CURMUDGUCATION: The Charter Bond Time Bomb

CURMUDGUCATION: The Charter Bond Time Bomb:
The Charter Bond Time Bomb

Inspired by the stunning NEPC report on just how deeply and thoroughly charter schools are used as a mechanism for sucking public tax dollars into private pockets, I've been trying to read up on this stuff, in particular by looking through the work of one of the reports co-authors, Bruce Baker (Rutgers University). Baker operates the blog School Finance 101, and it's an excellent resource for those trying to make sense out of the arcane world of, well, school finance.

I'm dipping into Baker's work to lay out one simple progression that takes charters from vexing to terrifying in just a few steps of property acquisition, in the process setting a ticking time bomb. I'm going to try to lay this out in my own words, mainly as an exercise for myself (one of my personal and professional principles of learning is this: want to really understand something? try to write about it), but I recommend you follow the links and read the full originals. (Also, any mistakes in what follows are mine, not Baker's).

STEP ONE: Double Purchase and Zero Ownership

In this piece, Baker explains how the taxpayer buys the same property twice, and ends up with no control over it. Here's how I think it works.

I buy a house. Well, I take out a mortgage on the house. But now I'm on the hook financially for the house. I make my payments. I may even pay it off.

Then Chris comes along and proposes to buy the house from me. And Chris's proposal is that I take CURMUDGUCATION: The Charter Bond Time Bomb:

NCLB Revisionism

Well, that didn't take long.

Some folks are already getting misty-eyed over the halcyon days of No Child Left Behind and grumbling about what has been lost in the newly-minted Every Student Succeeds Or Else Act. The problem with getting misty-eyed is that it seriously impairs your vision.

Take Chad Aldeman (Bellwether Education Partners) in yesterday's Washington Post, who wants us to know what wonderful things we've lost now that No Child Left Behind has been left behind.

In Aldeman's story, NCLB put pressure on schools to improve, and the more pressure it created, the more people fought back.

Over time, as expectations rose, so too did the number of schools failing to meet them. At the law’s peak, more than 19,000 schools — about two-fifths of schools receiving federal funds and one-fifth of all public schools nationally — were placed on lists of schools “in need of improvement” and subject to consequences built into the law...

As the law aged and those consequences rose, it became less and less politically acceptable to tell so many schools to improve, let alone expect states or districts to have the technical capacity to help them do it. 

What Aldeman fails to mention is that the increased failure rate was directly related to NCLB's NCLB Revisionism

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Donna More is more of the same -- if not worse

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Donna More is more of the same -- if not worse:

Donna More is more of the same -- if not worse

As readers know, I support Kim Foxx in her effort to unseat discredited Cook County State's Atty. Anita Alvarez, who covered up the Laquan McDonald murder. But Foxx is not the only one running. There's also Donna More.

I actually think More, who claims to be a "progressive Democrat," would be More of the same -- if not worse than Alvarez.

I mean, what kind of progressive Democrat makes big contributions to Bruce Rauner's and Eric Cantor's campaign war chests? More, whose family wealth alone could transform her into a contender, has also given money to Republican Senator Peter Fitzgerald and the disgraced John Ensign. In fact, all of her federal giving history has been to Republicans. 

Friday, More lifted the cap on donations to candidates in the primary race by handing herself a $250,000 contribution (Sun-Times).

More is also a big Rahm Emanuel supporter. She donated heavily to Rahm's campaigns, thinks he should remain in office, and defends him in the video cover-up scandal.

More is a throwback to the Jon Burge era. She was a deputy prosecutor under former Mayor Daley, when he was the State's Attorney. While she denies any Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Donna More is more of the same -- if not worse:

Can a Supreme Court justice be forcibly removed from the bench? A quick civics lesson. - The Washington Post

Can a Supreme Court justice be forcibly removed from the bench? A quick civics lesson. - The Washington Post:
Can a Supreme Court justice be forcibly removed from the bench? A quick civics lesson.

