While I think it’s a great idea to help schools out, I think that throwing money at the problem is the wrong way to solve the problem. While higher salaries will attract more teachers, there is a reason that Newark has a 50% dropout rate. There are social reasons why the dropout rate is so high, it doesn’t matter how good the teachers are in the schools, if the students do not go to school.
This is could all have been a political stunt to try and prove his character in the recent movie about him and Facebook portrays him incorrectly. Either way, I think that he taking the wrong approach to solving the problem, but I think that putting the 100 million into the economy, instead of having it sit in his bank account will help the economy. There are social and personal reasons that are driving kids to drop out of school, gangs, drugs, and substituting income for their parents are common reasons for dropouts.
This video states that Mark is announcing on Opera his donation to the school later in the day. It is interesting that this information was leaked before the Opera show. I wonder if the “source” could have gotten in trouble for leaking information before it was supposed to air.
Video:
Website
2 comments:
While I agree that he probably designed this to align with the movie release I don't agree that it won't help the dropout rate. I think higher salaries for teachers will create a sense of accountability that they do not currently have. When dealing with tough issues it is easy to say "I'm not paid enough to deal with that" and changing that perspective will help. I also think that parents and students in districts like Newark have no hope. Even the parents and students that are trying hard have no hope. A donation of that size to that community will significantly change the feeling of hope those families have for a better education and a better life. Another post about this said they were starting with door-to-door visits to talk with parents and the community and I think that is a great first step to obtain buy-in and accountability for action.
While I agree that he probably designed this to align with the movie release I don't agree that it won't help the dropout rate. I think higher salaries for teachers will create a sense of accountability that they do not currently have. When dealing with tough issues it is easy to say "I'm not paid enough to deal with that" and changing that perspective will help. I also think that parents and students in districts like Newark have no hope. Even the parents and students that are trying hard have no hope. A donation of that size to that community will significantly change the feeling of hope those families have for a better education and a better life. Another post about this said they were starting with door-to-door visits to talk with parents and the community and I think that is a great first step to obtain buy-in and accountability for action.
Post a Comment