Donors Choose

Received an interesting offer from Crate and Barrel -- it was a $25 gift certificate to donate on DonorsChoose.org. In other words, I get to give away Gordon Segal's money. I found the website interesting -- essentially a list of classroom projects from all over the country. (I'm hoping that there is some verification and auditing that these projects are authentic. It would be a shame if a few rotten apples gave this a bad image much like how embezzlement by DC Teachers Union officials have in some small way smeared the image of teachers.) I also thought that this would be an interesting impact project -- to compare outcomes of kids in classrooms who participate in DonorsChoose versus those who don't. Selection problems immediately come to mind as well as the usual problem -- what outcomes? I'm interested in something fuzzy like child well being. Are children happier in classrooms whose projects are funded (fully versus partially versus not funded versus not participating)? Do they have less behavioral problems? My quick look at projects in DC seem to indicate that these are to make classrooms easier to manage but I'm probably wrong on this.