Apparently his largesse inspired others to follow suit, especially on Reddit, and according to the Daily Kos these projects have now been fully funded:
- FL Kindergarten teacher needs a carpet $147 to go
- NC Middle School Teacher needs calculators $169 to go
- NYC ESL teacher needs basic supplies $195 to go
- MO teacher needs basic supplies $128
- Louisiana teacher needs copies of "Of Mice and Men" $298 to go
- NC teacher needs basic supplies $92 to go
- NY teacher needs industrial pencil sharpener $168 to go
- MA teacher needs STEM activities $193 to go
- NYC teacher needs calculators $99 to go
- NYC teacher needs basic supplies $175 to go
- Las Vegas teacher needs copies of Dr. Suess $122 to go
- IN teacher needs roll down maps $179 to go
- TX teacher needs a rocket launcher $337 to go
- Louisiana teacher needs a microscope $131 to go
- Chicago teacher needs music for band $235 to go
- NC Math teacher needs basic supplies $507 to go
- NC middle school teacher needs science lab materials $484 to go
- CA teacher needs AP Bio supplies $1279 to go
- NYC teacher needs basic supplies $121 to go
- Philly teacher needs basic supplies $233 to go
- NC teacher needs copies of "To Kill a Mockingbird" $476 to go
- TX teacher needs basic phys ed supplies $444 to go
- FL teacher needs recess supplies $145 to go
- Philly teacher needs copy paper $203 to go
- MI teacher needs a set of Hardy Boy Books $189 to go
- OR mobile library for special needs students needs books $130 to go
- NYC teacher needs STEM books $310
- NYC teacher needs first grade books $299
- OH Preschool teacher to deaf students needs educational toys $158 to go
- WA teacher needs play equipment $324 to go
- CA special ed teacher needs playdoh $118 to go.
- Baltimore teacher needs drums $134 to go
- NC teacher needs Dr. Suess books $146 to go
- IN teacher needs glue and markers $98 to go
- MS teacher needs basic supplies $73 to go
- WA teacher needs basic supplies $186 to go
- CA teacher needs basic art supplies $171 to go
- FL teacher needs basic supplies $149 to go
- NM teacher needs basic supplies $172 to go
- TN teacher needs crayons $119 to go
- NJ teacher needs carpet squares $137 to go
- TX teacher needs math tools $172 to go
- KY teacher needs STEM materials $91 to go
- AR teacher needs a xylophone $288 to go
- NC teacher needs copies of "I am Malala" $400 to go.
- CA teacher needs copies of "Frankenstein" $546 to go
- PA teacher needs copies of Romeo and Juliet $290 to go
- TX teacher needs a world map rug $321 to go
- CA school librarian needs manga $201 to go
- CT teacher needs basic art supplies and heaphones $221
- NY librarian needs graphic novels $210 to go
- Philly teacher needs art supplies $522 to go
- MO teacher needs a carpet $362 to go
- CA teacher needs student microscopes $195 to go
- IN teacher needs basic supplies $222
- CA teacher needs a rocket launcher $468 to go (it's not just Texas that likes to launch rockets)
- Chicago special ed teacher needs math toys $264 to go
- MN teacher needs math tools $195 to go
- IN teacher needs pencil sharpener $78 to go
Like I said before, Stephen Colbert is a man certainly worthy of idol worship.
I find it very sad that we have plenty of billions for buying elected office, but we can't find a million dollars to fund the most important thing we do int his nation: educate our youth to be good, working citizens of the future. Our priorities are so screwed up.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. very very sad. The dumbing of America began in the 1960's. and it continues. Its the good old boy republican way. Keep the masses poor, dumb, sick and staving. Pink slime and franken gmo food. Welcome to America Folks. The evil takers flex.
DeleteThis makes me weep. When I went to school in the 70s we had to do bake sales sometimes to get much needed school supplies. I suppose this slide against funding public schools started then.
ReplyDeleteThus this quote . . .
"It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."
Robert Fulghum
Bravo to Colbert who has been an inspiration to many to pay it forward for the most important people on the planet-- children;
who need to be well educated so they can be wise guardians of the planet and its inhabitants.
"It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."
DeleteRobert Fulghum
Thank you for posting this; I hadn't heard it before, and while it is sad, it certainly drives the point home!
It started with REAGAN and his big lie, A Nation At Risk. Total lie and since debunked regularly. But the damage is done and many still believe the GOP lie.
DeleteIt's all part of trying to get those education tax dollars into private for profit hands.
Education and social security are the last two tax dollar pots of money Wall St. hasn't been able to annex.
But they're working hard to get both of them. NCLB did wonders.
