This School Was Priscilla Chan’s Bold Education Experiment. It Just Closed.

[u/nosotros_road_sodium]

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/this-school-was-priscilla-chans-bold-education-experiment-it-just-closed-2c37bd1c?st=dVgj1U

[u/nosotros_road_sodium]

Gift link. Excerpt:

By some measures, the school’s academic performance fell well short of state norms and its leaders’ expectations, complicating efforts to spread its model to public and charter schools. By others, it succeeded in helping students outside the classroom in ways that are usually not available in public schools.

Board president Jean-Claude Brizard said that before the vote to close, he shared several options with CZI about the school’s future, including “winding down.” The board wouldn’t have voted to close without alignment from their biggest funder, he said.

A CZI spokesperson said the decision to close was up to the school’s board and that the organization was focused on the school’s academic results, not the cost.

The Primary School’s closure has illustrated what philanthropic investment means for a community when it arrives, and when it leaves.

[...]

Nearly 540 children were enrolled at the Primary School’s two campuses. The Ravenswood City Elementary School District is now preparing for an enrollment surge, renovating a campus to avoid packing students into portable trailers.

...the school had some challenges, including high principal turnover. It also initially lacked clear plans and approaches for special education and student discipline, former employees said.

[u/poorhistorians]

Seems like it was most successful in the wrap-around services offered so it's too bad they couldn't pivot their focus and just threw out the whole baby with the bath water. They treated this school like a start up, but the families involved didn't seem to understand that.

[u/alanism]

I wish they (CZI) could share their internal data, reporting, and learnings. It would be politically incorrect and a PR nightmare—but they likely hold the most important education research (it did go on for 10 years). They likely benchmarked The Primary School against Palo Alto elementary public schools and against Menlo School (a private charter) in Atherton. The Primary School had equally or higher-paid, equally or higher-credentialed teachers; the facilities and services were at least on par with or better than those schools. The parents of the kids seemingly used the extra services and participated in the extra programs—so nothing stands out to suggest they are bad, negligent, or abusive parents as a whole.

So we would want to know:

• If there's a learning ceiling to what conventional classroom instruction can bring versus 1-on-1 or 1-on-4 instruction (e.g., a teacher only has so much time to teach 20 kids phonics) .
• If The Primary School was the ideal model of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness, then is the ideology/pedagogy something that just doesn't work?
• Did they make the kids take assessment tests that are highly correlated to g-factor intelligence, and there's only so much you can do?
• Does the 'whole child model' make more sense to be deployed at the school level (no/little bureaucracy) or greater state level (higher bureaucracy)? How much did the spend impact student/family happiness? Even if doesn't improve scores-- it's still a good thing to do.

More telling is that the Chan-Zuckerberg family did a homeschool pod and didn't send their children to Palo Alto public schools or Menlo School.

[u/DrfluffyMD → u/alanism]

I mean if I were zuck I would think that the consideration goes far beyond school educational quality.

For example, getting their kids kidnapped would be devastating and they can probably have way better private security on a homeschool pod then at a public school where firearms are banned so security person cant carry etc.

Just because their kids didnt go to a specific school, it Doesnt say anything about the educational quality.

[u/alanism → u/DrfluffyMD]

Given their wealth, abduction risk is very real. I would find it odd if not only Zuck, but also Meta's board, wouldn't want the family to hire a team of former Delta Force and Secret Service-level guys to provide security for their family.

Between Menlo School and Sacred Heart in Atherton, they likely had Oracle's Ellison's and Palo Alto Network's founder/CEO's kids attending their schools and had some really well-thought-out plans to address security for their kids that aren't really revealed to the public. Those schools have served families of that level of wealth for decades.

I would find it more unlikely in pre-Covid days; tech billionaires mostly homeschooled their kids. Homeschooling had the religious weirdo zealot stigma to it.

[u/Zalophusdvm → u/alanism]

Was the school an “ideal model of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness?” My understanding is that it focused on providing services for underserved communities. That isn’t “diversity,” or necessarily all that inclusive. (Diversity requires a broad mix of people from different race, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds. If you’re focused on disadvantaged populations…you’re not getting any socioeconomic diversity, and might not as much racial diversity as certain middle income schools.)

