Teach for America vs. DonorsChoose

A couple of years ago I decided that I wanted to choose one particular cause to focus on in terms of my charity donations and efforts. I figured that by focusing I could greatly increase my impact. So I've been focusing on education. I've been going to presentations, talking to teachers, reading about some of the issues,...

I just attended an incredible panel discussion at HBS which included the founder of Teach for America, the superintendent of the DC school district (the one that's trying to install incentive pay and get rid of teacher tenure!), and two founders of charter school systems (one of which takes an incredible community-wide holistic approach).

Well, anyway, what prompted this post, first, is my extremely strong desire to rant against Teach for America. The founder of Teach for America was part of this panel, and even she couldn't convince me to believe in the organization. Teach for America recruits graduating college seniors to teach in under-achieving schools for two years. The organization recruits the teachers, matches them with schools, and trains them over the summer.

Now if TFA gets smart, young, motivated teachers into the classroom, that's good, right? Well, the founder reported to us that it costs them $20,000 per teacher. Keep in mind that the school district is still paying the teachers salary and benefits as usual. The $20,000 is for recruiting and training essentially. I just checked the Teach for America financial statements, and she clearly was not including overhead type expenses in the $20,000 number. Including that, it's over $30,000 per teacher. Now granted, some of these teachers are probably quite good, but are we really willing to put $30,000 into some college kid who wants to teach for only two years and then go do something else?

In the past two years, with my focus on education, I have talked in depth to half a dozen young dedicated motivated teachers all of whom were devoted to teaching. They either had or were getting masters in education. They were all working in low income areas and who were struggling for resources. I've spoken with a teacher who literally had to share one dictionary with the other three second grade classes in her school. There was one dictionary for the entire second grade. And she was in a school where many of the students didn't speak English as a first language. Imagine what she and those three other teachers could do with a fraction of that $30,000 - with even $300 to buy some dictionaries. The saddest thing about the young teachers I've spoken with is that I can already see some of them becoming so frustrated, exhausted and disillusioned that they are losing their drive.

My second motivation for writing this post was to praise my current favorite non-profit: DonorsChoose.org. It has what I thought was high overhead before I looked at Teach for America - about 25% - but they provide a valuable service for that 25%. DonorsChoose allows teachers to place specific requests for supplies they need or projects they want to do with their students. Donors can then go on the website and choose specific projects to fund. You think that students need more math and science - fund those projects. You think students need more physical activity - fund those projects. You care about early education - fund resources for K-3rd grade classes. DonorsChoose buys the actual supplies and delivers them to the teacher, and then follows up by requiring the teacher to submit a report of how the project went, along with pictures of the students using the supplies, and "thank yous" to the donor. It's incredible getting those pictures and thank-yous. The students are not only enjoying their materials, but seem so amazed that someone cared enough about them to donate. The overhead expenses are basically for DonorsChoose to screen the requests, fulfill them by buying the supplies, and follow up. The rest of your money goes straight to the project you chose.

I think Charter schools are doing some amazing work and increasing our knowledge of what can work. I'm optimistic about the changes that are happening in DC and what those could mean for the long-run of teachers contracts across America. But I think the political reality in America is that change will come slowly and unevenly. I'm not going to get involved politically - that's not my strength. So while I wait for others to take care of that part - I'm going to do my part to help teachers who are devoted to their lifelong teaching, and desperate for resources. I will help a few classrooms at a time, but at least I will know that I am making a very concrete difference - providing dictionaries, an overhead projector, math games, or books.

I'm also involved right now with an organization called Maitri which has a very different mission - providing support and help to victims of domestic violence among South Asians in the bay area. What I've realized with Maitri is the value of spreading the word about an organization that we care about. Maitri is trying to raise money for a shelter, and has a tight December deadline to raise 1M$ to get 1M$ of matching money from the city of Santa Clara. I can only donate so much, but by spreading the word I can do a lot more.

The combination of that lesson from Maitri, and everything that I'm learning about education has inspired me to post about both Teach for America and DonorsChoose.org. Consider looking at these organizations more closely, and if you also, like me, value what DonorsChoose is doing, consider helping to spread the word.

Family looking for help

One of my colleagues has a 14-year old daughter who was stricken with a debilitating neural disease 9 months ago. Our dean sent out the following email from her family, requesting help:

Doctors don’t know the cause. Some suspect it’s a rare form of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Phil and Barb, Jenny's parents, are desperately looking for two things:

1. Comparables: If you know or have known people suffering from neural disease, please read the sidebar labeled “Am I a Comparable?” at the site Phil and Barb have set up: http://jenjensfamily.blogspot.com/


2. Doctors: Any doctors you know who might have come across cases like Jenny’s in their practice.

Finding comparables fast could save Jenny’s life. Phil shared with me just yesterday that after months of search, they recently found four comparables. More could make the difference.

If you are able to help, you can contact Jenny's parents directly through the website above.

