What’s your motivation for giving?

The whole education system in the country is close to dysfunctional. You’ve got a huge waste in education.

Do your philanthropic efforts and your shareholder activism have anything in common?

I take the same approach to education as I do to corporate boards. Corporate governance is terrible. The same thing that is wrong in corporate America is what is wrong in education: There ­really isn’t any accountability.

What are you doing differently in the charter schools you’ve funded?

We give the teachers bonuses. We give the principal bonuses. You motivate. But if they’re not doing a good job, they know we’re not going to accept it. What I believe—as with business—is you don’t micromanage. You don’t tell the principals and the teachers how to educate. I mean, you could go in and perhaps watch the costs, but you leave them alone.

Do the people in the upper echelon have the right priorities in their philanthropy?

So much money goes to the arts. It gets you social status without the ­aggravation and difficulty of dealing with the bureaucracy. It’s important for wealthy people to give back capital into the society.