There he went again.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, whom my Washington Post colleague Robert Barnes called “the reigning champion of provocation at the high court,” just stirred up another controversy with comments about why African Americans might be better off if they are not accepted into top colleges and universities but rather to “slower-track” schools where “they do well.”

Scalia made the comments during a court hearing in a case challenging the race-conscious admissions plan at the University of Texas at Austin. You can read the transcript here, but suffice here to say that  they were labeled downright racist by critics and simply wrong by the more generous.

Not surprisingly, there are new calls for Scalia to leave the court, including a petition on Change.org. Given that Supreme Court justices are appointed for life, is it possible for them to be forced off the bench if they don’t want to go?

Yes — but it’s a most highly unlikely prospect.

The Constitution grants Supreme Court justices a lifetime appointment if they choose to stay by not specifying a time or age limit of service.  The purpose of a lifetime appointment was to give them freedom to make decisions without interference from the executive or legislative branches of government. But the Constitution leaves open the possibility of impeachment and removal by Congress. In U.S. history, one justice was impeached, but not convicted, and one justice resigned under the threat of impeachment.

Section 1 of Article 3 of the Constitution says:

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services a Compensation which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

The single justice impeached but subsequently not forced out was Samuel Chase, a longtime Maryland legislator who was appointed to the court as an associate justice by President George Washington on Jan.  26, 1796, and who served there until his death on June 19, 1811.

In 1804, eight articles of impeachment accused him of allowing his political views to interfere with his decisions.  This description of  events comes from the U.S. Senate’s website:

Samuel Chase had served on the Supreme Court since 1796. A staunch Federalist with a volcanic personality, Chase showed no willingness to tone down his bitter partisan rhetoric after Jeffersonian Republicans gained control of Congress in 1801. Representative John Randolph of Virginia, at the urging of President Thomas Jefferson, orchestrated impeachment proceedings against Chase, declaring he would wipe the floor with the obnoxious justice. The House voted to impeach Chase on 

Can a Supreme Court justice be forcibly removed from the bench? A quick civics lesson. - The Washington Post:

What Scalia’s controversial remarks about African Americans expose about U.S. higher education - The Washington Post

What Scalia’s controversial remarks about African Americans expose about U.S. higher education - The Washington Post:

What Scalia’s controversial remarks about African Americans expose about U.S. higher education

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia just stirred up another controversy with comments about why African Americans might be better off if they are not accepted into top colleges and universities but rather to “slower-track” schools.” Scalia made the comments during a court hearing in a case challenging the race-conscious admissions plan at the University of Texas at Austin. He said in part:

“There are — there are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to — to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having slower-track school where they do well. One of — one of the briefs pointed out that — that most of the — most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas….

“They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re – that they’re being pushed ahead in — in classes that are too — too fast for them….

“I’m just not impressed by the fact that — that the University of Texas may have fewer. Maybe it ought to have fewer. And maybe some — you know, when you take more, the number of blacks, really competent blacks admitted to lesser schools, turns out to be less. And — and I — I don’t think it — it — it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible.”

Scalia’s comments have been slammed by critics as being racist — and defended, too, by conservatives — but less attention has been paid to the following argument: They expose a problem within higher education itself.  Here is a post on that issue, written by Paul Thoma, an associate professor of education at Furman University in South Carolina. This appeared on his blog, where you can find the complete version, and I am republishing it with permission.

[Read the most controversial statement by Scalia on college admissions and race]

By Paul Thomas

There is a story that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is inadvertently exposing: the negligence of higher education to teach the students who walk the halls and sit in the classrooms after being admitted.

First, let me pull away from that specific claim to a broader pet peeve of mine: remediation.

Throughout formal education at every level from pre-K through undergraduate (and even graduate) education, students are commonly labeled as remedial (a designation that suggests the students are not at the proper level for the course they are taking) and thus need some additional services.

