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10 February 2005: A Great Idea and About Time (1 of 3)
Yesterday in a conversation with a colleague and former mentor teacher, I learned about a revolutionary new resource for public school teachers. She got twenty abaci (that's plural for abacus, I also learned) to help her Oakland third graders work on their basic adding and subtracting skills, while reinforcing number sense and place value.
Okay, well, to be fair it's not exactly new. Donors Choose a is a 501(c) non-profit organization that has been operating in New York for nearly four years, and has recently opened up to other areas where impoverished public schools are the norm. It was created by one guy--a teacher in the Bronx--who recognized the need for a new system of charitable giving.
I do believe this thing to be revolutionary, though, and I’m not the only one: The History section of the website calls this new model "the charity of the future." So, what's so great? Donors Choose has set up a system that successfully circumvents two of the largest factors hindering charitable donations to public school classrooms.
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