Billionaires Who “Give & Brag” to Shape Policy

The following is my comment to Joanne Jacob’s blog.  Her latest insightful blog post was titled,  Zuckerberg on $100 million to Newark. http://bit.ly/aUKBtt  I had a few things to say about billionaires who “give and brag” in order to shape policy and create profit centers for themselves and their “friends”.  Here are my comments in response to Joanne’s blog post…

Zuckerberg is part of the “give and brag” crowd, where billionaires give their much needed money to entities in dire need of it, but manage a way to make their giving as a means to shape or advance certain policy reforms (even if those reforms are not the right thing to do). Zuckerberg is young, but he is being guided, willingly. I would rather see billionaires like him use their money to help in a way where there is no hidden agenda.

I work in a public school in a community (with many similarities to a 3rd world country) where we are in desperate need of funds to help our children with wrap around services, and additional tutors. Instead of our school receiving those much needed funds, our overworked teachers are being labeled “failures” for the low test scores of our poor students.

Oprah’s recent ed reform shows were a publicity stunt with characters who were there to “sell” the American public on the concept of charter schools needed because of “bad teachers”.  Unfortunately, billionaires have decided to use their money to shape policy that will benefit them and their “friends” in the end. The charter school movement represents profit centers for billionaires and hedge fund managers.  If they are really in it for the children, they’d be at my public school, and many others, helping teachers help their students. Since this isn’t happening, I suggest that teachers and parents do their homework and investigate what’s really going on in public education. These ed reformers are banking on you NOT doing your homework.