re: Zuckerberg Gave NJ $100 Million To Fix Newark's Schools -- It Was Wasted!

$125/$150 an hour for a consultant is not at all out of the ordinary. However, some of the areas they spent money on was communications, PR, etc. That's where I see the problem.

$200 million? Save $20 million for a rainy day, $20 million on how to get teachers to work together and update their teaching skills, and spend $160 million on classroom technology AND teacher training on how to use the technology.

The high school in our area got a big grant to buy 10 iPad carts (30 student iPads per cart, plus a teacher one, all which plug in to the cart, and the cart plugs into the wall to charge them). The district / IT deleted all apps that came standard with them, and disabled wifi access. They then spent a ton of money buying new apps to load on them, all of which require wifi access to use. Further, they did not budget any money for training, so very few of the teachers know what to do with them.

Basically, they sit in a closet in the library.

Also... my wife is a great teacher with a master's degree in education... how does she get one of those consultant jobs? =)