The Zuckerbergs Founded Two Bay Area Schools. Now They're Closing | Hacker News Reader

The Zuckerbergs Founded Two Bay Area Schools. Now They're Closing

nytimes.com

24 pointsKnuthIsGod33 comments

I have a whole rant on how philanthropy is a way of distracting from fundamental societal problems that ought to be handled through taxation, but I didn't expect Mark Zuckerberg to make the exact same point in quite such a heavy-handed way.

Why not?

He's signalling to the Trump regime this time. "Look I'm not woke now". All it does is make him look like an opportunist that doesn't believe in anything except money. The first mission of any Democrat government should be to break up the internet giants.

California has the highest, or nearly so, taxes in the country and is still failing these kids. How much higher do Cali taxes need to be to fix the issues that other states can do for cheaper?

There's definitely a whole other conversation to be had about which administrations are actually competent, but it's very hard to have that conversation in a two party system when the dominant conversation is still at the "Should the state even provide these services?" stage.

It's not an issue of taxation but of efficient governing. There are many examples around the world where high taxation does lead to better public services, the USA is an outlier compared to its developed peers in that.

So now the question is: what are the differences between the US's model of government to its developed peers that creates such failures in governance? It could be the lack of trust in government (which is inherent in America, it's a government for people who historically don't want to be governed); it could be a failure of the two-party system not allowing a plurality of parties to have to agree on issues, becoming a tit-for-tat power play; it could be a general misalignment between the incentives of civil servants putting forth project proposals to be worked on, and politicians to act on those projects (they can be temporarily unpopular which echoes into their party's national sentiment), creating failed projects since they can't be popular and efficient at the same time.

It's easy to blame "the government" without looking deeper into what exactly creates this malfunctioning government in the USA, for the past four decades the only solution is "make it private" and even after four decades of doing that it seems public goods and services only worsened in the USA so it's not looking like it's the solution either.

https://archive.ph/2025.04.25-115300/https://www.nytimes.com...

Regardless of political opinion, I can't get my head around how basic education and a safe space for children can be frowned upon - no matter their social circumstances, color of skin, nationality or descent.

There are some very racist and/or xenophobic people that just want to see the people that they don't like hurting.

I know some people like that.

I read that there are basically 2 types of people that voted for Trump. People who wanted him to improve the economy and people that just enjoy the cruelty.

Sounds like you should talk to some real people.

I am not here to judge who voted for Trump and why.

All I can say is that I know people that vote for extreme right wing even when those policies will make their lives more difficult, only because it will hurt people that they dislike even more.

It is a bit weird to watch happening, but it is hardly surprising that those in power will capitalize on the frustration and spite of people.

An uneducated populace is generally easier to control - the easier it is to threaten their livelihood, the harder it is for them to rise up. Further, there's a clear correlation with education and what political ideologies you're likely to vote for. And, of course, if you long for the "good old days" when society was run by white christian men, then why would you want to help anyone else?

Why would a racist care for anyone of a race they despise and vilify? Being a child has nothing to do with it. Children become adults and soak up the values around them; so if they hate the adults, of course they hate the children. Why would they want their perceived enemies to be safe and have basic education? That just gives them more resources to fight for revindication, which is a threat to the ones who hate them in the first place.

None of that is right, but it’s not difficult to understand either. Don’t try to find some complex logic behind it, the reasoning is incredibly basic.

Fair point, if hate is the ulterior motive. Do you think that hate strong enough it extends to children is widely present in the population and the public opinion?

> hate strong enough it extends to children

Eschew the thought that children are somehow special. They’re not. They’re simply a younger version of a person, not a separate being worthy of special reverence. A racist doesn’t hate another race and then hate their children on top, they just hate the race as a whole.

I don't agree. Children are special in that there are several psychological effects like baby schema, innate caregiving response, etc. which one would have to overcome. Seeing children as younger versions of adults is a very technical view which I'd be surprised if it was in any way prevalent.

You're absolutely right in that a text-book racist might not distinguish between children and adults. Imagining that this is so common it dictates decisions on this level is hard to grasp for me.

While schools were once segregated by law, today we continue to have de facto segregation that seems deliberately maintained.

> Children become adults and soak up the values around them;

If this is really what they are afraid of, wouldn't depriving them of basic education reduce the amount of common values around them and make matters worse?

Did something give you the idea that it is frowned upon? The exponential growth of homeschooling and growth of private schooling in the past 15-20 years is a direct result of government run schools failing to do just that. In spite of ever increasing spending on education.

Serious question: where is this spending going? Also other commenters mentioned the increasing public spending on schools, with failing results. I keep hearing and reading stories about teachers having to buy their own pencils or bringing some food to school... is this a similar situation like the US health insurance system?

Partly. There do seem to be a lot of administrators.

Part of it is also schools spending millions on sports facilities that only benefit a small portion of the students. 99.9% of whom will never play a team sport again after high school. My own kid’s school just did that. Meanwhile they don’t even have a pair of $200 choir mics so parents can actually hear the school choir singing in the auditorium.

The article says: "Some families wonder if the shutting of the schools is related to his D.E.I. retrenchment." My comment is directed towards: is basic education and child safety a D.E.I. matter (which in some political views are frowned upon)?

Homeschool and private schooling advocacy is driven at least as much by a desire to control curricula (usually fundamentalist christian stuff, but sometimes crunchy lefty stuff) as by a concern about the general quality of public education.

Is homeschooling really bigger than "homeschooling", like Montessori ?

Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43801082

Why are people like Suckerberg so uninterested in doing good?

Just making more money and more jachts can't make you any happier?

Honestly give money to the schools and poor and visit them once a year. Still distopian If you only do it for recognition but looking at other humans thrive TX to you has to be worth more than what they do.

And no one will remember Suck as a good person to remember for anyway

He has got to suck up to power. These tech giants look so pathetic. They could instead collude and show what power they have over the president (quite a bit really) and the good they can do to make up for their sins.

As satisfying as it can be to denigrate people by mispronouncing their name (I do it myself sometimes when talking about these people with friends), in a more public setting it's better to be polite and find ways to express your displeasure without name calling. Writing "Suckerberg" and "Suck" looks petty, not witty.

If it would be me, I would put him in prison for the damage he did with his feed.

I don't see your problem.

Opposite: let's make sure we keep disrespecting him. After all he will not get punished for his actions in our society any other way

> opened the schools to help communities of color

Farewell, racist schools. You won’t be missed.

He doesn't need to pretend to care about social issues anymore under Trump, in fact it's probably a disadvantage. It may may him look too "woke".

I'm sure if the Democrats ever get back in power, we'll see another set of schools reopening somewhere.

>> we'll see another set of schools reopening somewhere

And hopefully those schools will be public and funded by taxes on the wealthy.

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