David Gamberg, superintendent of schools in both Southold and Greenport, on Long Island, in New York, had a dream. He wanted to install a custom-made Mother Goose shoe, in which children could play. He wanted it to symbolize the district’s commitment to childhood and play. He started a fundraising campaign. He was just short of his goal. A local businessman, who owns the town grocery store, contributed what was needed to meet the goal. The giant shoe will be built!
There is a lesson here about philanthropy. The donor helped the school do what it wanted to do. He didn’t step up and tell them what he wanted. He supported their goal instead of imposing his own.
Listen up, Bill Gates and Zuckerberg!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s what the US Department of Ed is working on today (as every day):
US Dept of EducationVerified account @usedgov 24m24 minutes ago
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The next #TeachersAtED chat is all about #SchoolChoice. Mark your calendars and join the conversation July 11, 7-8 pm EST.
Vouchers and charters.
Are public school parents, teachers and students unwelcome at the US Department of Education now? They are aware that most kids attend the unfashionable public sector schools, right? 4200 public employees who focus exclusively on 5% of schools seems a little skewed to me- maybe they could put a single public employee to work on assisting public schools. That’s where most of the students are, after all.
I know DC is ga-ga over vouchers and charters but do they feel this is an accurate representation of a country where 95% of kids DO NOT attend a charter or private school?
Looks like capture to me. If you’re representing the interests of 5% of students in charters and private schools and excluding the 95% of the country who attend public schools you’re probably not doing your job.
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Who said students are the ones whose interests they represent?! They represent their donors.
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No kidding. Love your last sentence: “Listen up, Bill Gates and Zuckerberg!” Wish they would, but they won’t. KA-CHING and CONTROL = name of the game. Sick.
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Now if they could just use that giant shoe to boot the billionaires out of education.
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The billionaires haven’t show any interest in Southold. They have their eyes on capturing big-city schools and the real estate that goes with them.
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cool
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Good to hear good news from on-the-ground local public school communities. Let’s hear more of that, & share it far & wide!
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I could not help thinking about the difference between children playing and adults playing.
All animals play. In the animal kingdom, playing is the way animals make themselves ready to compete for food (think tiger), run away from those who are competing for food (think antelope or deer), or vie for reproductive dominance (think wolf). We in the animal kingdom depend on play to sharpen the skills needed for survival. Humans sharpen these skills with physical games and mind games. Children run around and establish which one of them is the fastest, or they just run around if they are too young to start the comparative thing. They gravitate toward books about people like them if they read, practicing the dramas that remind them of the aspects of life they see in their dreams and realities. Then they get older. Like the animals they love, their play changes.
Some adults gravitate toward playing games of chance (my favorite is farkle). Others want to spend time running in 10ks or riding down the river in a boat. My brother still rock climbs at 65. I play old time fiddle. NPR advertises some website that wants to sell you “brain games” based on IQ test questions. George Washington Carver learned the names of all the plants in his Missouri woods.
It strikes me that the two groups with the least time to play are at the top and the bottom of society. Kira works at a day care five days a week, manages a motel four nights a week, and picks up some extra cash cleaning houses in her spare time. Jack manages a trucking company that keeps him so busy that he can never get off work long enough to enjoy his hobby of going to old car shows or working on them. He has not seen his houseboat in three years and is thinking about selling it. Kira barely gets by. Jack has everything he wants but time to enjoy what he has. Economic circumstances rob both of them, they way I see it. Neither can be a citizen. Kira cannot get time to become informed about political issues that affect her, but you can bet she knows she would be better off if one of her jobs paid a living wage. George is so wrapped up organizing his trucking company that he only sees his immediate surroundings, but you can bet he gets exercised when some driver quits him and leaves an idle truck, making him complain about how lazy people are. You can bet he does not get much exercise. Both these people die early.
Where on earth would anyone learn balance in life? Maybe in a shoe on the playground in elementary school.
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Zuckerberg didn’t mandate how his $100 million (plus matching) was to be spent in Newark. However, many millions were spent on consultants conducting surveys how to spend it. Probably more than the grants to teachers who wanted to try an innovation in their classrooms. Salary for the CEO of foundation handling Z gift was generous, higher than superintendent’s pay.
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