Is democracy for sale?
Apparently it is in Washington State.
Three times the voters turned down a charter amendment.
In this election, a small number of extremely rich people decided they really wanted charters.
So they raised $10 million to beat back the parents and educators of the state, who could not match their spending.
Read the list of donors in the link above.
It is shocking to see how much money is being poured into state and local races by a small number of incredibly rich people.
This is a good argument for raising taxes on the super-rich.
Then they have less money to buy elections.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s funny that economists are the worst people in the world for being able to follow the money. Their models of what the über-rich actually do with their money completely ignore one of the main outlays these days, which is funding public disinformation. I guess that creates jobs for disinformers, but the net effect is to render society more dysfunctional with every passing day.
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Over the last several years, there has been an increase of wealth by the super rich through a decrease in taxes and entitlements.. What do they do with their money? Use it to buy power.
I think that some of these people like to think of the rest of us as chess pieces that they can move on a board for their entertainment or a sense of empowerment.
Dora
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I should have said “a decrease in taxes and an increase in entitlements.”
That has brought to them a surplus of wealth.
Dora
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Gates has been fiddling around with education issues, via technology, as in The Road Ahead, since 1995. About time somebody noticed.
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It’s all about return on investment.
Dot-Com bubble pops in 2000.
Microsoft Permatemps lawsuit settled in 2000. http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/18812579/microsoft-settles-lawsuit-with-temp-workers-for-97m.htm\
Gates fight to increase HIB Visas. http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3500986/Gates+Rakes+Congress+on+H1B+Visa+Cap.htm
Gates Data Quality Campaign 2005.
National Center on Education and the Economy: “2007 Tough Choices or Tough Times”
In this environment, it makes sense to ask how American workers can possibly maintain, to say nothing of improve, their current standard of living. Today, Indian engineers make $7,500 a year against $45,000 for an American engineer with the same qualifications. If we succeed in matching the very high levels of mastery of mathematics and science of these Indian engineers — an enormous challenge for this country — why would the world’s employers pay us more than they have to pay the Indians to do their work?
Housing bubble/Global depression 2008
2009 Stimulus: Gates/Microsoft lobbies for electronic health and educational records
Charters and Choice: Blame the teachers and leverage change.
Kaching!
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Those who think that contributing so much money to the expansion of charter schools is genuine philanthropy should consider why these billionaires don’t make those kinds of donations to our most under-resourced and neediest public schools, or pay livable wages to all of their employees.
It’s not about giving. For business people; it’s about the return on the dollar. For plutocrats, it’s also about power and control. Many of those people are “National Partners” supporting KIPP’s boot-camp approach to education for low-income children of color: http://www.kipp.org/about-kipp/the-kipp-foundation/national-partners
It looks like they are investing in the creation of a generation of compliant drones who can be manipulated into taking jobs with unlivable wages at their companies.
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The federal government’s interest payment to Gates: A no-bids “Data Locker” commitment that “unlocks the power education data for all Americans”:
Microsoft commits to creating a cloud-based platform for a Lifelong Learning Record (LLR). By building on the success of HealthVault they can accelerate this work. Developers and partners will be able to use the open, cross-platform HealthVault application programming interface (API) to build “apps” in support of individual learners, facilitating an ecosystem of services that help students not only manage their lifelong learning profile, but also use it in novel ways—for example, automatically demonstrating proof of competency in a work setting, or earning academic achievements and reputation points with peers.
Click to access ed_data_commitments_1-19-12.pdf
Make sure you check out all the other “commitments.”
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We should add a new word to the lexicon.
Malanthropy (n): the deceptive use of tax-free contributions to expand the profit-seeking interests of those making those contributions: the use of ostensibly non-profit institutions to undergird the ideological and profit-seeking interests of their funders.
See Gates, Broad, Walton, et.al.
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Yes, it’s very important to underscore how “malanthropists” have established non-profits to conceal their for-profit interests. Need to expand the definition to include political donations, which are not tax write-offs.
I’d like to see new terms to describe organizations which are 501(c)3s and have accumulated huge treasure chests, some of which have established 501(c)4s, enabling them to engage in political lobbying, such as TFA.
The 501(c)4s, like StudentsFirst, too, don’t have to report their donors and are rather controversial: How Nonprofits Spend Millions on Elections and Call it Public Welfare http://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofits-spend-millions-on-elections-and-call-it-public-welfare
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$10.74 million!
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On the website, it says that the “Yes on 1240” raised $10.9 million.
I looked up “No on 1240,” it raised $29,000 and change.
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Yes on 1240 cannot claim victory. $10.9 million bought them the just-over 44,000 votes (of the 2,696,700 votes counted so far) to introduce the dishonesty and chaos that comes along with charter schools, to the State of Washington. Should the votes that have yet to be counted not change the 50.81/49.18 spread (?), a new fear develops. Both our new Governor, Jay Inslee, and our Superintendent of Public Instruction, Randy Dorn, have made anti-charter statements. While I realize this is a huge boon for the families, kids, and teachers in our state, what happens when the companies that run charters come a-courting? What kinds of perks and incentives will it take to change the minds of these leaders? Our union put very little effort into informing the people of our state about the dangers of charters. We don’t have television, but friends tell me that they did not see a single commercial against 1240, but plenty for. We received one union-soonsored anti-1240 mailer at our house. A group outside the union, the one that raised $29,000 and worked their tails off doorbelling and making phone calls, did more to create awareness than the WEA. Securing the “no” votes for 1240 would have been much more definitive than securing a governorship in this instance. Votes mark the will of the people; politician’s minds can be changed by perks and power.
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Husband tells me his union rep let him know WEA has lawsuit ready. As of today, 11/12/12, opponents of 1240 have not conceded, (yay!) saying they will wait until all votes are counted. To prevail, they would need about 57% of the remaining 300,000 votes to go their way. Hang tough…A new state AG was just elected. A Democrat. Bodes well since 1240 is against the state constitution. New Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, will also stall to allow this to play out. Lots more stuff coming…lawyers will be the big winners, natch.
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