This is total hogwash. All students are remedial, and no students are remedial. You see, the essential role of a teacher and formal education is to identify what knowledge and skills students have as well as what knowledge and skills students lack (or need developing), and then to teach those students in that context.

So let’s return to higher education in the United States—where attending college is not a basic right and is often a tremendous burden on students and their families.

A significant number of students are admitted to colleges and universities for the benefit of the institution (full-pay students and athletes, as the most 

L.A. school official criticizes and seeks to limit leaks about superintendent search - LA Times

L.A. school official criticizes and seeks to limit leaks about superintendent search - LA Times:

L.A. school official criticizes and seeks to limit leaks about superintendent search

 important drama involving the Los Angeles Board of Education -- selecting its schools chief -- is playing out in private, and officials this week said they are determined to keep it that way, even though some details are getting out.

Exactly nine district people know precisely which individuals are being considered for the job, according to L.A. school board President Steve Zimmer and others, and he, for one, seems confident that they are keeping mum.

Despite this pact of secrecy, word has spread about some people being considered. They include San Francisco Supt. Richard Carranza, L.A. Unified Deputy Supt. Michelle King and Fremont Unified Supt. Jim Morris, who formerly worked for L.A. Unified.

These three and all others contacted by The Times have declined to be interviewed.

The problem for school board members is that no matter how diligently they try to close the circle, there are documents visible to others, travel arrangements to be made and astute observers in other places and even other cities. And friends, colleagues and family members in L.A. Unified or other districts are under no vow of silence.

The issue matters to board members because they want applicants to aspire to the L.A. job without putting their current position at risk.

“The purpose of conducting a confidential search was to ensure the best possible candidates could apply to lead what we believe to be the most important school district in the nation,” Zimmer said in astatement after The Times revealed some of those under consideration.

In an interview, Zimmer said he wants applicants to know that people involved in the selection process had nothing to do with the leaks.

“People need to know that they can trust us,” said Zimmer.

The nine district people in the know are the seven school board members, district general counsel David Holmquist and board executive officer Jefferson Crain. Also participating is lead search-firm consultant Hank Gmitro.

Managing confidential matters is a regular part of the job for Holmquist and for Crain, who handles documents, meeting schedules and legal compliance for the board.

Current L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who plans to retire this month, said he lacks complete knowledge about potential candidates and has tried L.A. school official criticizes and seeks to limit leaks about superintendent search - LA Times:

Detroit school 'sickouts' measure system's dysfunction

Detroit school 'sickouts' measure system's dysfunction:
Detroit school 'sickouts' measure system's dysfunction

If there's any measure of just how bad things are in Detroit Public Schools, it's surely a series of "sickouts" — a coordinated mass absence under the guise of sick leave — which  forced seven schools to close Thursday.

Think about that for a minute: Seven schools closed without warning, not because of hazardous weather or some other unavoidable cause, but because tensions between the school district and the teachers it employs are so high.

Seven schools, where 3,989 students expect to learn. Nearly four thousand students, whose parents have jobs, family obligations or other responsibilities, and whose lives are structured around the school day. Thousands of parents, in a city with a 38% poverty rate, in a school district in which 81% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch — and that means parents with jobs less likely to offer paid time off, or the kind of flexibility that allows easy accommodation of an unexpected school closing.

DETROIT FREE PRESS

DPS teacher sick-out forces schools to close

At the same time, it's easy to understand teachers' frustrations.  The district's decline has been well-chronicled, and during the last 15 years of state oversight, its prospects have not improved. Gov. Rick Snyder has proposed a plan to split the district in two, stashing its burdensome debt, its operating millage and its elected school board with DPS, and creating a new district to educate kids, funded by the state-distributed per-pupil allowance and an additional appropriation to compensate for the loss of millage-generated dollars. There is no certainty that this plan will remedy the district's financial, much less academic, failings. And yet it is the only DPS reform plan that's even theoretically viable.

