This is a lot of money when it's yours. Karma points to the Zuckerbergs.<p>In terms of running a school district, it would be nice. Sprinkled across a region...well it's rounding error. If the total cost (compensation, benefits, administration, facilities and transportation) per year of a teacher in the classroom is assumed to be $100,000/year [probably very very low for the Bay Area], then the total package represents 1200 teacher years - or 120 teachers for 10 years. And that's like one teacher per school district.<p>If it were used to bring new facilities online - it's about new high school with furnishings and equipment and no new staff. However, the money isn't going to fund new schools or keep teachers in classrooms (or get children to and from school, or provide Head Start, or after school programs for needy children whose parents and guardians work, or any of the really pressing needs of individual children and families in poverty). Nevermind, thinking about how the housing situation effects their lives - to get a sense of scale, maybe that's how to think about the numbers...moving a few hundred of the region's homeless families off the street and into owner occupied housing?<p>No. the money isn't going for anything that long term.<p>It's going to 'technology' - a category where five years of use is a really long time = where staff salaries are a multiple of what teachers earn...and somebody has to select, install and maintain all those gadgets. It's a consultant gravy train.<p>The person who offers money in exchange for people doing what whatever they say is the served, not the serving. And with private individuals, unlike a government, the serving have no say whatsoever. This isn't a partnership. Zuckerberg isn't asking the districts what they need and seeing which of their needs he can meet. He's come up with a solution without the hard work of prioritizing the possibilities. That's unfortunate.<p>While I honestly admire the generosity, winning access to Exeter Academy and Harvard in the fast swimming semen sweepstakes doesn't make a person an expert in education at the scale of a school district, let alone a region. Even if one worked really really hard building a technology company.