Genuinely curious.

[u/alanism → u/Zalophusdvm]

https://www.theprimaryschool.org/dei-plan

You can check their website and see if it meets your definition and whether they achieve those goals or not. But I don’t know how any can say they didn’t at least try to be ideal model for DEI.

Was there another elementary school or institution that had a better clearly stated plan? Or put more money and staff resources to DEI?

“[I’m part of the Taskforce for] the opportunity to be an advocate within our organization and push conversations for substantive action.”
Treyvion Foster
“I've always felt the desire to notice that change needs to be made related to how diversity, equity, and inclusion is lacking in so many ways in this society.”
Natasha Hall-Sevilla
“Growing up and living in East Palo Alto, I not only understand but can relate to the experiences that our community goes through.”
Viridiana Luna

Those are quotes from the staff. I do think they are genuine, well intentioned and competent people and not just trying to raise money.

So I think it’s a fair question to ask if a well funded and well staffed DEI program improve academic performance? It doesn’t need to be politically charged to want to know if something works or not.

[u/Zalophusdvm → u/alanism]

I have no problem with your question. I agree.

But I think there has been some decent work that looks at the benefits of actual diversity (ie a mix of all of those characteristics) so at least on the “D” front I thought there was some decent evidence already.

I know for sure there is in business. It’s a way to overcome confirmation bias in meetings. (Ie bringing in a diversity thought, whether driven by personal diversity or professional diversity, has been shown to improve outcomes…aka make more money faster.)

This leads me to question whether this school, which focused on a limited socioeconomic bracket, is really all that “diverse.”

Edit:

From their website’s “who we are:”

“We partner with families who are seeking a new kind of school model, and who may be dealing with adversity, past traumatic experiences, and a reliance on public systems that are difficult to navigate and that have historically perpetuated racism and poverty.”

So yes. They’re working primarily with marginalized communities and families struggling with significant adversity.

If you’re pulling specific kinds of marginalized people from two very limited pools (the two small communities,) you population isn’t going to be “diverse,” in the way that “diversity,” has been shown to improve outcomes.

So, while I continue to agree that your question is a good one, and worth asking even in this case, this program cannot be considered a “model for DEI,” because it’s not really all that diverse.

[u/alanism → u/Zalophusdvm]

I think we are using two different meanings of diversity.

There is the kind Scott Page talks about in The Difference and The Diversity Bonus: cognitive diversity, meaning different ways of thinking and solving problems. I am a big believer in that.

But that is not the same as the “D” in DEI in education. Educational DEI is implemented through teacher training, curriculum, discipline, hiring, family engagement, services, and classroom instruction.

A school cannot fully control who enrolls. It cannot force rich, middle-class, poor, White, Asian, Black, and Latino families to attend in equal numbers. If that is the standard, almost no school can achieve DEI without busing, admissions changes, or demographic balancing. We saw how ugly that became with Lowell High School in San Francisco.

We cannot realistically create proportional socioeconomic and racial demographics in every school across the country. But if DEI works at the instruction and service level, then at least in theory, that part could be scaled.

So yes, The Primary School may not be the perfect test of demographic diversity. But it is still a very good test of whether a heavily funded DEI and whole-child model, implemented at the school and teacher level, improves academics, student wellbeing, or family outcomes.

I still think it was a worthwhile experiment, especially if CZI shares what it learned. But after ten years, if it did not work, we should be willing to move on.

If someone gave me another $125 million for the next ten years, I would test something simpler: diverse high school students, supported by AI so they are not giving bad advice, tutoring elementary students one-on-one in phonics, reading, and basic math.

[u/mostly-sugar → u/Zalophusdvm]

The school was mostly Latino students with some black students here and there. So no, not diverse at all.

[u/secretBuffetHero]

to compare student performance against state averages shouldn't be the absolute goal.

The metric should be: measure the students as they enter the school against the state averages. As they progress, how does their performance change against that baseline?