Switching Sides

I never thought I would get a Mac. But my 4-year-old laptop has gotten so slow that it's barely useable. And I can't stand it anymore. Why does Windows have to slowly break over time? It's like as soon as you drive it off the lot, Windows has already started to slowly eat your computer from the inside out. The straw that broke the camel's back was when Ed's brand new laptop (running Vista) started to choke after only a few months. (He fixed it for now by removing spyware that had accumulated, but why should you have to do that????)

So I just got a MacBook Pro. And it's awesome. When I start it up, it turns on and starts working right away. Not in 10 seconds. Not in 10 minutes. Now.

Another awesome feature: you can run a virtual Windows machine on it. I installed some simulation software that lets me run Windows and install any windows software that I have alongside the Mac operating system. You can switch between the two seamlessly. You can even make your Windows programs look and behave like Mac programs if you want to pretend that they are just installed on your Mac and Windows is out of the picture.

But the best part is that it works and it will probably still work six months from now and even six years from now. Yea!

Running

Okay, so I have a lot to report.

First of all, I got a Kindle. It's awesome. But that's not the main point. The main point is that I ran across a book called "Spark" in the Kindle store and I downloaded it for our trip to Europe. It's all about research on how exercise affects brain chemistry. By the time I got home, I was totally convinced that I must start doing aerobic exercise often and that it will totally change my life.

Problem: the ball of my left foot hurts when I do impact exercises, such as running and aerobics. I've had this problem for 15 years. If I can't run or do aerobics, there is no realistic way that I'm going to exercise aerobically every day.

Solution: I emailed my doctor and asked her to refer me to some specialist. She told me to go get Superfeet shoe inserts and she made me an appointment with the podiatrist. Ed told me about a specialty shoe store two blocks from our house that sells a bunch of shoe inserts. I went there and asked for the shoe inserts and the owner was some kind of crazy foot genius. He made me walk around barefoot while he watched and then he grabbed some inserts, trimmed them, pasted some extra padding towards the front of the insert, heated them up in a toaster oven, handed them to me, and proclaimed that I would no longer have pain. I put them in and he was right. I haven't had any foot pain since.

So for the last five weeks I've been running five times a week and I feel way happier - and much less irritable and annoyed. Seriously. (Maybe this is just how normal people feel all the time and I was just massively depressed for the last 15 years - it's hard to say.)

Anyway, I'm not so fast. But's that's okay - I'm getting faster. My goal is to work up to the point where I can run for 30 minutes at a non-embarrassing speed (where non-embarrassing=faster than Ed can walk).

Sea Kayaking

We've been trying to make ourselves get out of the house more and explore some of the fun things to do in our area. Today we went to the Berkeley Marina and walked down the very long pier (it's over half a mile long) where lots of people were fishing. One guy caught a pretty big flounder, but we didn't see any evidence that anyone else was catching things.

Then we walked over to check out a couple of places that rent sail boats, windsurfing equipment and sea kayaks. We rented a two-seater sea kayak, hauled it down to the water (it was really heavy) and plopped it in the water. We paddled around for half an hour before our arms started to get too tired from paddling.

We didn't realize that water would get in the boat - when we were done our bottoms and Ed's wallet were soaking wet. Luckily, the woman at the rental place didn't mind when we paid with soaking wet money.

Next on our list of Bay Area attractions:

• Ride our bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge


• See the glass exhibit at the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park


• Borrow some kids and go to the Oakland Zoo

Your Order Was Shipped!

To me, those words mean that the package in question has been put in physically custody of the postal service. To Amazon, it means "we sent the postal service an email and told them to come get this package and they will probably stop by in the next 3-5 days to pick it up."

I ordered a new mp3 player and they said it shipped on Tuesday and gave me a tracking number, but this is what I see on the usps website every day:

"Status: Electronic Shipping Info Received : The U.S. Postal Service was electronically notified by the shipper on April 15, 2008 to expect your package for mailing. This does not indicate receipt by the USPS or the actual mailing date. Delivery status information will be provided if / when available."

STOP TEASING ME!

GPS 101

When we went snow-shoeing two weeks ago at Lake Tahoe, we decided to climb up to the top of a ridge that overlooks the lake. Our friend loaned us a GPS unit, so we decided to take it with us. We wrote down our coordinates at the car so that we could find our way back. I read the coordinates to Ed and he put them in his pocket.

We hiked up the to the peak, taking a pretty direct route. One the way down we had to meander a lot more because it's hard to go down hill in showshoes (face-planting in snow still hurts).

Part way down, Ed asked "what units are the GPS coordinates in?"

I responded: "The normal units - latitude and longitude."

"But the numbers you read only have 2 decimals - that's only going to put us within 2 miles of the car."

"Oh. Well, there were more digits after the decimal, but I thought you would be annoyed at having to write them all down."

"You're right. I might have been annoyed."