The right way to fund national needs is taxation. If the process is depending on charitable funding, the funds should be put into a safe harbour so this kind of "yea... nah" outcome can't happen.
The reason for the cessation in funding is because of recent political changes. Incidentally those recent political changes also led to a cessation in government charitable donations. I don't think we can claim that either is strictly more reliable than the other. I'm surprised at how readily people will support government intervention while bearing in mind which government would currently be implementing said intervention.
> reason for the cessation in funding is because of recent political changes
The reason is Zuckerberg and Chan have no backbone. These are individuals who command the resources of small nations. Yet their insecurities win out every time, rendering them powerless to take a stand on anything and instead wander to the beats of others’ drums.
the difference is that one is from elected officials (however flawed, clearly, there is some measure of representing the people's interests in theory at least), and the other is just an individual's decision, not even pretense of representing the people's opinion
Governments have a degree of democratic accountability - the current US government could be kicked out or not in 4 years depending on the will of the people.
Billionaires paying very little tax are forever ( certainly more than a lifetime as the wealth is handed down over generations ).
That or reform charitable giving so that it truly is an arm's length transaction. No preferential tax treatment for payments to charities one controls.
The article heavily implies that it was a “yeah…nah” thing but does very little investigative work that could corroborate their anonymous witnesses. For all we know, there was a school shooting or a spate of suicides in which case I think everyone here would agree with closing it.
Also I’m not from the area but how are disadvantaged youth coming from Palo Alto at all? Isn’t it one of the highest CoL areas in the nation? Also isn’t it pretty crime-free and well-maintained? How disadvantaged can you be if that’s where you live?
On your first part I'd do exactly the opposite so please don't speak for me...
Given the fact that the number 1 cause in the USA for "unnatural" deaths of school age individuals is now shootings (not cars like in other developed countries) I feel like the expression "when the game gets tough the tough get going should apply. Personally I feel like it's the bil(mil)lionaires new "game" of getting the credit but not doing the commitment.
On the second part {speculation} Because maybe not so rich people lived there before the area became so expensive or moved there for job opportunity + safe place to raise kids ?
If you do a quick Google / chatgpt you'll see that the cost of living compared to median income is extremely bad...
So not the worst place but certainly not the best...
Their social funding was just creative accounting that moved money so it couldn't be taxed, but still gave them full control and then never did deliver anything.
>The right way to fund national needs is taxation.
No absolutes. Sometimes this is true, sometimes not. It feels great, amazing, to give back, to change someone's life with your money. It can feel even better for some people, to give back, to change someone's life, with your NEIGHBOR's money. So you can get people whose existence is to enforce that their neighbor, Peter, shall pay their other neighbor, Paul, and have Paul give them a solid pat on the back for doing them a solid. Peter is unhappy about it. Thusly is the cornerstone of politics.
Sometimes this thinking makes sense, sometimes not, usually not in the extremes, of which such people exist.
Is there evidence that this is the right way? Because it seems to be far less efficient than other ways if funding charitable causes directly by a significant margin.
Likewise, is there evidence for this? Maybe our most "effective" altruism is in fact to pay taxes in a liberal democracy after all.
Painting with a very broad brush, the US is the most charitable country in the world, yet we lag behind many other countries according to various measures of human welfare.
Is it clear the charity approach is more efficient? My sense is many non-profits prioritize fundraising and have the bloat of executives who's main function is to schmooze donors.
I'm sure there are good nonprofits/charities. And there's definitely inefficient public offices that are mainly interested in politics.
My point is "seems less efficient" is kind of weak ground to be asking others for evidence
Charity is essentially voluntary. So, in terms of persistence to need, it's highly variable. Some problems demand commitment which charities cannot commit to.
Charity incurs oversight burdens. The UK has a long story about failures in charity, the charity commissioner has had to intercede many times. It would be wrong to assume there are no oversight costs, the thing is that to the charity they may look like externalities. They have to be borne, the state bears the cost.
Charities also usually cannot intercede politically to fix the situation demanding their charitable work. So, charities are excluded from lobbying in some ways, where governments reflect the will of the people and are subject to both good and band consequences.
Charities are abused. Churches for instance. Why do churches qualify for charitable status, when they (in most economies where they are or have been) are established entities with massive landholdings and wealth?
In the end, it's a matter of philosophy. Without being patronising, I tend to think right wing people who believe in personal responsibility and low taxes favour charity because it gives them discretion, to give or not, as a function of how they feel about the recipient, and left wing people who believe in the state as a construct reflecting popular will believe in state functions to implement the burdens individuals cannot manage for themselves.
