Notes on how to not design a non-profit orgnization

Steve Sailer on Teach for America: All we have to do ...,

I think Mr. Sailer is too eager for a technofix for what ails American education:

One thing that you might hope that Teach for America would have accomplished over its 20 years of existence is lead to a revolution in educational software and hardware. You can't expect superstars to stick around teaching forever, but you could expect that they and their experience would go to Silicon Valley and invent great educational software. Instead, we seem to have gone backwards in the focus on education software.

Though I did notice that the children at school like JiJi. It may be useful in raising standardized testing scores: The power of the penguin: local students improve math scores with JiJi. And such programs may be able to do what a human cannot, get the interest of all the children at once, so that they can learn en masse.

If the problem with American mass education is intrinsic to the system, and not to the quality of the teachers, then what?

Problems that TFA may exemplify:
1. National organizations that have no real roots in local community, with respect to the administration and to its recruits.

2. A reliance on a central authority and all that goes with it: mission statements and so on, instead of leadership and virtues proper to the organization and its ties to the community. (Institution-centered, rather than people-centered. Also, p0romoting the liberal ideal of do-goodism, rather than the order of charity.)

3. An inadequate grasp of problems it purports to solve. (In this case, the crisis of American mass education.)

4. A failure to understand the problems means that proposed solutions will not be adequate.

5. A failure to understand the purposes of education also impacts the understanding of the problem.

6. Failing to get input from those serving in the trenches about what works and what doesn't. (A lack of resources for internal reform.) Instead, providing incentives for those in the lower levels to keep their mouths shut and to not rock the boat, or to remain in comfrotable ignorance.

7. Promoting itself as a brand or stepping stone to positions coveted by those seeking elite status. (What sort of "talent" pool does TFA tap into? Does it promote the inflating of egos, rather than humble service of the community?) And is branding also for the sake of financial gain? Using those with "elite" educational backgrounds to sell the organization and to bring in more $?

8. Turning service (and works of charity) into an opportunity to make more money than is necessary.

What else...

Some links on TFA.