Sickout teachers are rumored to be those allied with former Detroit Federation of Teachers president Steve Conn, ousted by the union's executive board in August. Conn won his post pledging to fight the state's reform efforts and lost it because he violated the union's bylaws and was working to ally the union with the social justice justice group By Any Means Necessary, among other charges. Conn had the support of hundreds of DFT members and still commands respect from many.

And how can you reasonably ask teachers who have taught through DPS's decline — who have, over the last five years, seen four emergency managers try and fail to improve the district's finances  and by extension, teachers' ability to provide the same quality and quantity of textbooks, classroom materials, instructional aides and sheer manpower that students in wealthier districts enjoy — to have faith in yet another reform plan?

Teachers have seen layoffs and pay and benefit cuts and rightly fear that there is more pain ahead.

And yet it is hard to understand what end a sickout serves. The protesting teachers haven’t articulated any immediate goals or immediately actionable requests.

It's the second this month. The first, on Dec. 2, closed three schools. This time, emergency manager Darnell Earley is promising retribution, warning that the district can review sick-leave abuses and that any teacher connected to the sick-out would be "subject to a review" and "appropriate discipline."

DETROIT FREE PRESS

National union to run Detroit teachers' local

It is a snapshot of the DPS status quo, and I can't imagine Detroit school 'sickouts' measure system's dysfunction:

Los Angeles, Oakland Engaged in Broad Charter School War | The California Report | KQED News

Los Angeles, Oakland Engaged in New Charter School War | The California Report | KQED News:
Los Angeles, Oakland Engaged in Broad Charter School War

There’s a new push in the Los Angeles and Oakland public school systems to give charter schools more access to district students — pitting public school advocates against self-described education reformers.

In Los Angeles, the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, backed by wealthy charter school advocates, confirmed a massive plan last month that would double the number of charter schools in the city over the next eight years.

Charters are publicly funded but independently operated, meaning they do not have to follow all the rules and regulations that govern traditional schools.

Los Angeles already has more charter schools than most cities in California.

“When you have more charters, the performance of the school district actually improves,” says Gregory McGinity, executive director of the Broad Foundation.

The notion that charters improve a district’s performance is still up for debate, but the idea of getting Los Angeles Unified School District’s support to enroll more than half of the district’s 1 million students in charter schools would certainly reshape the country’s second-largest school system.

“If we’re going to make sure that every child has access to a high-quality school, we have to do it together,” McGinity says.

L.A. school district officials are fighting back, and many parents believe creating more charters is not the answer because these schools do not guarantee student success.

“It takes something more than that,” says Rob McGowen, a parent organizer for African-American families in South L.A. “It takes a belief that a black child is a human being and is capable.”

Meanwhile, in the Oakland Unified School District, many parents are opposing a controversial plan that would change the district’s enrollment process so families could put in for district and charter schools with one application.

Oakland also has one of the highest concentrations of charter schools in the state, and the district would be the first in California to take on this reform.

Critics are slamming the plan, saying Oakland Unified should be doing all it can to keep students in district schools.

“We have no right to be the innovators of enrollment when we can’t get the basics right,” says Oakland school board member Roseann Torres. “First we start with our own. Then we can invite others.”

Torres and other critics also say the plan would leave the district with fewer resources to serve students with learning disabilities and behavioral problems.

Charter school advocates, however, say the enrollment proposal would help all families find the best school.Los Angeles, Oakland Engaged in New Charter School War | The California Report | KQED News:

Recommended school reforms mark shift in attitudes about learning standards - City & Region - The Buffalo News

Recommended school reforms mark shift in attitudes about learning standards - City & Region - The Buffalo News:

Recommended school reforms mark shift in attitudes about learning standards

You can add education reform to the list of life’s certainties, like death and taxes.

But what the latest reform might mean for New York classrooms is still being settled.

There are many questions, a day after Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s task force on the Common Core recommended sweeping reforms, including changes to the tests and how they are used to evaluate teachers.

