Monday, June 25, 2007

Don't Know Much About History, Don't Know Much Biology

I believe I vaguely remember this. About 20 years ago, some guy offered a class of sixth graders a free college education. Well, life is all about choices.
George Weiss, a Connecticut money manager and University of Pennsylvania trustee, and his then-wife, Diane, named the project Say Yes to Education. They never imagined how many in the class would ultimately say no. Nor did they foresee the depth of dysfunction that would challenge their best intentions, and temper what they hoped would bloom into a national philanthrophic trend among the rich.
Slideshow element

6 comments:

Trader Rick said...

i WONDER WAS THIS AN INNER-CITY SCHOOL?

Lone Ranger said...

Why, yes it is!

Mark said...

I read the whole article. It doesn't appear to be a total failure. Statistically it was, but who knows how much worse the lives of the participants in total would have been without the boost?

Still, it doesn't seem to be a very good investment. There are other, probably better ways to help the disadvantaged. You gotta give the guy credit for trying, though.

Lone Ranger said...

I think the point was that he didn't get adequate returns on his investment. It's like Johnson's Great Society. 10 trillion dollars down the drain and no effect on the poverty rate.

Tonto said...

It's like that special short series they had on Discovery or A&E...where they follow a homeless guy around and plant $100k in a garbage dumpster without him knowing and watch what he does with the money...Guess what he was broke in 6 months and living on the streets. He was offered a finanical adviser and everything by the show but refused any services.

what is the ultimate moral of this story and LR's post?...don't know.

Tonto said...

Here is a link to that show I was talking about. It was on Showtime in 2005.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/95216/a_homeless_man_blows_100000_of_free.html