Every child we send to a private or charter school weakens the troubled public school system. The more troubled the public school system, the more parents send more children to private and charter schools.

Dave Eggers, author of A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS and the force behind McSweeney’s, offers his wish: that we in the Democractic society offer of ourselves to the students of American’s next generation, who will be in charge before we know it.

Dave Eggers TED Prize 4 Minute Talk:

About this talk

Accepting his 2008 TED Prize, author Dave Eggers asks the TED community to personally, creatively engage with local public schools. With spellbinding eagerness, he talks about how his 826 Valencia tutoring center inspired others around the world to open

About Dave Eggers

Writing is only his day job: Dave Eggers moonlights as a publisher, philanthropist and advocate for students and teachers.

Dave Eggers’ first book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Since then he’s written two more novels and launched an independent publishing house, which publishes books, a quarterly literary journal (McSweeney’s), a DVD-based review of short films (Wholpin), a monthly magazine (The Believer) and the Voice of Witness project.

Meanwhile, Eggers has established himself as a philanthropist and teacher-at-large. In 1998 he launched 826 Valencia, a San Francisco-based writing and tutoring lab for young people, which has since opened six more chapters across the United States. He has extended his advocacy of students by supporting their educators, instituting a monthly grant for exceptional Bay Area teachers. His TED Prize wish is for more poeple to follow him into getting involved in your local school — and talk about it — through the website Once Upon a School.

“Many writers, having written a first best-seller, might see it as a nice way to start a career. He started a movement instead.”

Time