[nataz]

How is that a downside? It's too bad that schools are underfunded and can't meet every funding request, but given that is the current state of affairs why not post a grant request on donors choose? It's not that difficult, and some projects that have no chance of getting funding from the annual school budget have a pretty decent chance of getting funding online.

My wife's school strongly suggests that she submit a project every year. If it's funded, good for her and the students in her classroom. It's also good for the school since they can then allocate available funding for infrastructure or larger programmatic support (e.g. ESL, special needs, etc.). It's not that the administrator doesn't want to fund her projects, it's just that her requests sit in a huge pile of unfunded requests and something has to give.

Source: wife is a teacher who has successfully funded projects through donors choose.

[michaelt]

  How is that a downside?

Imagine a corrupt foreign dictatorship. The ruler was planning to spend $x building a school for orphans, when foreign donors donated $x to build a school for orphans. This saves the dictator $x which he spends building a mansion for the chief of the army.

Have the foreign donors actually built a school? Or have they built a mansion for the army chief?

[rickycook]

because it should be up to a knowledgeable central body of experts whose job it is to decide how best to allocate education money in order to do the most good

not arbitrary private citizens who see a “good idea” (that might turn out to just sound like a good idea) that helps a small segment of the population

*edit: i’m saying if you fix the education system, take that donor money and then make it available to all then everyone could benefit equally without having to beg for scraps for literally a countries future generations