Current Events > Bill Gates announces $1.7 billion investment in U.S. Education program

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/billionaire-bill-gates-announces-a-17-billion-investment-in-us-schools /2017/10/19/9938f11c-b4eb-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html

(remove space, sorry; blame SBallen)

if only all billionaires were as benevolent as Gates.
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

benevolent

right
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foreveraIone posted...

Giant_Aspirin posted...

benevolent

right

Yeah there is more than meets the eye.

He is probably investing so they teach computer science in grade school so programmer salaries can go real low in the future

More money? I don't think money expenditures on education is a problem in a country that already spends a buttload on each student. But if Gates wants to throw money at the problem, then good for him. He has many good intentions such as curing malaria, so that is commendable.
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SamuelHayden posted...

foreveraIone posted...

Giant_Aspirin posted...

benevolent

right

Yeah there is more than meets the eye.

He is probably investing so they teach computer science in grade school so programmer salaries can go real low in the future

Bill Gates constantly donates to several different causes. there is no reason to instantly believe its part of a deeper, selfish motive.
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Giant_Aspirin posted...

(remove space, sorry; blame SBallen)

The URL spec is 255 characters. Why the hell does Allen insist on 150?

The thing about this is: you can't fund education in the abstract; that money goes toward specific programs, and the article helpfully notes the sort of things Gates has donated to in the past:

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent at least $3.4 billion on public education in the United States, most notably to develop the Common Core State Standards and to persuade state education leaders to implement them. His money also went to support charter schools,

X billion for common core and charter schools is a different thing from x billion for "education."

I read this article a few years back, it was kinda eye-opening on the subject
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/philanthropy-charity-banga-carnegie-gates-foundation-development/

A frequent worry among teachers and parents is that Gates money helps position private firms such as Pearson and Microsoft to benefit from the testing industry that is tightening like a corset around students and teachers.

Indeed, the Gates Foundation makes similar donations all the time. Scholastic, a company that, like Pearson, is a for-profit education publisher, has received over $6 million in grant money from the foundation. A November 2011 grant of $4,463,541 was designed to support teachers implementation of the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics.

Whats not clear is why this counts as charity. Doesnt Scholastic stand to gain from the expansion of textbook and testing materials accompanying the Common Core standards?

The answer is a clear yes, which Scholastic pointed out itself in a 2014 press release lauding the performance of its digital education sector: In 2014, the company booked $1.82 billion in revenue, a modest increase of 2 percent over the previous years $1.79 billion result. Profits were up considerably . . . Scholastic also expects sales of its digital education products to continue to increase. . .

All this is to say that there's an ideological and economic bent to this philanthropy that makes it hard for me at least to suppress skepticism about Gates' touted altruism
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Even if he were acting with selfish motivation, there would still be a positive effect of simply distributing his wealth to public institutions.
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While it's a nice gesture to donate $1.7 billion to education, the article doesn't tell us where this donation is going. So I'm a bit skeptical that this donation is not just going to end up to schools/programs that don't need the money as much.
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mirage_004 posted...

Even if he were acting with selfish motivation, there would still be a positive effect of simply distributing his wealth to public institutions.

You're dreaming if you think that money is going to help the students and teachers.
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Behaviorism posted...

You're dreaming if you think that money is going to help the students and teachers.

the article

The foundation will serve as a catalyst for change, Gates said, investing in new methods of instruction and then rigorously tracking student outcomes so that other districts can learn from the classrooms that serve as testing grounds.

How is that not?

Behaviorism posted...

mirage_004 posted...

Even if he were acting with selfish motivation, there would still be a positive effect of simply distributing his wealth to public institutions.

You're dreaming if you think that money is going to help the students and teachers.

Even if it's not going to the students and teachers, he's still injecting money into the economy. That was my point. The alternative is that he keeps the money and sits on top of it.
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