The 55-page task force report was released the same day President Obama signed legislation rolling back many of the mandates in the No Child Left Behind Act. The news of the state and national policy shifts on education has parents and educators feeling hopeful the changes they have been demanding will be made.

The federal legislation, the Every Student Succeeds Act, returns to states many of the decisions on educating children that the No Child Left Behind Act had given the federal government, like teacher evaluations and student assessments.

The recommendations from Cuomo’s Common Core Task Force will not happen immediately. If they are approved, they may be years in the making and must be acted upon by the state Education Department first. But the recommendations reflect a sea change in attitudes about learning standards.

And the recommendations give added momentum to the state Education Department’s comprehensive review of the Common Core learning standards, which began in October.

If and when all recommendations are accepted, a review panel will meet and decide what standards are kept, and a time line will have to be put together for when changes go in place, said Anne Botticelli, chief academic officer for Buffalo Public Schools.

“It’s hard to answer some of those questions. The state will come back and give us a directive,” Recommended school reforms mark shift in attitudes about learning standards - City & Region - The Buffalo News:

How Congress finally killed No Child Left Behind - POLITICO

How Congress finally killed No Child Left Behind - POLITICO:

How Congress finally killed No Child Left Behind

‘I said, “We’ve got a bill for you,” ’ Sen. Lamar Alexander told Speaker Paul Ryan.

House Speaker Paul Ryan holds a bipartisan, bicameral enrollment ceremony for the Every Student Succeeds Act on Thursday at the U.S. Capitol. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO

Speaker John Boehner's September announcement about leaving Congress was a shock to lawmakers who had been deep in painstaking negotiations for months on a bill to replace No Child Left Behind, which President Barack Obama signed into law this week. Getting a new federal education law was hard enough, given the many warring constituencies involved. With the exit of the speaker — a key supporter — lawmakers' plans were again jeopardized.

But then came Paul Ryan.

The new speaker wanted to bring more old-fashioned legislating to the House. So Sen. Lamar Alexander, an old-fashioned lawmaker, sat next to Ryan during a visit to the senators' weekly Tuesday lunch, just days after Ryan was sworn in. He pitched him on the bill, which would replace the central federal law governing public schools.

“I said, ‘We’ve got a bill for you,’” said Alexander, chairman of the Senate education committee. “Here’s an opportunity for you to do something big and bipartisan and successful — and do it in regular order.”

Rep. John Kline, education chairman in the House, also spoke with Ryan about the merits of the bill — which had drawn major opposition from the same conservatives who had pushed Boehner to resign. Weeks earlier, friends Ryan and Kline had each been trying to edge the other toward taking the speaker’s gavel. Now, Ryan agreed to support Kline’s bill. They’d bring it to the House floor for a vote soon, when Ryan was still new to the speakership and the bill could arguably pass off as part of Boehner’s legacy, according to Alexander.

The No Child Left Behind bill, momentarily lost in the scramble, was charging forward again.

The uncertainty in Alexander’s parlance had looked like yet another alligator that was “lurking at every corner” for the education bill over the course of 2015. There were many: opposition from House conservatives that led leadership to pull an earlier version of the bill from the House floor; union-backed calls for less testing that could have killed support from the Obama administration; a three-hour break from Senate debate to settle a dispute between Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) over school funding that could have sunk a Senate vote on the bill. At the same time, constituents and teachers unions were increasingly frustrated with the state of federal education policy, as evidenced by massive protests against testing and the Common Core across the country.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/paul-ryan-congress-no-child-left-behind-216696#ixzz3u7eyyj5Z

How the Friedrichs v. Calif. Teachers Association SCOTUS Case Could Actually Be a Boon for Unions - Working In These Times

How the Friedrichs v. Calif. Teachers Association SCOTUS Case Could Actually Be a Boon for Unions - Working In These Times:

How the Friedrichs v. Calif. Teachers Association SCOTUS Case Could Actually Be a Boon for Unions

Works Progress Administration workers march after losing their jobs in 1937. (Library of Congress)  

As unions file their legal briefs in the epic Friedrichs vs. CTA anti-union Supreme Court case, one clever legal scholar argues that Friedrichs is “an unexpected tool for labor.”

