Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free • Hacker News Board

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#51

Post by plonh » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 3:33 AM UTC

skwirl wrote: post #35

cptmeister wrote: post #5

That's great for the community, but in a larger sense we should question what the point is of amassing huge concentrated wealth and then giving a small part (or even a large part) back to make isolated positive impacts. Wouldn't it be better if it was impossible to amass that concentration of wealth in the first place? Then the token donations would not be necessary. This is not supposed to be a cynical post, but thi…

The wealth isn't "amassed," it is created. It hasn't been taken from anyone else. But I'm guessing you wouldn't ask "Wouldn't it be better if it was impossible to create that much wealth in the first place?"

Created by who?

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#52

Post by datashovel » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 4:15 AM UTC

Perhaps I'm initially too cynical about what appears at face value to be selfless philanthropy, but I won't consider these efforts to be anything but self-serving unless they're willing to share data about their successes / failures with other educational institutions and governments.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#53

Post by seibelj » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 4:44 AM UTC

Anything any rich person wants to do to improve education, I'm for it. The system is so broken for so many people that I welcome any attempt at reform. And the rich have the best chance of fighting the entrenched interests that prohibit improvements to education.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#54

Post by pbreit » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 4:44 AM UTC

One-off private schools are never going to move the needle. Even Alt School only caters to folks who don't really need it. Is it really not possible for private industry to address public education? Perhaps "for profit" is just never going to work in education? Kipp?

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#55

Post by markdown » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 5:03 AM UTC

vpanyam wrote: post #12

markdown wrote: post #11

Why is "Primary School" in quotes? Are you suggesting it isn't a primary school?

The name of the school is "The Primary School" http://www.theprimaryschool.org/

Oh ok.

In many countries of the world, primary schools are schools that cater to classes between kindergarten and high/secondary school.

Calling a primary school "The Primary School" is like calling a brand of bottled water "The Bottled Water".

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#56

Post by noobermin » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 5:34 AM UTC

mentat wrote: post #40

noobermin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see, going to the moon, the internet, the atomic bomb, the space shuttle...I think the government has proven to be effect in the past. Not that the free market hasn't been effective too, but one might make the mistake of serious selection bias to really believe that the government can't perform "far out projects" well, especially when the will to perform them doesn't exist in the free market yet.

The Internet wasn't the Internet before the Commercial Internet Exchange ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Internet_eXchange ). I'm not sure how much credit the government can take for what it is now really. The space shuttle is no longer in service and failed with significant fatalities more than once. The atomic bomb is one of the most horrific technologies which exists. I'm not sure you're making your cas…

Do you want me to list the failings of businesses and the horrific things they've created? Is it even fair to lump all players in the free market under one umbrella as it is to lump all government programs and governments of nations and call it "government"? The post I referred to argued about the ability of the government to lead "out there" projects well, and all of those are out there projects which had some "success" whether you agree with that definition or not.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#57

Post by noobermin » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 5:47 AM UTC

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #42

noobermin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see, going to the moon, the internet, the atomic bomb, the space shuttle...I think the government has proven to be effect in the past. Not that the free market hasn't been effective too, but one might make the mistake of serious selection bias to really believe that the government can't perform "far out projects" well, especially when the will to perform them doesn't exist in the free market yet.

I think the big misunderstanding you and the parent commenter have is that you're conflating "large scale projects" with "far out projects". Just because both are large scale, doesn't make them the same thing. Technologically complicated, Politically easy, "far out projects" or "moonshots", governments are relatively good. eg. putting the first man on the moon (politically easy: because of the competition with Russia…

I guess I do agree to this extent: There are things that are politically difficult for the government to do, just like there are things that are politically difficult for corporations/rational free market players to do.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#58

Post by lacksconfidence » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 5:48 AM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #20

andreyf wrote: post #9

If this works, can it be used as an example for better public schools? Even if it's more expensive, one can argue that the increased productivity of well educated kids outweighs the cost of their education.

Well if a single primary school needs 1 bln or anything close to it to operate that won't be scale able. The question now would be how much improvement would there be due to actual new methods in delivering the education vs just pouring money onto the problem and cherry picking your students. They did seem to open the school in a place that could benefit from it as far as the silicon valley area goes, EPO didn't rece…

  Well if a single primary school needs 1 bln or anything close to it to
  operate that won't be scale able.

Just to clarify, Zuckerburg has spent over a billion on education related grants and other gifts since 2010, but no one knows what he has spent on this one school. I can't see how he could have spent anywhere close to a billion dollars. Unfortunately the writing is fairly poor so I'm not even sure how many students this school will serve from which to guesstimate a cost.

FTA:

  Chan did not tell the Mercury News how much she and her husband are contributing
  to The Primary School, but when it is fully built, it will serve 50 students 
  in 14 grades (pre-K through 12) plus the families of their 700 students.

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#59

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 6:02 AM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #53

Anything any rich person wants to do to improve education, I'm for it. The system is so broken for so many people that I welcome any attempt at reform. And the rich have the best chance of fighting the entrenched interests that prohibit improvements to education.

[deleted]

Re: Zuckerbergs' New “Primary School”: Private but Free

#60

Post by noobermin » Sun, Oct 25, 2015, 6:17 AM UTC

josephagoss wrote: post #45

noobermin wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see, going to the moon, the internet, the atomic bomb, the space shuttle...I think the government has proven to be effect in the past. Not that the free market hasn't been effective too, but one might make the mistake of serious selection bias to really believe that the government can't perform "far out projects" well, especially when the will to perform them doesn't exist in the free market yet.

I'm not saying that Government can't do great things, but it should never be the only player in town when it comes to innovation on a large scale. Denying private citizens the ability to have great wealth basically gives the Government a large scale monopoly on far out projects. These are the types of projects where a single billionaires great wealth can inspire other investors to come along. If Musk couldn't pour mi…

I have to agree with your sentiment about there being no check for the government, especially when there are things the government can't do. Still, on one hand, you have Zuckerberg trying to revolutionize education, while on the other hand, you have Soros and the Koch brothers inverting democracy for their personal interests. At least when the government is corrupt, you can vote them out or at worst, have violent revolution. An individual? Ask them kindly to stop? Kill them?

I think I'd feel more comfortable with corporation(s) competing with the government, because then, you could "vote against them with your dollar." Another thing which is done in government labs in the US is having labs/universities compete with each other for funding (although whether this yields good incentives for research is another story, and we're trying to find avenues for innovation that are difficult for the government, and ostensibly, difficult for govt labs too).

Finally, if we do accept this form of oligarchy (where one oligarch is the government we vote for), no doubt will we have entities which disagree with each other, say, Soros or the Koch brothers. Now, then, the rest of us just become the grass at the feet of fighting elephants[0], and I hell don't know how anyone would feel comfortable with that. I suppose the only option you have then for having a voice is to become the next elephant, and while I love hacking/disruption as the next guy, I know statistics too, and I won't delude myself I will become Zuckerberg or even four orders of magnitude near him.

[0] http://www.afriprov.org/african-proverb-of-the-month/27-2001...