I'm not even into EA myself but I can see that it's important to know where the money goes and how effectively it's used.
That sentiment comes for not being in EA, for a real Effective Altruism it's not important to know that Mark Zuckerberg spends it's money effectively. It's important whether or not he spends his money effectively which happens to be a different issue. Don't project your own aversions on EA's.
The EA position as articulated by William MacAskill (80,000 hours/Given What We Can/ author of Doing Good Better) is:
Zuckerberg and Chan deserve enormous respect for this decision [...] Their letter about the gift suggests that they have exactly the right goal in mind, and could have been a mission statement for the social movement called “effective altruism”
On the other hand the article to which you refer are not by people of the EA movement. Those letter likely result in the loss of many lifes due to discouraging donations by wealthy people.
I would estimate education dollars invested by Zuckerberg to have a higher return than eduction dollar invested by the department of education. If Zuckerberg pays less taxes I don't think that's a problem when he spends it in good areas. If you are a teachers union who doesn't want change in the educational system but protect the status quo, Zuckerbergs announcement looks like a problem.
As far as Mark Zuckerberg wanting to engage in policy debates, it depends on your politics if you believe that's a good thing. It might raise the chances that the Startup Visa act gets passed. If you are a xenophobe and against immigration than Zuckerberg plans to shape policy debates to among other things build inclusive and welcoming communities is a bad thing.
So apparently transferring your stocks to a limited liability company in Delaware owned by yourself, with vague do-good objectives and in particular with no mechanisms to monitor how much these objectives are being fulfilled, is now called "effective altruism".
I would estimate education dollars invested by Zuckerberg to have a higher return than eduction dollar invested by the department of education.
Why? It seems to me that the department of education has better incentives.
Mark Zuckerberg annouced that he is going to give away 99% of his facebook wealth ($45 billion) over his lifetime.
He announced guiding questions:
It's interesting that "live much longer and healthier lives" is on the list. Larry Page seems to divert money inside Google into Calico for anti-aging tech. Under Cook Apple also invests into health.
The future seems looking good :)