A PTA for the 21st Century

Over the past several years I have watched in dismay as the budgetary consequences of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) force schools to adopt zero-tolerance policies toward education. I have seen in my own neighborhood a "successful" school reduce its science instruction down to 20 minutes a week for 1st-3rd graders because of fears that a single child's lack of performance on a standardized test might result in a budgetary take-down. Mr. Holland's Opus was a poignant and sadly prescient story of a bureaucracy that had its sites set far too low when it came to determining what was best for the child. Today, the Mr. (and Ms.) Hollands of America are being systematically underfunded as schools scramble to meet unrealistic criteria that make little sense for any child that has a human dimension. From my perspective, No Child Left Behind has taken a bad situation--a chronically underfunded educational system that disrespects and discards teachers by failing to pay a professional wage--and made it worse by forcing administrators to deny virtually any educational opportunity that is not directly tied to a question on a standardized test. What can we, as a tech-savvy people, do to give teachers the support their need? What support can we give so that they can provide their students with an education that is relevant in the 21st century? Can progressive-minded people form a PTA so strong that we can reverse the damage of the the NCLB Act and give our nation's youth the education that our democratic government presumes necessary for proper function?

I only watch Oprah when Amy says "Michael, you have to see this episode." One day she told me I had to see Charles Best and his new idea called Donors Choose. The idea was simple: set up a website whereby teachers could solicit donations for their classrooms--mats in the classroom so that Kindergarden students could have "a place of one's own," a digital camera so that students could take pictures of natural environments visited on field trips and thereby write more accurate narratives of their observations, a table saw so that a class could build sets for their drama productions. These donation requests can then be funded (to initiate or complete matching grants) or fulfilled by donors excited about the particular request, the type of classroom environment, the location of the school, etc. It's like a CraigsList for educational philanthropy. And what's really cool is that 100% of the donation amount goes directly into the classroom in the form of goods purchased by and delivered by Donors Choose. This is important because if the money went to the school, the school would likely be forced to allocate the money into "more of the same" rather than what the teacher has clearly and rightly identified as a need in their own classroom.

When most people think about educational philanthropy, they think about Gordon Moore's $600M donation to Cal Tech, John Werner Kluge's $400M donation to Columbia University, and Sidney Frank's $100M donation to Brown University. Heck, when billionaires like Larry Ellison can get national attention for not giving $115M to Harvard, what can we mortals do?

I hear you asking "What good is $10,000 going to do?" Or half of that. Or half of that. Or half of that. Or half of that. Well, when teachers in America are being forced to pay for pencils and papers out of their own pockets, and when those teachers are rarely earning a living wage, suddenly a $60 donation or a $100 donation makes the difference between no pencils and pencils. When students in high school math classes are expected to purchase $85 calculators and 80% of the students qualify for food assistance, a $1250 donation can bring into the classroom the tools these students need to stay with the program and succeed, rather than failing for lack of financial resources and dropping out. And for people who don't have enough to fund an entire donation request themselves, Donors Choose helps people contribute to a project, thereby starting a financial match or find a project that can be fulfilled when the final matching funds are provided. In this way, even $10 can make a difference that the donor can be sure about.

Two years ago, Donors Choose expanded to have a state-wide presence in North Carolina and I elected to have money deducted directly from my paycheck to flow into my Donors Choose account. Though it is relatively small money, the constant deductions every two weeks give me a nice little balance I can use to fund teacher requests that interest or excite me. And, unlike money donated to a school fund that can be siphoned off to other budgets, Donors Choose money goes straight into the classroom in the form of the materials teachers request: pencils, paper, digital cameras, etc. The genius of making it easy for first-time philanthropists to give, using Web 2.0 technologies to match requests and donors, and the delivery of goods in a form that cannot be re-appropriated gives the donors a true satisfaction that their gift is being received. And it gives the teachers a sense of empowerment that somebody is listening and willing to give them a chance to be successful in their classroom. The letters of thanks that donors receive from the children really prove that the system, so broken in so many schools, works for Donors Choose.

So check it out!

