The Gang’s All Here! Tech Biggies Backing Charter Schools – Gates Now at $1 Million

Big Names Turn Up in PDC Reports as I-1240 Gathers Signatures

By Erik Smith
Washington State Wire

Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft and America's richest man.

OLYMPIA, June 27.—Bill Gates is in for a million, and some of the biggest names in the tech biz are right behind him as this year’s campaign for charter schools gathers signatures for I-1240.

Reports on file at the state Public Disclosure Commission show that the campaign so far has raised $1.8 million. Odds are it’s going to need every penny of that, and maybe more, for the late-starting signature drive. I-1240 is in a beat-the-clock race to gather 241,153 valid signatures by the July 6 deadline. It in the midst of a breakneck 21-day effort.

Last year, another 21-day signature drive overseen by the same consulting firm, Winner & Mandabach of Santa Monica, Calif., cost $2 million. That one put I-1183 on the ballot and wound up closing down the state’s liquor stores. It was the second-fastest drive in state history, and it was the fastest in the modern era of paid signature-gathering drives.

The reports on file at the state campaign-watchdog agency show that some of the most prominent names in the Seattle tech biz are lining up behind Gates to back the charter-school measure. So far it’s a small but exclusive club with a five-star membership.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates has put up $1 million in cash as well as paying $53,000 for a poll.

Mike and Jackie Bezos, parents of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, have each put in $225,000. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has contributed $100,000.

Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer of Second Avenue Partners, founder of the League of Education Voters, has put up $25,000.

Rounding out the list is Katherine Binder, chairwoman of EMFCO Holdings, Inc., short for Exotic Metals Forming Co., at $100,000. Also on the list with $100,000 is Benjamin Slivka, currently a trustee at Wissner-Slivka Foundation. Slivka got in on the ground floor at Microsoft in 1984, left after 14 years to become information technology director at Amazon, and eventually retired young.

Initiative 1240 would make Washington the 42nd state to permit development of charter schools. The schools, operated by non-profit agencies, would receive public funding in accordance with the number of children who enroll, and they would operate outside traditional established K-12 school districts under the review of a state board. As many as 40 such schools could be established during the first five years. The argument is that the charter schools present an alternative to failing public schools, because they would operate under different rules and would not be subject the influence of the Washington Education Association, the state’s dominant teachers’ union. Opponents naturally include WEA. They note that the more money the charter schools receive, the less money there would be for the existing public school system.

Why such support from so many big names in the tech biz? “1240 is a really modest, reasonable proposal with high accountability, and I think that is attractive to many folks, including these business leaders,” said Shannon Campion, director of Stand for Children, one of the education advocacy organizations sponsoring the measure. “I believe they share our sense that the status quo is working well for some kids in our public education system but it is not working for enough of them and they share our sense of urgency and accept that challenge.”

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  • Westello

    “The schools, operated by non-profit agencies..” Actually they can be started by a non-profit but they can then farm out management and nearly everything else to a FOR-PROFIT.

    That list of donors, that small,exclusive list of wealthy,wealthy people whose own children will NEVER be in a charter or have a charter threaten their child’s school and its funding, what does that tell you? Where are the parents and community? This is NOT a community-driven need or drive.

    That Shannon Campion is saying this is “modest and reasonable” really strains believability.

    - being able to take over ANY existing school, failing or not, by a majority of parents OR teachers signing a petition – that’s reasonable? Knocking out a school that is performing well and serving parents and students in their neighborhood? That’s reasonable?

    - creating a charter commission where the members have to be for charters (no objective folks need apply), have virtually no oversight and there is NO way to remove them if they perform poorly, that’s reasonable? I thought the charter movement was about accountability but I guess not.

    - a charter would have the right of first refusal for ANY district building for sale or lease at or BELOW market value? That’s reasonable? To whom? And, of course, if a charter wants space in any public or private building, they have the right to get it at or BELOW market value.

    - modest? It builds in even MORE charters without any need to go to the Legislature.

    - Of course, charters, overall, do no better (and often worse) than traditional schools, underserve ELL and Special Ed students (the GAO just came out with a study saying charters underserve Special Ed students). Charters are more segregated; that’s why the NAACP doesn’t support them.

    But never underestimate the wealthy and the white who naturally think they know best for poor children and families (but also never underestimate the money-making factor).

    We voted charters down three times for a reason and now, 20 years later and 41 states later, still no better.

    Decline to Sign I-1240.

  • Sarajane3h

    Except that they don’t work, according to the best research. Those that do use thousands more per pupil in private funds, so the model isn’t able to go to scale. We need solutions that help all public schools, that don’t create winners and losers. The error is in applying the competitive business model to education. We need more egalatarian communities, with excellent scholars for all.

  • Concerned

    Charter schools are publicly funded private schools; they are not public schools. As such, they have many methods to pick and choose their students, including the application process (so much for the illiterate parents or the ones who don’t have transportation to get to the school to get the application), not offering transportation to students (again, so much for the poor kids or the ones whose parents don’t have flexibility in their schedule to drive their kids to and from school – usually the blue collar workers on shift work), and by not accepting kids with special needs or accepting them, then “counseling them out” once the count date has passed and money from the state has been received.
    These are all well-documented issues in other states, and nothing in the poorly-written I-1240 prevent the same things from happening here.
    The irony is the fact that so many of these rich people never attended public schools, nor do they really know anything about public education, yet because they have money, they think they have the right to determine what is best for Washington State’s children.

    • http://www.facebook.com/zara.kublin.1 Zara Kublin

      I’m kind of surprised Nick Hanauer likes to hang out in this company, for all his god-bless-the-middle-class, billionaires-have-it-wrong talk. I’d think it would give him pause.