Facebook's Zuckerberg donates $100 million to New Jersey schools

Mark Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old founder and chief executive of Facebook, is expected to announce a donation of $100 million to the Newark public school system in New Jersey this week, in a bold and aggressive bid to turn around one of the country's worst performing school systems, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

Zuckerberg is setting up a foundation with $100 million of Facebook stock to be used to improve education in America, with the primary goal of helping Newark.

The donation has the potential to be matched by another $100 million that Newark's mayor, Cory Booker, has been working on raising from private foundations and others.

Newark spends about $22,000 a year on each of its 40,000 pupils, but only about half of its students graduate. Of those who do, only one-fifth go on to four-year colleges. More than 85 percent of the Newark students at community colleges need remedial help in math and English.
The $200 million that could be raised would amount to over 20 percent of Newark's budget of $940 million.

The donation comes at a time when foundations and wealthy investors are increasingly funneling large amounts of money to public education -- but with strings attached. In Washington, D.C., this year foundations pledged millions of dollars to fund an increase in teacher pay that is tied to an individual teacher's ability to show that they can help students improve their performance.

In the case of Zuckerberg's donation, there are no particular plans as of yet. Booker is supposed to draw up those plans and get community support for them, according to a person familiar with the situation.

A $100 million donation to a school district is rare, but not unprecedented. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pumped almost $5 billion into K-12 education, awarded Tampa's Hillsborough County School District $100 million last year to overhaul how teachers are trained and evaluated.

Zuckerberg's pledge, his largest gift to date, comes as the company he founded battles to counteract a Hollywood film's scathing depiction of the executive. "The Social Network," which opens in the U.S. on Oct. 1, portrays Zuckerberg as a conniving backstabber who may have stolen the idea for his social networking site.

The New York Times reported that Zuckerberg's announcement will take place on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" on Friday.





http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/facebook_zuckerberg_to_donate_million_y3fPU2dbzyODPWPaSg7pXN

Damn!!!:smt103

Thats quite the generous donation.

 

Good timing, I heard he is tryin' to down play the movie The Social Network,it has been long rumored that he stole the idea from his classmate in Harvard.
Anyways, good gesture tho, I am sure Mayor Booker of Newark can use that many to improve the schools in Jersey.

 

Yeah, you are definitely right about that. He is getting a TON of negative press with the upcoming Social Network (which isnt even allowed to be advertised on Facebook). The movie is supposedly an excellent film and it kinda makes Zuckerberg look like a backstabbing little prick (which from many accounts is true).

 

I saw the flick via freebie last Thursday. Is it true that flick club is not shown on Facebook? That is weird. That movie made him into a arrogant dreeb but,the ones on the top does not care who they love or like. Gates,Rockefeller and others did not play nice.

 

Like that poster said "You don't get to 500 Million friends without making a few Enemies".