Education Funding News in Brief

Facebook Founder and Wife Give $120M to Calif. Schools

By The Associated Press — June 03, 2014 1 min read
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Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are donating $120 million to San Francisco area public school systems.

The couple’s gift, to be spread over five years, is the biggest allocation to date of the $1.1 billion in Facebook stock the couple pledged last year to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

The first $5 million will go to school districts in San Francisco, Ravenswood, and Redwood City, and will focus on principal training, classroom technology and helping students transition from the 8th to the 9th grade.

The latest gift comes at a time when critics are still questioning what became of Zuckerberg’s $100 million donation four years ago to the Newark, N.J., school system. A recent New Yorker article criticizes the donation, saying the money has so far failed to fix the city’s ailing school system.

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A version of this article appeared in the June 04, 2014 edition of Education Week as Facebook Founder and Wife Give $120M to Calif. Schools

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