Students can't dream big when classrooms lack books, microscopes, and robotics kits - or even paper, pencils, and paste.

Charles Best

Categorized in : Big Dream Students Paper

Teachers are heroes.

teachers heroes

Hardworking, passionate teachers know their students' needs better than anyone else in the school environment. If we can tap into their needs, we can unleash smarter solutions and empower those people on the front lines.

teachers better people school

No matter the circumstances, teachers show up each day ready to give their students every opportunity possible, and they never give up.

never-give-up never day opportunity

DonorsChoose was conceived at a Bronx public high school where I taught social studies for five years. In the teachers' lunch room, my colleagues and I often lamented a problem that drained learning from students and creativity from teachers: a lack of funding for essential materials and for the activities that bring subject matter to life.

colleagues creativity learning life

We will employ almost every strategy and hustle in any possible way to recruit top engineers to our team.

will hustle team way

We reflect on our successes and failures at monthly staff meetings.

reflect our staff meetings

Acknowledging someone is an act of altruism in the first place, so converting that act of altruism into a pizza party or company fleece jacket or a gift card is fine, but it's not in keeping with spirit in which it all began.

gift someone place pizza

I created DonorsChoose by putting pencil to paper - literally - and sketching out each screen of the web site and how it would work. Then I paid a programmer from Poland $1,500 to turn my sketches and common-sense rules into a functioning website.

pencil rules sketching work

Learning is a critical part of our mission and organizational culture.

mission our learning culture

We've long believed teachers know best what their students need to succeed, and that includes the creation of healthy, supportive school communities.

teachers best long school

It's hard to enlist the support of people you don't know, but it's critical to growing your career, finding new customers, and building out your team.

you support team people

Our ideological dilemmas won't ever be solved by machines.

dilemmas ever our machines

At DonorsChoose.org, we believe that teachers are unsung heroes.

unsung teachers heroes believe

At DonorsChoose.org, you can give as little as $1 and get the same level of choice, transparency, and feedback that is traditionally reserved for someone who gives millions. We call it citizen philanthropy.

someone choice you transparency

I do not live off canned soup.

canned off live soup

Our only political stance is this: listen to these teachers.

listen teachers only political

We think there's nothing like sunlight to mobilize and energize citizens to demand change of their elected officials.

nothing think sunlight change

We've established a free marketplace of teacher ideas and donor interests.

free marketplace teacher ideas

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.

special remember science school

To take on the jobs of tomorrow, students must become more than good test takers. They need to become makers who design, sketch, build, and prototype. And their classrooms will need more than a chalkboard and a set of textbooks.

sketch good design tomorrow