“Greed is Good” – Gordon Gekko
While I don’t always agree with old Gordo, there could be something said for the greed when it comes to educating Kentucky’s children.
Recently Warren Buffett made headlines by promising to donate 31 billion, that’s billion with B, dollars to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The Gates Foundation has made a commitment to bring innovations in health and learning to the global community. As of April 2006 the Gates Foundation has made grants of $10,074,848,073
The grants that ended up in Kentucky are listed below:
Nov 29, 2004 2% Kentucky Department for Libraries & Archives
$174,357 over 3 years to support public access computing sustainability efforts in public libraries
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Sep 14, 2001 2% Kentucky Department for Libraries & Archives
$117,150 over 1 year to support sustainability of public access computing training in public libraries
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May 4, 2001 2% University of Kentucky Research Foundation
$11,545 over 15 months to support the university's librarianship scholarship program
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Jan 23, 1999 2% University of Kentucky Research Foundation
$41,956 over 11 months to support the university's library internship program
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Nov 26, 2001 2% Kentucky Department of Education
$1,557,098 over 3 years to provide superintendents and principals from public and private schools access to quality leadership development focused on technology integration and whole systems change
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Mar 13, 2006 2% Kentucky Department for Libraries & Archives
$955,500 over 9 months to provide sustainable public access computer hardware and
software upgrades to previous grantees
That translates to .028% of the grant pie. Sliglhtly better than one quarter of one tenth of one percent is a real thin piece of the pie.
Maybe we need to instruct our educational leaders to take a little advice from Willie Sutton.
Sutton is famously (and probably falsely) known for answering a reporter who asked why he robbed banks by saying "because that's where the money is."