University of Chicago Teaching Fellow Heather Whitney’s forthcoming paper in the NYU Journal of Law and Liberty makes a compelling case that an adverse decision in Friedrichs would hand unions a first amendment argument to refuse to represent non-members. And, as I have argued, that is a roadmap to union competition at workplaces, competing demands on individual employers and the end of contractual no-strike agreements.

Chaos, in other words—and just the sort of chaos that this attack on unions deserves in response.

Friedrichs and labor’s response

The First Amendment is at the heart of the Friedrichs case. It is a right-wing argument that public sector employers (in other words, the government) violate individuals’ First amendment rights by compelling employees, through contracts negotiated with unions, to pay a fee to a union. Currently, unions that are certified to represent a group of employees in a bargaining unit are legally compelled to represent all of the employees in that unit. That means not just bargaining on their behalf, but expending significant resources on grievances, meetings, communications and everything else that goes into running a union.

But union membership, including the payment of dues, is completely voluntary. That’s why unions negotiate agency fees into contracts. These fees are calculated through complicated formulas to only represent the true cost of bargaining representation. Agency fees do not pay for things like political activity (unions usually have separate voluntary political funds.

But the Friedrichs case argues that any interaction that a union has with the government, including bargaining, is inherently political. Agency fees, therefore, are compelled political activity.

This ridiculous argument is only before the Supreme Court now because Justice Samuel Alito inserted the issue into last year’s otherwise unrelated Harris Vs. Quinn case. That case was only a partial defeat for unions, as Alito lacked the fifth vote to totally do away with agency fee in the public sector. In his written decision, Alito basically solicited for someone to bring a How the Friedrichs v. Calif. Teachers Association SCOTUS Case Could Actually Be a Boon for Unions - Working In These Times:

When charter schools close, millions of state dollars vanish with them

Palm Beach County charter schools' $9 million bill | www.mypalmbeachpost.com:

When charter schools close, millions of state dollars vanish with them

BOYNTON BEACH —

When Charter School of Boynton Beach decided in 2010 to build its own campus in a corporate park, Florida taxpayers pitched in big time.

A special state program gave the privately run school hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to help pay off its construction costs.

But poor student performance forced the charter school to close four years later, and the state’s investment — totaling $1.7 million over the years — vanished with it. The Boynton Beach campus is now in foreclosure proceedings initiated by bondholders, with a foreclosure sale scheduled in January.

The school’s case hardly is isolated. Since 2001, a state program designed to help charter schools pay for classroom space and equipment has given more than $9 million to Palm Beach County charters that later shut down, state records show.

Statewide, the amount given to now-shuttered charters through the state program totals about $70 million, an Associated Press investigation shows.

ery little of that public money is ever recovered by the public schools, educators say. More often, the benefits end up going to private property owners or lenders.

The figures — compiled by the Florida Associated Press as part of a yearlong AP Managing Editors project examining national construction issues — underscore the complications involved in subsidizing charter schools, which are publicly financed but privately run.

Over the years, records show at least 21 charters in Palm Beach County have closed after pulling in money from the state’s program, called the Charter School Capital Outlay program.

Dolphins tickets

and principal’s car

Charter School of Boynton Beach took in more money than any other now-shuttered school. But records show plenty of others raked in six-figure subsidies before closing.

Among the top earners were the twin Survivors Charter School campuses, which ran up a list of questionable expenses before they were shut down by the Palm Beach County School Board in 2006.

Together, the two schools earned $2.4 million in state subsidies over five years. Before being closed by the School Board, auditors found that the schools spent money on Dolphins tickets and on payments for a principal’s BMW. Also, the schools transferred thousands of dollars to a private account.