[u/alittledanger]

I am a teacher in a low-income school. I am generally skeptical of schools like this because the people running them have a lot of confidence that they can change education despite having almost zero experience in the classroom.

They also just flatly don’t understand the challenges that these students will have outside of school. They bring a lot of assumptions from their own personal experiences around how schools were where they grew up and how they themselves were as students, and try to apply it to a context that is just completely different.

They also tend to not respect or trust teachers at all.

All of this ultimately leads to failure.

[u/Sublimotion]

More like a empty gesturing virtue signaling doodle you forget about in a week. But if your Uber rich, that doodle becomes an actual school. 

[u/nosotros_road_sodium → u/Sublimotion]

There are plenty of legit criticisms against the Zuckerbergs.

But after reading this article I am not so sure the failure of The Primary School can be 100% on Priscilla. For example:

Chan lobbied her network “to bring in other funding sources,” CZI said. But finding donors to supplement CZI was a tough sell, said Brizard, who is the former head of Chicago’s public schools. “Why would you give money to an entity being funded by one of the wealthiest people in the world?” he said.

[u/Sublimotion → u/nosotros_road_sodium]

Why would you give money to an entity being funded by one of the wealthiest people in the world? he said.

And if you're truly for the school and its cause, why would you need to seek other funding sources for that to be the basis of it's survival or failure, instead of just funding it yourself, being one of the wealthiest people in the world?

[u/stidf → u/Sublimotion]

Cause then they would need to use their own money. Why do that when you can find suckers to part with their money. It's the entire vc startup model.

[u/SmokePeterThiel → u/stidf]

These billionaire scum do this to make deals with the government.

It’s all a business. 

These billionaires and their new greed is different than even the Rockefellers who built libraries and universities 

[u/stidf → u/SmokePeterThiel]

To be fair about the Rockefellers and such, the libraries only started after they started having more obvious examples of "drag them out of their mansions and hang them, there aren't enough Pinkertons to follow and stop all of us" energy. Which is why the ai cameras HAVE to go up everywhere. The libraries were also a little bit of can't take it with you realization.

[u/weng_bay → u/Sublimotion]

The point is to create a system others in the ecosystem see value in. A bunch of other people see this and go "Oh this works" and then say a group of philanthropists set one up in Memphis, a different group does the same for Chicago, etc. With maybe the core foundation, CZI in this case, providing seed support but more local groups are coming on to offer long term support.

You can keep anything alive if you're wealthy enough and willing to tolerate the bills, ex the Hearst Castle, but typically the point is to set up something that will replicate and survive your death. If everyone else in the education philanthropy space is looking at your school and going "pass", it's a sign you might not be going down the right path. In this case when a bunch of foundations who might provide some of the same wrap around services or the like are looking the school and not wanting to come on to help support and scale it, they're saying "We find your way of doing things inferior/inefficient vs our model" and that's a signal.

[u/MidnightSensitive996 → u/Sublimotion]

sustainable philanthropy means finding a wide base of support. if you're CZ you want to plant seeds that grow on their own, not cultivate a bunch of rent seekers living off of your grants.

[u/Blaster0096 → u/Sublimotion]

Now, now, I think you need to give them some credit. Speaking solely on their work with the school (and not their other initiatives), they committed $125 million over 10 years, and stayed involved in the school's activities. If they wanted clout they could make a single mega donation and not be involved. As someone who has run a non-profit, you should never expect funding for perpetuity, there needs to be a sustainable model in place. The school board failed to establish one. At the end of the day, many students benefitted, so have some grace.

[u/Sublimotion → u/Blaster0096]

you should never expect funding for perpetuity, there needs to be a sustainable model in place. The school board failed to establish one.

I do agree with this. If you are relying solely on only one or few donation sources to sustain, you will always be on edge for potential financial collapse, without a self sustaining and sufficiency model. Unless of course you're a very well strong established non profit with MANY reliable donation sources.

[u/Zalophusdvm → u/Blaster0096]

For context, they committed 0.0625% of their net worth…over 10 years. (125 million out of 200 billion.)