I say that because my very good friends who donate highly tend to be right wing and tend to make moralising statements about diabetes being a function of a lack of personal self control and so do not fund interventions to prevent diabetes in the working poor because "they lack self control" and also chose not to fund womens reproductive rights on similar grounds "chastity is its own reward" -Bill and Melinda Gates were exceptional in ignoring the fundamentalist christian lobby which came into the room in the Reagan "just say no" years, and funded contraception and abortion in Africa regardless.
In the 1950s, we taxed income over $400,000 at somewhere around 90%. Anything you made less than that was taxed much less, but every dollar above $400,000 the government took most of it, which effectively put a cap on wages.
Won't be popular on HN, I think we need to move closer to that again. Maybe not that extreme, but that's the proper direction. We can then use that income to tackle big problems.
We also need to tax interest, capital gains, dividends etc. at the same rate as wages.
But would higher taxes nationally result in better funding for education? We are in a climate where coming to a agreement on what is acceptable in classrooms nationwide seems to be impossible.
Of course, this won't be popular on the HN crowd, but I'll say it anyway: What we need is securities tax.
Absolutely any conversion, collateral, or divestiture of securities need to be taxed at the rate of those securities at that time. A lot of plutocrats are playing the system by just basing their loans and the collaterals thereof, and their payments for things, on stocks and securities because they are "unrealized gains".
If securities are enough of a bearer instrument to give loaners confidence for otherwise no-collateral loans, they're enough of a realized gain to be taxed when you use them for a purchase - or alongside one.
It was part "decadence", part practical. The tax code in the past was gamified to promote philanthropy (or at least erect buildings with your name on them), rather than simply not paying.
Perhaps tax code can gamify building more funding/naming more schools so Chan can keep throwing money at education. At this point probably easier to appeal to 0.01% vanity/legacy than properly tax them.
>It didn’t have the special education system or disciplinary rules that are required of charter schools, the former administrator said. But students wore recording devices dubbed “speech pedometers” so that software could analyze the speech patterns of children and the adults around them. The technology was designed by a nonprofit to encourage staffers to talk more with students in ways that studies suggest encourage brain and language development.
>“It was beyond naivete,” the former administrator said. “It was hubris.”
What the heck?
Education is hard, and it's surprising how much "gee whizz" type tech / ideas are out there that supposedly fix things like a magic wand. And in the meantime, no disciplinary rules?
Maybe I'm getting old but I don't remember education being seriously broken when I was growing up. It seems to have become a playground of random new ideas that administrators in offices dream up every year. I've heard some crazy stories from family who works in education where this sort of thing wouldn't stand out.
Cracks show up when viewed from a lens of "wait...was that domination-oriented, dualistic, whitewashed, imperialistic, nationalistic, colonial indoctrination in the form of education?".
when I was making some money finally I could afford to pay for my siblings college.
I told them since the beginning: I'm doing my best, I cannot be sure to be able to pay it until the end. do your best and figure out how to help of I need you.
fortunately I was able to pay all of them until the end. but the lesson is: thank the supporters, hope for the best but understand the uncertainty
As a parent, I can't imagine the chaos that ensues when your kid's school ceases to exist overnight. Keeping that school running is less than pocket change to them. I feel like their action is morally quite shameful.
It is really weird and pathetic to call them shameful. If after all that money and effort, all they get is condemnation driven by entitlement then they shouldnt have done it at all. The school should have gone out of its way to show good outcomes and attract more donors.
Even if this initiative was driven by the state what is to say that it would have been 100% guaranteed to continue? States also run out of money and resources.
> CZI has promised a parting gift totaling $50 million to the community. Parents were told students will receive $1,000 to $10,000 for their future education based on age, and the school district received $26.5 million in grant funds last month. The district declined to comment for this article.
And after the end of the 2025-2026 school year is far from overnight.
Yeah, you’re talking about money, but the important thing for a kid is losing their entire context. It feels like being fired, but without understanding why. Money is entirely beside the point.
It's still a very bad situation to abruptly need to find a new school, even if you get a pathetic $1000 coupon for a school which costs much more than that.
Readit News
The reason is Zuckerberg and Chan have no backbone. These are individuals who command the resources of small nations. Yet their insecurities win out every time, rendering them powerless to take a stand on anything and instead wander to the beats of others’ drums.
In the article it was schools that were defunded. Does the government have a history of consistently funding schools?
Billionaires paying very little tax are forever ( certainly more than a lifetime as the wealth is handed down over generations ).
Also I’m not from the area but how are disadvantaged youth coming from Palo Alto at all? Isn’t it one of the highest CoL areas in the nation? Also isn’t it pretty crime-free and well-maintained? How disadvantaged can you be if that’s where you live?
