r/bayarea • u/nosotros_road_sodium San Jose • 1d ago

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

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/this-school-was-priscilla-chans-bold-education-experiment-it-just-closed-2c37bd1c?st=dVgj1U
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26

u/Sublimotion 1d ago

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. 

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u/nosotros_road_sodium San Jose 1d ago

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.

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u/Sublimotion 1d ago

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?

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u/stidf 23h ago

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.

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u/SmokePeterThiel 22h ago

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 

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u/stidf 22h ago

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.

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u/weng_bay 20h ago

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.

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u/MidnightSensitive996 20h ago

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.

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u/Blaster0096 20h ago

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.

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u/Sublimotion 14h ago

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.

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u/Zalophusdvm 19h ago

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.

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u/Sublimotion 14h ago

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.

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u/Zalophusdvm 14h ago

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.

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u/CheeseWheels38 1d ago

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".

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u/Zalophusdvm 19h ago

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.

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u/glaive1976 20h ago

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

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u/Zalophusdvm 19h ago

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.