My sister and brother-in-law, both long retired from teaching, give money for classroom supplies for the schools in Philadelphia. What is happening to public education, once a jewel in the crown of our democracy (if that's not an oxymoron), is a national disgrace. And it's been brought to us largely by ALEC and the veneration of the GOP to greedy corporations.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
No. It started with REAGAN and his big lie; A Nation at Risk.
DeleteThat's when they started to chip away at education, cutting the "fat" where there was none to cut until they have choked and whittled away to the point that teachers just can't support the quality education system this country used to have any more. So they have to go begging for paper and pencils and tissue and toilet paper.
This is a national travesty, and it will have a huge effect on the future of our country. Lawrence O'Donnell has a program of buying desks for kids in Africa. Looks like it needs to be extended to the USofA. I don't support wasting money, but money put into schools comes back 3 fold. Shame on the ALEC-whiney bunch that is in power right now. You are cutting off this country's feet.
ReplyDeleteFor every $1 spent on schools today you save $3 in incarceration costs in the future.
DeleteColbert shined a light on a sight that maybe most people didn't know about. I for one didn't know that teachers posted their wish lists.
ReplyDeleteKeep shining that light Stephen.
How !much did just one of our boondoggle military projects cost last year? American exceptionalism.....don't expect us to pay for anything except war.
ReplyDeleteLove him. Now, he is Roman Catholic. This is one of the core Catholic teachings... Love thy neighbor as thyself. Fundies don't believe you need to do good works to be saved. Catholics do. Although they don't put it in those terms. That's about the the only good thing I remember from my Catholic upbringing. What a better place the world would be if we all loved our neighbors as ourselves.
ReplyDeleteTake a good look at that list.
ReplyDeleteHow many times do you read "basic supplies". Basics such as a pencil sharpener or copy paper or books.
You know why teachers have to go to DonorsChoose to beg for that stuff? Because the tax payers of this country aren't supporting public schools. They whine about taxes and schools are the first to get cut. Politicians in states have cut school funding to balance budgets or because they have other priorities and the schools lose.
And this year the military budget has been INCREASED to an obscene level.
Teachers shouldn't have to beg for calculators, pencil sharpeners or basic supplies.
Teachers spend money out of their own pockets for their classrooms. On average $2,000 a year.
Name me a cashier that has to buy her own register tape or a doctor that buys his own tongue depressors.
We don't have the decency to supply kids with crayons, glue, pencil sharpeners or a rug the class can sit on for group work.
Anyone that criticizes public education or teachers in this country, comparing them to Finland or Japan should be ashamed and STFU. They have no right to complain until our students have equitable resources and our teachers have equitable compensation.
There is no such thing as a free lunch and you get what you pay for. If you don't like what is going on, chances are it's because of budget cuts.
But by all means, let's buy a few more bombers that are delivered late, come in over budget and don't really work.
You've stated it beautifully. And it's a crime.
DeleteHow sad that in this country of wealth that teachers have to go this route to get basic classroom supplies.
DeleteAs long as the billionaires get their tax breaks though I'm sure the red staters can live with it. We wouldn't the 1% to go without their 20th vacation home would we?
TX teacher needs a rocket launcher $337 to go .
ReplyDeleteFrom BASTROP ?
It's for model rockets. Part of the science curriculum.
DeleteTX teacher needs a rocket launcher $337 to go
Deleteyeah, caught my eye too......damn texas is crazy
Yeah there is no way to teach science without a model rocket. Shut the whole school down.
DeleteLooking at the list, notice Minnesota had only one request, but teachers in "red states:" had more. Sure shows which states value education enough to more properly fund teachers' needs.
ReplyDeleteYou'll see several from California on that list. Because we are in the bottom 5 of the 50 states and every proposition the voters have approved to fund education, the legislature has figured out an end run or other way to siphon off the money. Schwarzenegger borrowed some and didn't pay it back.
DeleteWe've passed yet another prop (30) and are waiting on that money. It will be a year or two before they figure out how to cheat us out of that.
Lottery? For every $1 the lottery provides they take away $1 from the general fund for education. They weren't supposed to under the original bill but they "fixed" that.
The bottom line is we need to find another way to fund public education. Property taxes are no longer adequate to the needs of a 21st century society.
BTW for those of you screaming about property taxes (which are the traditional funding source for schools), a lot of this in California is due to the way Prop 13 was set up. It was a lousy law (and the teachers warned us exactly this would happen) and it took a while but we're now seeing the results. And it's a political third rail that no one will touch to fix and corporations will spend millions to defend.
I wish there was a hell so Howard Jarvis could burn in it forever.