On the second part {speculation} Because maybe not so rich people lived there before the area became so expensive or moved there for job opportunity + safe place to raise kids ?
If you do a quick Google / chatgpt you'll see that the cost of living compared to median income is extremely bad... So not the worst place but certainly not the best...
No absolutes. Sometimes this is true, sometimes not. It feels great, amazing, to give back, to change someone's life with your money. It can feel even better for some people, to give back, to change someone's life, with your NEIGHBOR's money. So you can get people whose existence is to enforce that their neighbor, Peter, shall pay their other neighbor, Paul, and have Paul give them a solid pat on the back for doing them a solid. Peter is unhappy about it. Thusly is the cornerstone of politics.
Sometimes this thinking makes sense, sometimes not, usually not in the extremes, of which such people exist.
Painting with a very broad brush, the US is the most charitable country in the world, yet we lag behind many other countries according to various measures of human welfare.
I'm sure there are good nonprofits/charities. And there's definitely inefficient public offices that are mainly interested in politics.
My point is "seems less efficient" is kind of weak ground to be asking others for evidence
Charity incurs oversight burdens. The UK has a long story about failures in charity, the charity commissioner has had to intercede many times. It would be wrong to assume there are no oversight costs, the thing is that to the charity they may look like externalities. They have to be borne, the state bears the cost.
Charities also usually cannot intercede politically to fix the situation demanding their charitable work. So, charities are excluded from lobbying in some ways, where governments reflect the will of the people and are subject to both good and band consequences.
Charities are abused. Churches for instance. Why do churches qualify for charitable status, when they (in most economies where they are or have been) are established entities with massive landholdings and wealth?
In the end, it's a matter of philosophy. Without being patronising, I tend to think right wing people who believe in personal responsibility and low taxes favour charity because it gives them discretion, to give or not, as a function of how they feel about the recipient, and left wing people who believe in the state as a construct reflecting popular will believe in state functions to implement the burdens individuals cannot manage for themselves.
I say that because my very good friends who donate highly tend to be right wing and tend to make moralising statements about diabetes being a function of a lack of personal self control and so do not fund interventions to prevent diabetes in the working poor because "they lack self control" and also chose not to fund womens reproductive rights on similar grounds "chastity is its own reward" -Bill and Melinda Gates were exceptional in ignoring the fundamentalist christian lobby which came into the room in the Reagan "just say no" years, and funded contraception and abortion in Africa regardless.
What is a "National Need".
Won't be popular on HN, I think we need to move closer to that again. Maybe not that extreme, but that's the proper direction. We can then use that income to tackle big problems.
We also need to tax interest, capital gains, dividends etc. at the same rate as wages.
How about we first bring back pensions and 30 year jobs before we try and fix that?
> We also need to tax interest, capital gains, dividends etc. at the same rate as wages.
"We" can tax every breath of every person alive but we are not going back to 50s for sure.
Absolutely any conversion, collateral, or divestiture of securities need to be taxed at the rate of those securities at that time. A lot of plutocrats are playing the system by just basing their loans and the collaterals thereof, and their payments for things, on stocks and securities because they are "unrealized gains".
If securities are enough of a bearer instrument to give loaners confidence for otherwise no-collateral loans, they're enough of a realized gain to be taxed when you use them for a purchase - or alongside one.
At least have the gilded age decadency deceny to build some muesums.
If Chan's experiment isn't working, why would we expect her to keep funding it?
The part at the end about it taking 20 years or whatever makes no sense, a child is not in school for 20 years.
>“It was beyond naivete,” the former administrator said. “It was hubris.”
What the heck?
Education is hard, and it's surprising how much "gee whizz" type tech / ideas are out there that supposedly fix things like a magic wand. And in the meantime, no disciplinary rules?
I told them since the beginning: I'm doing my best, I cannot be sure to be able to pay it until the end. do your best and figure out how to help of I need you.
fortunately I was able to pay all of them until the end. but the lesson is: thank the supporters, hope for the best but understand the uncertainty
Even if this initiative was driven by the state what is to say that it would have been 100% guaranteed to continue? States also run out of money and resources.
> CZI has promised a parting gift totaling $50 million to the community. Parents were told students will receive $1,000 to $10,000 for their future education based on age, and the school district received $26.5 million in grant funds last month. The district declined to comment for this article.
And after the end of the 2025-2026 school year is far from overnight.
It's still a very bad situation to abruptly need to find a new school, even if you get a pathetic $1000 coupon for a school which costs much more than that.
A tuition-free school created by Zuckerberg and Chan will shutter next year
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801082