Charles Best Quotes
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I've met with titans of Silicon Valley because they're investing in our national expansion. I've had lunch with Claire Danes because she sees DonorsChoose.org as the best way to help students in public schools. I would never, ever rub shoulders with such people if I had followed the typical career path in investment banking or whatever.
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We evaluate all business decisions based on how we can best serve public school teachers and their students.
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I'd listened to my colleagues in the teachers' lunchroom. I could tell they were passionate, fired-up people who had great ideas for strategies and projects to help kids learn better. They just didn't have the resources. I was frustrated, but I also knew it was a frustration felt by teachers all over the city.
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I think philanthropy is so much more in keeping with spirit of shouting someone out than a material reward.
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Donors are sick of writing that $200 check to the Red Cross and not knowing whether it goes for the executive director's salary or the office rent.
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We really are based on this idea that teachers have all this pent-up classroom expertise and that if we could just empower them to come up with micro-solutions, they're going to come up with smarter ideas than anybody would at the top.
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We reflect on our successes and failures at monthly staff meetings.
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Our brains are designed to solve some of our most complex problems when we're distracted by routine habits.
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Whenever there are changes to school budgets, we know teachers feel it first.
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Whether you're saying 'thank you' to friends, family members, customers, or a hiring manager who interviewed you for a job, the case in favor of gratitude is both altruistic and pragmatic.
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We aren't prescribing anything. We're not claiming to be the experts. We aren't advocating for or against any program. We are going to create a platform that says very explicitly what it is that teachers experience in their classrooms.
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We all remember special days at school, whether it was going on a field trip, doing a science experiment, or performing in a school play.
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When I began teaching, my colleagues and I quickly realized that our students didn't have access to the same resources we had growing up. We knew there were supplies and resources that could help our students, but our school district simply couldn't afford them.
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To get DonorsChoose.org to scale, we first need to increase the viral appeal of our website.
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My colleagues and I would spend a lot of our own money on copy, paper, and pencils. I just figured there are people out there who would want to help teachers like us if they could see exactly where their money was going.
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A really large number of teachers contact us offline testifying how valuable iPads are for their students.
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I do not live off canned soup.
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My colleagues and I were always having the same conversation in the teachers lunchroom about books we wanted our students to read, a field trip we knew would really bring a subject matter to life... And most of us would go into our own pockets to buy just paper and pencils.
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I've been a fan of bass fishing for as long as I can remember.
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KIPP schools would be just a shining example of schools where students aren't just given homework and taught imaginative ways, but they're really brought into a culture of education.
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Teachers know how to improve education, but they are a voice that is consistently overlooked or ignored.
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You have to wade through tons of 'no's' to get one 'yes,' and you can't let it go to your head when you get that yes.
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One question we'll ask is, 'Who are you grateful for,' and a surprising number of people can't name anyone beyond their mother.
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Ideally, DonorsChoose.org wouldn't be necessary for basic supplies, but I hope we'll always be a platform for teachers to request resources that would bring the learning experience of their students to the next level.