How about dropping the property tax funding public education altogether, and instead an implement an education tax on income that only applies to households with children. I don't see why people who don't have kids should have to pay for irresponsible people who are having them like rabbits, yet can't afford them to begin with. Especially when public education is failing so poorly as it is. The solution... throw more of other peoples money at it? .... no thanks.
DeleteThe problem, Anon at 2:37 pm, is that we all benefit from good public education, from pre-K to graduate schools. All of us, whether we are parents or not. This is all part of living in a democracy. And all of us need to be invested in it. I think that public education should be funded by all levels of government and by all of the country's citizenry. How mean spirited to think that only parents should pay for public education! Does that mean that anyone without children will never be treated by a doctor or a nurse, never need an attorney, never run for political office, never buy farm products or live in a building -- all of those professions, services, skills are honed by an education system - at all of its levels.
DeleteBeaglemom
I think I would benefit more from irresponsible people not having children they can't afford to raise, much less raise properly, and expecting the rest of us to foot the bill, 3:49.
DeleteBTW 3:49, there is nothing, nada, in the definition of 'democracy' that pertains to public education or who pays for it. Just so you know.
DeleteBecause anon @ 6:53, you wouldn't want to live to live in a area that had a set up like that. Right now, public school funding keeps getting slashed even with most of the funding coming from property taxes.
DeleteIn your scenario, it would be slashed even further. teacher to student ratio would increase, teacher frustration and burn out, already a problem, would rise, educational supplies would continue to decrease. Children's capacity to learn under those conditions would lower Kids would drop out at an even larger number than happens now. Give that situation 15 or 16 years, now you're living in an area with increased: teen pregnancy, crime rate, gangs and poverty.
Extremely short term thinking.
I'm guessing you're middle class. I'm guessing you live in America. That means you went to a public school that was paid for in taxes by all the property owners in your area, not just the ones who had children. Ask yourself (honestly) what would that education have been like had it only been funded by people who had children?
Gosh Deb, thanks for your little speech.
DeleteAt: 2:37.
DeleteTypical right wing conservative fundy thinking.
The answer is because the entire country benefits from a well-educated population.
Why do I have to pay for something I'll never use?
Why should I have to pay for the new football stadium when I never go to games, never watch it on TV and don't follow it at all except to know when to avoid that road because of traffic.
I buy books on amazon, why should I fund a public library.
Why should I pay for a Convention Center or even a new Town Hall or Police Station?
It's called Common Good for a reason. It is for the benefit of all even if an individual won't use it.
I will never get Social Security but I will vote to protect it for those that do. That is why I will never support privatizing Social Security.
While you'd benefit from "those people" not having children like rabbits, I'll bet you are also opposed to sex ed in the schools, free access to birth control and are against abortion, all of which support population control.
Yeah, look up Hypocrite in the dictionary and it will say "see Republicans."
I'll go further Deb. Bet he's an older, white, middle class male Republican living in a red state. If I had to go further, I'd say Texas or Florida where they have no state income tax. All about getting something for nothing.
You sure make a lot of incorrect assumptions, mlaiuppa. Must be those exacting research skills you picked up in your big masters programs (what was it again, education administration? lol). Is that where you learned the exact proper angle to tilt your nose up at when dealing with those you deem not worthy of your self inflated presence?
DeleteI love David Letterman and will miss him terribly, but I am glad they chose Colbert for the job. I really miss The Colbert Report. Colbert won my total admiration when I saw him reip the Koch Brothers a new one, right in front of their faces at the correspondent's dinner. He is not only funny and generous, he is brave and does not suffer fools gladly.
ReplyDeleteDitto.
DeleteI will so miss Dave (and Jon Stewart) and already miss Colbert.
While I'm looking forward to Stephen taking over Late Night, it won't be the same. He won't be able to do the kind of thing he did on The Report and certainly not at the Correspondent's dinner. He'll have to make nice, not rock the boat or anger the sponsors.
Pity.
I admire a man who puts his money where his priorities are. And especially when it comes to kids.
ReplyDeleteSteven inspired me to look through the requests near my Appalachian zip code. Amongst the 'asks' for technology and books and gym equipment, i found a small class of 3rd-5th graders (together) needing basic supplies. The lovely request-writing teacher was already feeding the kids with her own money. 100% of the school's students are on the lunch program and i KNOW don't get much to eat at home after school and on weekends.
ReplyDeleteShe has become my 'project' and i will keep pumping her request on facebook and donate to her as i am able until she has enough folders and construction paper. Then i'll work on teachers having enough rockets so we can get to Mars.
As Hillary reiterated: It takes a village... And, apparently, it takes a Steven.
What a beautiful response. Thank you. You are an inspiration.
Delete