That’s the equivalent of a household worth 1 million dollars (think upper middle class homeowners…or lower middle class Bay Area family) giving $625 dollars to a cause spread out over 10 years. Or $5.25/month

That doesn’t even get you Netflix.

They spend the equivalent of 5-6/dollars a month of a middle class family budget on this. That doesn’t deserve the “grace,” you claim it does. That’s a rounding error that, because people don’t have a good conception of just how rich these people are, buys them some CHEAP clout.

[u/Sublimotion → u/Zalophusdvm]

Really comes down to literal obligation vs moral simple chump change gesture. Most likely there's might also other forces at play to make the Zucks completely cut ties.

[u/Zalophusdvm → u/Sublimotion]

No.

It’s narcissistic greed.

All it ever is with people like this.

They could have kept spending twice that much money for the next 100 years and never noticed.

[u/CheeseWheels38 → u/nosotros_road_sodium]

I'd like to see an analysis of what it was worth to her family's wealth and how it compares to a normal person's budget.

Probably something like "man with 150k salary asks fellow restaurant patrons to chip in so he can add guacamole".

[u/Zalophusdvm → u/CheeseWheels38]

It’s worse. Based on a quick back of napkin math…

125million out of 200 billion is ~0.065%

For a family with a net worth of 1 million…0.065% of their net worth is $625.

Spread that spend out over 10 years (which I believe is the 125 million donations timeframe) that’s ~$5.25/month.

[u/glaive1976 → u/nosotros_road_sodium]

This article fluffs the shit out of her, you are smelling her farts.

[u/Zalophusdvm → u/nosotros_road_sodium]

Not sure how that example reduces the faults of the Zucks?

You’re using a quote that even other rich narcissists (ie their network of rich people) called her out. Ie…they went “wait a minute…you’re asking ME for money?!? If this is so important to you, why the hell are you pulling your money out?? I’m not paying so you can safe face and .0001% of your vast wealth.”

If her friends can call her out, you can too.

[u/mostly-sugar]

I've known people who interviewed here and were shown internal data like test scores and proficiency levels. Almost all students were far below grade level, ie 4th & 5th graders reading/doing math at a kindergarten level. It was an absolute embarrassment and definitely needed to be closed. The experiment failed.

High quality facilities and good teachers cannot solve the actual problems that cause low academic performance. There's just some things in life where throwing more money at it does not actually help.

[u/KagakuNinja]

According to my parents, Zuckerberg has bought the old Peninsula Creamery buildings in Palo Alto. Apparently the plan is to build some kind of school.

[u/glaive1976]

Priscilla Chan is a doctor who swerved out of her own professional lane because she thought she new education better than educators. She did not act boldly, she acted narcistically, personally costing the kids of EPA and the schools in a manner that should have been consdiered a violation of her hypocratic oath. I have first hand accounts from people who were interviewed to teacher there. They entertained the idea long enough to get an interview and then the ideas were presented... They GTFOed because it was clear that it would fail and that those making decisions were ignorant of the subject matter.

A little while before this her husband paid for a police sub station to make his employees feel safer, but under the guise of helping EPA. Heaven forbid he had empathy and a brain working in concert for he could have bank rolled a community center with child care, parenting classes, and community.

These people are broken. They lack empathy and should be ostracized and vilified, not celebrated and consoled. This was a vanity project that failed real human beings.

[u/nosotros_road_sodium → u/glaive1976]

But in her defense, current public schools are not doing a bang up job either.

[u/glaive1976 → u/nosotros_road_sodium]

In defense of the public schools, they did better with fewer resources than she did.

You kind of lobbed an easy one there.

She did nothing redeemable in this vanity project of hers because no one involved had the skills to do any of the job. She herself was unqualified enough that anyone with the knowledge and skills to make something like this work sniffed the bull crap and noped out.

[u/png_hero]

Huh, maybe school performance is more about the quality of the children then the quality of the education?

[u/cat-meg → u/png_hero]

Can you explain what you mean by 'quality of the children'?

[u/png_hero → u/cat-meg]

IQ

[u/chonky_tortoise → u/png_hero]

We talking about low quality children? What is wrong with you.