When Charles Lindbergh flew to Paris in 1927, he was aiming for more than glory. His flight netted him the $25,000 Orteig Prize, a reward offered a decade earlier by a wealthy New Yorker to the first aviator to to fly from New York to Paris. Such prizes were a common means of spurring achievement in the early days of aviation. More recently, the $10 million Ansari X Prize was offered for the first non-government group to launch a reusable manned spacecraft twice in two weeks. Big prizes get attention, capture the imagination, and create a multiplier effect as competitors battle it out for the money. The team that won the Ansari X prize spent $25 million of Paul Allen’s money in pursuit of their $10 million payday. Prizes are small beer compared to the potential to spur an entire industry, like aviation or space exploration, which is precisely what the underwriters have in mind.
This brings us to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his decision to give $100 million to Newark, New Jersey’s school system. Zuckerberg has no obvious reason for friending Newark. After meeting mayor Cory Booker, he merely decided, ”This is the guy I want to invest in. This is a real person who can create this change.” One gift, one district, one time, so they can “try out new things.”
Zuckerberg is to be commended for his generosity. But if he wanted to give $100 million to an urban school district to drive change, why not follow the lead of the X Prize or its many predecessors? Offer it up in the form of a $100 million windfall to the first inner city school district that closes its 8th grade reading achievement gap on NAEP and keeps it closed for three years running. Or the first district to graduate 80% of its 9th graders from high school four years later. Create a rigorous, independent reading test and give the prize to the first district that gets 95% of its third-graders to pass it. Since charter schools are supposed to be our engines of innovation, invite them to the party. Even the sharpest critics of KIPP will stand up and applaud if (to pick another potential prize goal) they manage to send 90% of their graduates to college without the need for remediation.
At Forbes.com, Neil Weinberg cautions that the names Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates swirling around Zuckerberg’s largesse are “enough to blind an observer with its starlight.” So much so, he warns, as to obscure the question of whether the Facebook founder’s money is “headed down a rat hole.” Newark already spends roughly $23,000 per pupil. “Even the L.A. Unified School District, whose students are just as poor as Newark’s, gets by with half as much,” Weinberg notes.
“Given that Zuckerberg’s $100 million will be spread over five years and 40,000 students, it will add all of $500 per pupil, or 2% to the annual budget. Add in matching funds promised and hoped for and you get double that. Sound revolutionary? Not if it ends up in the same places as the rest of the money. What would really be revolutionary would be to use funds from Booker’s celebrity backers to conduct a forensic audit of the waste, fraud and abuse that’s swallowed Newark’s education budget. Giving money to accountants, of course, doesn’t create the same warm-and-fuzzy PR as giving it to kids.
Weinberg has a point. From a social entrepreneurship persepective, simply writing a big check may not be the best strategy to spur innovation. I didn’t agree with several of the reform inititiatives enshrined in Race to the Top, but it clearly demonstrated how the promise of a big payday can drive change, especially when budgets are tight.
So my advice for the next billionaire who decides to give away an eye-popping sum of money is not to force others to adopt your pet strategy. Avoid the temptation to back high-profile, charismatic reformers, no matter how smart they are or how dazzling their vision. Pick a clear, simple goal for education. Make it big. Make it audacious. And then put the money aside in an interest bearing account and wait for a knock on the door when some enterprising group of educators steps forward to claim it.
If history’s any guide — and it usually is — someone will come along sooner or later. And you’ll be buying more than hope and promises. You’ll be funding results.
An example of great minds thinking alike?
For the record — I got there first.
Comment by KDeRosa — September 28, 2010 @ 11:15 am
Brillant. And the idea of a prize shouldn’t be just for private citizens. The feds could similarly drive change if they use the RttT funds as a prize that rewards real improvements in student learning.
Comment by Erin Johnson — September 28, 2010 @ 11:36 am
Keeping up with Ken DeRosa on good ideas in education would be like trying to keep up with Mother Theresa on piety. I despair of the effort.
