MacKenzie Scott Expands Giving Spree to Tribal Colleges; The New York Times, November 20, 2025

 Alan Blinder, The New York Times ; MacKenzie Scott Expands Giving Spree to Tribal Colleges

[Kip Currier: Imagine if more billionaires shared their good fortune with more people in need throughout the U.S. and the world, like MacKenzie Scott is.]

[Excerpt]

"The philanthropist MacKenzie Scott is funneling tens of millions of dollars into tribal higher education, months after the Trump administration sought to cut one of the system’s most essential funding sources.

The donations could help shield some tribal schools — which measure their reserve funds and endowments at best in the low millions, not billions — and their students from budget bickering in Washington. Ms. Scott has not made public comments about her recent gifts, but according to the recipients, the funds will support at least one tribal school and a nonprofit group that focuses on scholarships for Native American students.

Little Priest Tribal College, in Winnebago, Neb., announced on Thursday that Ms. Scott had given it $5 million. The school learned of the gift as it was planning a capital campaign that, officials hoped, might raise $10 million over a decade.

“There’s a sense of happiness, a sense of hope,” Manoj Patil, the college’s president, said in an interview. He said of Ms. Scott, “She’s given us hope, hope for success, hope to dream big.”"

Superintendent Hamlet: Let’s see how the new city school leader performs; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 7/3/16

Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Superintendent Hamlet: Let’s see how the new city school leader performs:

"One paradox of the fracas over Mr. Hamlet’s resume is that the appropriated sentence in his resume’s educational philosophy expresses a truth that is universally supported: “A successful superintendent has to satisfy many constituencies, keeping high achievers in the system while devoting resources to those who need them most.” It addresses the central anxiety for urban school systems: how to retain and attract families who prize excellence for their college-bound kids, while making sure that schools serving children from challenged families in distressed neighborhoods can get the academic uplift and rigor they deserve. The fact is, an urban school system collapses if the college-oriented families sense trouble and, exercising their options, hightail it for the suburbs or cough up for private schools.

The Pittsburgh Public Schools can, right now, claim to be a good system, even though critics on both ends of the socioeconomic spectrum may find reasons for complaint. The finances always seem perilous, but even suburban public schools have budget pressures. The immediate challenge for Mr. Hamlet is maintaining the confidence of families already in the system — while making sure that the parents of a kindergartner enrolled for classes on Sept. 1 don’t get cold feet and withdraw. He must also fulfill the mandate set out by the board and his champions to lift up students in schools with poor performance — again, a goal that must be supported by all parents as well as every resident of Pittsburgh."