Other former schools that raked in subsidies before closing included the Life Skill Center of Palm Beach ($934,000) and Joseph Littles-Nguzo Saba Charter School in West Palm Beach ($746,000).

Most charter schools that have been open for at least three years and don’t have low ratings qualify to bring in money through the state’s program, educators say.

Sometimes, charters use the money to buy equipment or supplies, such as computers, furniture or overhead projectors. More often, it is used to cover rent or pay off mortgages or construction loans.

That makes it difficult for the county school district to recover the public investment when a charter school closes.

“If that money has been used toward paying a lease, it’s almost like it disappeared,” said Jim Pegg, director of the Palm Beach County Palm Beach County charter schools' $9 million bill | www.mypalmbeachpost.com:

4 lessons Mark Zuckerberg should learn from Gates Foundation

4 lessons Mark Zuckerberg should learn from Gates Foundation:

4 lessons Mark Zuckerberg should learn from Gates Foundation

When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, recently announced that they would donate shares presently worth about $45 billion to good works, they understandably looked for inspiration to the world’s undisputed philanthropy leaders — Bill and Melinda Gates, whose foundation is by far the world’s largest.

Here are some lessons the Gateses could offer on global health and life-science philanthropy, but probably won’t:

Beware of world domination

Big money can crowd out other ideas, and mega-benefactors can do harm, as well as good, when they substitute for societies in taking the lead in solving their own problems.

Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Laurie Garrett estimated in 2012 that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation underwrote 68 percent of all private giving for global health. Gates money has driven away hundreds of smaller donors, she said, because the long Gates shadow blocks the warmth of public appreciation for these others.

Read more: After Zuckerberg’s big bet, big names in science see hope and reason for caution

“More and more is decided in Seattle about what everyone else does,” Garrett said in an interview.

In 2014, Gates gave the World Health Organization $257 million, more than all nations except the United States. Excluding the nine largest national donors, Gates gave more to WHO than all remaining nations combined.

“That scares me,” Garrett said. “It means that a lot of countries are getting away with being free riders, and are not as engaged as they should be.”

Big donors also skew funding toward more narrow goals that the donors can take credit for, said William Muraskin, a professor of urban studies at Queens College in New York and author of books about global vaccination programs. For example, it’s easier to develop a vaccine for water-borne rotavirus — a developing-world killer and Gates priority — than to tackle the harder, but ultimately more effective, goal of providing poor nations with clean drinking water systems.

Don’t let your endowment subvert your goals

The Zuckerberg and Chan fortune is currently tied up in their Facebook stock. As they gradually move it out to underwrite the corporation they are creating to oversee their charity, they might consider the problems of the Gates Foundation, which has invested billions of dollars in companies whose activities work starkly against its philanthropic goals.

Read more: How to spend those Facebook billions? Experts offer some advice

For example, the foundation profited from subprime lenders who victimized Seattle homeowners, while giving money to organizations fighting local housing insecurity. It made bets on Big Pharma companies that priced AIDS drugs out of reach for the developing-world victims the foundation was trying to save. It invested in chocolate makers who benefited from the labor of African child slaves.

And according to the foundation’s most recent tax filing, it profits from hundreds of millions of dollars of investments from BP, Arch Coal, Duke Energy and Anglo American, despite Gates and Zuckerberg having recently cofounded the Breakthrough Energy Coalition to combat climate change.

Temper your faith in technology

Naturally, the founder of the most successful social networking platform might look to technology to solve public health problems.

Technology titans-turned-philanthropists often assume they can revolutionize global health and life sciences the way internet companies transformed the tech landscape. Their excitement tends to wane when they encounter “problems that are not easily solved with an invention,” Garrett said.

Taking on problems that require structural and political solutions can mean stepping into the worlds of social compromise and political deal-making. It’s true that governments and United Nation agencies can suffer from crippling 4 lessons Mark Zuckerberg should learn from Gates Foundation: