smith said...

Jack, progressive and good schools are an oxymoron. I am sure your use of the word "progressive" is tongue and cheek, at least I hope it is. Public schools are lost. Wise parents would never subject their kids to such polution. Anything is better than public schools. My wife homeschools my three gorgeous daughters, and my seven-year-old finished her 24th book in the local public library's summer reading program. Once we have a firm foundation (through 6th grade) we will enroll them in a local private "classical" school. Anything but public school.

Regarding the Gates foundation, I suspect that Bill has good motives. Sadly, the message that giving your kids over to government schools is a bad thing is unlikely to penetrate into the heads of most selfish parents who are primarily concerned with getting their kids out of the house as soon as possible, and not spending thousands of dollars per year on school when such a choice would eat into their boat and recreation money. Maybe I'm naive to think that my greatest obligation is to ensure that my kids have more opportunities that I.

Smorg, regarding throwing good money after bad, you are correct sir. The Wichita, Kansas, public school system is sueing the state of Kansas for failing to provide "sufficient funding" as provided for in the state constitution. Wichita wastes 44% of its funding on "administration" and spends more than $12,000.00 per student. Outrageous. Wichita is not alone, I suspect. (BTW, the Court found the aforementioned figure insufficient even though it is more than what all surrounding states spend.) If the Gates foundation was truly progressive, as Jack refers to the term, it would fund private school and homeschool scholarships instead of throwing more money into the black hold of public schools.

7:25 PM  
Blogger DM said...

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1807484,00.html

9:46 PM  
Blogger Jack Mercer said...

Hi CH!

Fascinating article!

What I find inconsistent, though, is that it is the likes of Buffet and Gates who advocate the welfare state and government philanthropy. All of the sudden, when it is THEIR money, they all of the sudden distrust government to utilize it properly?

Maybe a little hypocricy going on here, huh...

-Jack

3:03 PM  
Blogger Smorgasbord said...

I see how liberal billionaires distrusting the government to handle their philanthropy could seem hypocritical, but I think it's permissible (if it's hypocrisy at all).

Privately funded charitable foundations have to have narrow focuses. Otherwise they would die. There is no way to ensure that every area of philanthropic need in a society is covered by these organizations, whereas government can touch literally thousands of different areas. Gates and Buffet apparently want to focus on education and health, so that's what they're doing. The taxes that they (and you and I) pay to the government go, in part, to all the other areas of need.

Government is almost always inefficient in its handling of our money, but it does get spread around. If charity were to become solely the domain of private enterprise, some areas would see dramatic increases in quality, while others would drop off all together.

3:23 PM  
Blogger Jack Mercer said...

Good point, Smorg. I guess it was the way that Buffet said it that seemed to rub the wrong way.

Have a good weekend all!

-Jack

8:23 AM  

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