It’s easy to do well - but much harder to do good

For most people, several hundred million dollars a year is a significant amount of money. There are a few exceptions, of course, and Bill Gates is one of them, having spent this amount of money every year over the past ten years in an effort to improve public education. In this interview in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Gates admits that his $5 billion dollars (and counting) has been largely wasted. As he points out, US governments spend a combined $600 billion a year on education, and philanthropic giving is merely a rounding error.

The Gates Foundation has realized that the only way philanthropic organizations can be effective is to influence governments to change how they spend their money. Unfortunately, right now the foundation is hung up on another red herring - identifying exemplary teaching practices - but ultimately they too will come to realize that school choice is the way to go.

In the meantime, those people who want better schools but don’t have $35 billion to endow their own foundation would be wise to support organizations like SQE. Our DONATE button is conveniently located on the left side of your screen…

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