Jeff Bezos’s $1 billion effort to create free preschools for low-income children has provoked criticism that he’s trying to solve a problem he helped create. “But they’re low-income because of you,” tweeted Anand Giridharadas, a frequent critic.
Jeff Bezos’s $1 billion effort to create free preschools for low-income children has provoked criticism that he’s trying to solve a problem he helped create — but it could also draw attention to early childhood education at a critical time for the sector.
— Carrie Gillispie, a senior policy analyst at The Education Trust “We already have schools for low-income, and all, people, and they’re starved because of tax avoidance,” Giridharadas added. Exact figures for Amazon’s tax bills are unknown because the company’s tax filings are private. By one calculation, the company earned $11 billion and had a tax bill of negative $129 million in 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported.“An annual wealth tax on Jeff Bezos could singlehandedly fund hundreds of free preschools each year,” wrote Bharat Ramamurti, a former advisor to Sen.
An estimated 35% of child-care centers remained closed as of July, according to Child Care Aware, a nonprofit that advocates for access to affordable child care. Some public programs to increase access to free preschool have already been canceled because of state budget shortfalls, Gillispie said. The lack of child care is creating impossible choices for many working parents, threatening to reverse women’s advancement in the workplace.
Some observers have wondered why Bezos isn’t using his resources to support existing public-education programs. A line on the Day One Fund’s website indirectly responds to that criticism: “Directly operating the preschools creates an opportunity to learn, invent, and improve,” it says.
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