Comment by Robert Pondiscio — September 28, 2010 @ 11:38 am
[...] Education Needs An X Prize « The Core Knowledge Blog Filed under: education — coopmike48 @ 11:36 am Education Needs An X Prize « The Core Knowledge Blog. [...]
Pingback by Education Needs An X Prize « The Core Knowledge Blog « Parents 4 democratic Schools — September 28, 2010 @ 2:36 pm
Robert (Erin),
Fantastic ideas. Dangle a HUGE pot of money over urban districts to reduce the achievement gap and let the reform begin.
And yes, the money could come from Washington or even from each state for documented improvements in the urban and/or poor districts in their state (See Sam Dillion’s piece in this morning’s New York Times regarding Brockton, Massachusetts).
This pot of gold at the end of the rainbow should be for results realized. Zuckerberg’s $100 million, while exceedingly generous as Robert noted, gives the pot of gold to Newark simply for being Newark or Mayor Booker.
Comment by Paul Hoss — September 28, 2010 @ 5:54 pm
Robert:
Here’s a $100 million proposal we sent to the Foundation last April: http://info.tnanytime.org/sbe/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/xprize_ed_proposal.pdf.
Comment by Rich Haglund — September 29, 2010 @ 4:12 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kathleen K. Manzo and Prufrock Press, Robert Pondiscio. Robert Pondiscio said: New blog post: Education Needs An X Prize. Advice for the next megabucks philanthropist. http://bit.ly/d6boWO #education [...]
Pingback by Tweets that mention Education Needs An X Prize « The Core Knowledge Blog, The Core Knowledge Blog -- Topsy.com — September 30, 2010 @ 9:58 am
I hate to be the skeptic here, but there are some key differences between Charles Lindbergh and urban school districts. Private entrepreneurs seeking a prize are essentially risking their own money to fund their attempt, in hopes of a big payoff.
But its hard to run a school district that way. Who gets the payoff? Do kids get nice facilities once the district is successful? Or do teachers get raises? Maybe the closest you could come is to treat the prize like World Series winnings — each employee gets a share of the prize if the district wins. That might be more motivating than value-added.
Comment by Rachel — October 4, 2010 @ 12:22 am
Sounds like the Broad award — there are unfortunately too many ways to skew statistics and data a la Campbell’s law, without doing a thing to improve learning. This is what has happened already with the big push towards test-driven high stakes accountability systems.
For example, your suggestion to give a big cash prize to “the first district to graduate 80% of its 9th graders from high school four years later.”
NYC and other districts may achieve these figures through the rapid expansion of online credit recovery courses, with no quality control. This is already happening in many schools throughout the city, w/ these courses offered students who otherwise flunked all their classes, letting them earn all the credits they need to graduate in a few weeks, through cutting and pasting info from web …making NYC HS into diploma mills.
Be careful what you wish for.
Comment by Leonie Haimson — October 7, 2010 @ 11:42 am
Rachel, Couldn’t those issues be worked out by the individual school districts?
Leonie, The Broad award is not the same thing as an X prize as described by Robert. The Broad award is awarded regardless of the actual achievement/success levels. The X prize set a very high bar with something that was easily measureable and everyone would regard as a high achievement.
Robert’s suggestions are great. Some others to consider: More than 75% of entering 9th graders that pass an AP exam while in high school or perhaps: Meet or exceed international comparisions (say with the TIMSS, PIRLS, PISA, etc).
Comment by Erin Johnson — October 7, 2010 @ 12:27 pm
I would like to see an X-prize for a school district that would come up with the best plan to get all of its students reading for fun. All data shows that kids who read the most are kids who read for fun and are kids who score the highest on reading assessments. I agree with Rachel that offering the money after the school has completed such a program is problematic. The program needs the money to be instituted and what would the school do if it won the money after the program is already successful? Build a new teacher’s lounge? Party? It should go to the program.
Comment by Gaby Chapman — October 7, 2010 @ 12:40 pm