Early Childhood

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ Ambitious Pre-K Move Sparks Wary Reactions

By Michele Molnar — September 24, 2018 2 min read
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos speaks at the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Bezos has committed $2 billionto open preschools in low-income neighborhoods and support nonprofits that help homeless families.
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

The world’s richest man says he wants to help tackle one of the biggest issues in education: improving early-childhood learning.

But what exactly does Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos mean when he says the new network of nonprofit preschools he’s planning will be “Montessori inspired,” and will “use the same set of principles” that have pushed his giant online retail and cloud-computing company toward a $1 trillion valuation?

Experts in the fields of early childhood, the business of education, and ed tech confess to not being sure.

“I really have no idea,” said Trace Urdan, the managing director of investment-consulting firm Tyton Partners. “We’re all just imposing our predispositions onto the whole thing.”

Here’s what we do know: Bezos and his wife MacKenzie are contributing $2 billion to establish the philanthropic Bezos Day One Fund. The effort will have two main thrusts: launching and operating new preschools in underserved communities, and tackling homelessness among young families. And further details? “Stay tuned,” Amazon vice president of corporate communications Drew Herdener told Education Week.

For some observers, Bezos’ big areas of focus are reason enough for optimism.

Take, for example, W. Steven Barnett, the director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. He said the new fund’s potentially massive commitment to early-childhood education speaks to the growing recognition of the problems presented by a lack of equitable access to high-quality preschool programs.

“In the vast majority of communities, the government response has not been adequate,” Barnett said.

But for others, the lack of details in Bezos’ announcement, combined with the dark sides of Amazon’s meteoric ascent, are cause for skepticism.

Consider, for example, the company’s reliance on low-wage workers who often require public assistance to make ends meet, wrote education-technology researcher Audrey Watters in a recent essay. That’s a potentially dangerous model for the preschool sector, where a mostly female workforce is already significantly underpaid, she contended.

“Honestly, [Bezos] could have a more positive impact here by just giving those workers a raise. (Or, you know, by paying taxes),” Watters wrote.

There also remain lots of questions as to whether Amazon’s data-heavy, algorithm-driven model of customer service has a place in classrooms of 3- and 4-year olds.

And leading researchers say when it comes to Montessori education, the devil is in the details.

Related Reading:

The ‘Montessori Mafia': Why Tech Titans Like Jeff Bezos Support the Model

What’s Motivating Amazon CEO’s Early-Childhood Ed. Approach?

Related Tags:

Staff writer Benjamin Herold contributed to this report.
A version of this article appeared in the September 26, 2018 edition of Education Week as Jeff Bezos’ Pre-K Move Sparks Wary Reactions

Events

This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Assessment Webinar
Rethinking STEM Assessment: Strategies for Administrators
School and district leaders will explore strategies to enhance STEM assessment practices across their district, within schools and classrooms.
Content provided by Project Lead The Way
Federal Webinar Keeping Up with the Trump Administration's Latest K-12 Moves: Subscriber-Exclusive Quick Hit
EdWeek subscribers, join this 30-minute webinar to find out what the latest federal policy changes mean for K-12 education.
Artificial Intelligence Live Online Discussion A Seat at the Table: Math & Technology: Finding the Recipe for Student Success
How should we balance AI & math instruction? Join our discussion on preparing future-ready students.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Early Childhood The Expectations for Kindergarten Have Changed. How Teachers Are Adapting
Here's how three kindergarten teachers keep the fun in formative learning.
6 min read
Kindergarteners in a play-based learning class look around at the site of their forest play time at Symonds Elementary School in Keene, N.H. on Nov. 7, 2024.
Kindergarteners in a play-based learning class look around at the site of their forest play time at Symonds Elementary School in Keene, N.H., on Nov. 7, 2024. Across the nation, kindergarten classrooms have become more academic over the past few decades.
Sophie Park for Education Week
Early Childhood Trump Allies Say the Case for Head Start Is Weak. Researchers Say They're Wrong
Head Start critics oversimplify research to justify calls for its closure, researchers said.
9 min read
A student participates in a reading and writing lesson at the Head Start program at Easterseals South Florida, Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami.
A student participates in a reading and writing lesson at the Head Start program at Easterseals South Florida in Miami on Jan. 29, 2025. The organization gets about a third of its funding from the federal government. Supporters of President Donald Trump's plan to cut Head Start say it's ineffective. Advocates say they are oversimplifying key research.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Early Childhood Pre-K Programs Expand Nationwide, But Quality Falls Behind
Preschools experienced a boost in funding and enrollment nationwide, but a deeper look reveals a disparity in quality.
6 min read
Teacher Grismairi Amparo works with her students on a reading and writing lesson at Head Start program run by Easterseals South Florida, an organization that gets about a third of its funding from the federal government, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025, in Miami.
Teacher Grismairi Amparo works with her students on a reading and writing lesson at a Head Start program run by Easterseals South Florida on Jan. 29, 2025 in Miami. The organization gets about a third of its funding from the federal government.
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
Early Childhood Opinion The Trump Administration Is Sabotaging Head Start
Early-childhood education is being dismantled right in front of us. The quiet crisis comes with a heavy cost.
Yolanda Wiggins
5 min read
A child's block toy school house is partly disassembled. Field of loose blocks in the foreground. Representing losing Head Start programs.
iStock/Getty Images + Education Week