And now, a personal appeal...Right now, Donor's Choose is one of five finalists competing for a match of up to $5M sponsored by American Express. As a Card Member, I have given Donor's Choose my vote. If you are a Card Member, you might want to review the five finalists and consider whether Donors Choose is deserving of your vote. But whether you vote or not, I encourage you to look at how Donors Choose delivers 21st-century transparency and integrity to the educational philanthropy process, and I encourage you to think about how this transforming technology can be used to improve your child's classroom environment. Even if you do not have a child in a school participating in a Donors Choose program, think about how your direct involvement in meeting simple, basic teacher needs can improve the overall scholarship and success rate of other children and other teachers who, all together, form the larger graduating class to which your child belongs.

To me, the ability to participate directly in the success of students, teachers, and schools across the country make Donors Choose a PTA for the 21st Century. And with Donors Choose, we can restore to the teachers the materials and support they need to give children the education that every child deserves. An education...you know...for kids!

[Peter N. Glaskowsky]

Public schools are overmanaged, not underfunded

You refer to "a chronically underfunded educational system" but that just isn't the problem, and hasn't been since I first did this research in the 1970s (when it was a lot harder; today Google will give you good answers in about two minutes).

Consider-- California, for example, spends over $8,000 per year per pupil. Class sizes are somewhere around 25 students. That works out to $200,000 per year per class. This has to cover the teacher, the physical plant, capital costs, etc... but administrative overhead consumes more of the budget per pupil than the teacher's salary.

Solve THIS problem and there will be plenty of money for paying teachers and buying pencils.

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http://speedsnfeeds.com

[bgrbgr]

NCLB A "success" story

I tell people that NCLB is the most "successfull" educational program that the government has ever had. "Success" of a program is defined in accomplishing the goals of that program. What is the goal of NCLB? Is it to promote the responsibilities of citizenship, as esposed by Thomas Jefferson? No such language is in the program. Is it to improve student learning, as esposed in the manuals for the ITBS (Iowa Tests of Basic Skills) and comparable standardized tests with a long history? No such language is in the program. Instead, the goal of NCLB is to promote private schools, including for-profit schools, by embarrassing public schools. The very first year, many public schools were "embarrassed" by being labeled as not meeting one or more of the many standards. The next year, other schools were "embarrassed" by not meeting other standards. Some educational researchers have shown that NCLB is structured in such a way that, eventually, all public schools will fail on one or more of the standards. For example, students in special education are expected to achieve the same level as regular students. If they are expected to perform as "regular" students, why are they in "special education"? The NCLB promotors do not answer that question because it does not promote their agenda, which is to embarrass the public schools.
Yes, the NCLB is "successfull" in meeting its goals, more so than any program in the history of the Dept of Educ. This emphasises the need for each of us to decide what are our goals of education. The writers above have articulated their goals, and I commend all readers to carefully consider the important points made by those writers.

[bgrbgr]

Adminstrative costs in schools

Mr Glaskowsky is concerned about the administrative costs in a school compared to teachers salaries. Let me suggest that it might be more productive if we do not pit teachers against administrators, but rather see them in partnership. Yes, there are administrators who glory in their power to get money, but there are teachers who glory in their seniority over other teachers. But let us instead look at those with good motives. Yes, administrative costs have greatly increased over the years. That is because legislators have required districts to perform many more administrative functions and thus more money is required to meet those demands. The author used CA as an example. An excellent example of the many laws that the legislature has enacted which require funds for compliance. Are those laws good laws? Obviously, a majority of the legislators think so, because each law had to pass on a majority vote of the legislature.
I suggest that each of us look at a particular law, and decide if we think it should be changed. If so, we should write to our legislators, because they are the ones who enacted the law and they are the ones who have the legal authority to change it.
A major change in the allocation of educational funds is the amount given to "special education", in the general use of that term. In real dollars, the amount spent on "regular" students has remained reasonably constant for the past half century, but the amount for "special" students has been increased substantially. A hundred years ago, mentally retarded children were most often not in school, whereas today, every child is entitled to public education appropriate to their condition. Often, that is a very expensive venture, but I can assure you that the parents of those children think that the taxpayers should fund that education. Hence, our taxes go up. I do not have a mentally retarded child, but I am supportive of giving an education to all children, even though my taxes have increased as a result.