Ten people have supplied 91% of the $8.9 million raised to promote a charter school referendum in Washington State.
Prominent among the super-donors are Bill Gates, Walmart heiress Alice Walton, Amazon Titan Mike Bezos, and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer.
It’s fair to say that none of these financial sponsors have a child in the public schools of Washington state or that they will ever have a child in the public schools of Washington state.
They are doing the old noblesse oblige thing, that thing you do for the children of the peasant class.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I guess they never heard: Do unto others as you would want them to do into you. (Or something like that)
We shall see. I look at “No on Charters” signs in yards wherever I go in Seattle, thinking this is good. But now the money starts to come into play… with ballots being received in homes in WA state starting tomorrow, the TV ads (Yes for Charters) are ramping up, relentlessly. There is of course no TV spot for those opposed to charters – that would require big $.
“No bless o’ bilge” is more like it.
Charity is when you give more than you expect to get back.
What they are doing is called a “loss leader” — these vulture philanthropists expect a return and they will get it if they have to destroy the whole public education system in the process.
Very good point. I am sick of these people getting lauded for their “noble philanthropy”.
I probably ought to amend those last remarks — it isn’t fair to defame vultures that way, they are only acting according to their nature, and those I’ve known personally have always been very polite, observing a natural social order that belies their unjust reputation in some quarters.
But I believe that Broad himself has referred to his nonprofit profits as “venture philanthropy”, so let it suffice to stick with what comes out of the horse’s mouth.
Not in any way to defame horses, of course …
All the above “sponsors” have demonstrated their anti-union animus – either verbally or via corporate policy – on several occasions. The charter school program is a way of accomplishing a several things with a single shot;
1) eliminate organized labor in schools
2) turn primary and secondary education into a private, for-profit industry thus forcing schools to cut salaries, educational programs, and extra-curricular activities so as to maintain profit margins for shareholders
3) remove accountability to, and oversight / regulation of government educational standards
4) create greater educational disparities in under-served, working class neighborhoods where parents do not earn as much and can not afford to pay as much for private, charter school fees.
The cumulative effect will be that schools with lower middle / working class students will not be able to afford paying the best and brightest teachers, funding additional educational programs, and/or extra-curricular activities. Educational quality will decrease for working class children thus fueling and accelerating the growth in the opportunity disparity between the wealthy and the rest of America.
This condescension sounds a little bit like colonization. They are going to civilize the natives.
I am discouraged that some of these people who have so much to share from both a visionary perspective as well as their financial contributions are not supporting public education over charter schools. Charter schools will never be available to those who struggle most in our schools, in our society. In order to attend a charter school, parents need to be well educated about their options. Public schools provide quality education for all students regardless of their financial, political or ethnic background.