{"id":1845,"date":"2007-10-16T10:45:19","date_gmt":"2007-10-16T10:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2007\/10\/16\/donorschoose-better-viewing-fo\/"},"modified":"2007-10-16T10:45:19","modified_gmt":"2007-10-16T10:45:19","slug":"donorschoose-better-viewing-fo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2007\/10\/16\/donorschoose-better-viewing-fo\/","title":{"rendered":"DonorsChoose: Better Viewing for Students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Continuing the theme of highlighting the occasional particularly worthy proposal, have a look at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.donorschoose.org\/donors\/proposal.html?id=90804&#038;challengeid=17166&#038;zone=0\">&#8220;Better Viewing for Students&#8221;<\/a>, which pretty much encapsulates everything you need to know about the reasons for the fundraising drive. The proposal is asking for money to buy an overhead projector for classroom use&#8211; not a computer projector, an old-school overhead.<\/p>\n<p>Why would anybody want that? Well, there&#8217;s some educational jargon to justify it, but the real reason is here:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>What makes these needs more pressing is the fact that traditional teaching can not take place in my classroom. The blackboard is in a dilapidated state. The chalk doesn&#8217;t adhere in all areas and has profanity permanently drawn on it (when the viewing screen is in use, this is covered).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This is what teachers in poor schools (95% free lunch) are reduced to dealing with. This is also why we can&#8217;t get and keep enough good teachers. And it&#8217;s why we&#8217;re annoying you with repeated requests for cash, because this sort of thing is just pathetic.<\/p>\n<p>So, please consider donating, to this or one of the other proposals in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.donorschoose.org\/donors\/viewChallenge.html?id=17166&#038;zone=0\">my challenge entry<\/a>, or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.donorschoose.org\/donors\/leadershipboard.html?category=17&#038;zone=0\">one of the other challenges<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>You can argue that this sort of thing is inexcusable in a wealthy country, and there ought to be some sort of comprehensive reform of the educational system to prevent students and teachers from having to deal with rooms in which <strong>chalk<\/strong> doesn&#8217;t work. I&#8217;ll completely agree with you, and happily support sensible measures to improve the situation of our public schools.<\/p>\n<p>That does not, however, change the fact that there are people stuck in rooms with a sub-neolithic level of teaching technology. And they want $200 more in order to change that. So before you embark on a big ideological rant about how it&#8217;s immoral to spend tax dollars on blah, blah, blah, take a minute and give them ten bucks. You don&#8217;t have to save everyone, but a trivial amount of money can help save at least a few students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Continuing the theme of highlighting the occasional particularly worthy proposal, have a look at &#8220;Better Viewing for Students&#8221;, which pretty much encapsulates everything you need to know about the reasons for the fundraising drive. The proposal is asking for money to buy an overhead projector for classroom use&#8211; not a computer projector, an old-school overhead.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2007\/10\/16\/donorschoose-better-viewing-fo\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">DonorsChoose: Better Viewing for Students<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donorschoose_fundraiser","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}