Parents and educators in Washington State have fought a long battle to keep charter schools out of their state. There have been four referenda; the first three rejected charters. In 2012, however, Bill Gates and a few of his other billionaire friends put together a fund of $15 million, give or take a few million, to promote a new charter vote. In the other side were school boards, PTAs, teachers, the NAACP, and other civic groups defending public education, whose resources are minuscule compared to Gates & friends. The referendum passed, by less than 1%.
Its te opponents sued to block the law, saying that charter schools are not public schools. The Washington state Supreme Court agreed with them.
Undaunted, the monied interests have continued their pressure to get public funding. Leave aside the fact that Gates could support charter schools with his spare change.
Now on the legislature is ready to satisfy Gates and the other entrepreneurs. Most disturbing is to see that Democrats are enabling the diversion of public money from public schools to privately managed charters. Hopefully, the group’s that led the successful lawsuit will go back to court and challenge this trick again.
A reader in Washington state sent this news, with a list of the Democrats who double crossed parents and children to satisfy Bill Gates and friends:
“It is just terrible to see what is happening in Washington state. For starters, the Supreme Court declared I 1240 unconstitutional on September 4. Charter schools had plenty of time to transition students into public schools, but they refused to close their doors.
With the support of the Washington Charter Association and a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for $2.1M- charter schools remained opened- and they did so by having the state’s superintendent of public instruction corrupt Alternative Learning Rules.
In January, Steve and Connie Ballmer contributed $250K to a charter PAC. These dollars are being used to fund TV ads, polls, robo calls etc.
Students were constantly getting bussed to the state’s capital and charter supporters literally camped within the state’s capital. We’ve been told 22 lobbyists filled the halls of the state building.
SB 6194 got passed out of the R. controlled senate. The House had compelling testimony and would not allow the bill out of committee.
Title-only bills got passed out of committee. These bills have NO text and are intended to support charter schools and do an end-run around the state’s constitution.
Larry Springer drafted different legislation, and , less than 24 hours later the bill was on the House floor for a vote. The House holds a slim majority and, with the support of 9 Democrats, SB 6194 got passed out of committee. Here are the turn-coat Dems:
1. Judy Clibborn: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/legislators/judy-clibborn/
2. Christopher Hurst: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/legislators/christopher-hurst/
3. Ruth Kagi: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/legislators/ruth-kagi/
4. Kristine Lytton: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/legislators/kristine-lytton/
5. Jeff Morris: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/legislators/jeff-morris/
6. Eric Pettigrew: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/legislators/eric-pettigrew
7. David Sawyer: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/legislators/david-sawyer/
8. Tana Senn: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/legislators/tana-senn/
9. Larry Springer: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/legislators/larry-springer/
10. Pat Sullivan: http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/legislators/pat-sullivan
The bill will not satisfy the Supreme Court. Legislators know this and don’t care. Chad Magendanz made a speech and called for 2000 charter school students to protest next year.
I’m confident the charter “fix” will not pass constitutional muster. Here is what Paul Laurence (attorney that argued and won I 1240):
“But attorney Paul Lawrence, who represented those who filed the lawsuit challenging charters, said switching to lottery funds is just an accounting trick.
“That doesn’t strike me as any different from paying it out of the general fund,” Lawrence said. “I don’t really see that that accomplishes a fix.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you, Diane.
Here is more of what is happening behind the scenes:
“Behind the scenes, they (the WEA) know there needs to be a fix,” said Lisa McFarlane, state director of Democrats for Education Reform.
and:
“If the Democrats don’t get on board with this, they’re going to get rolled over,” Michael Orbino, chairman of Summit Public Schools Washington, said on a panel at Roanoke. Orbino, a self described liberal voter, is a Bryant backer.
Of course, DFER has a Republican candidate in the wings wanting to close schools:
“Seattle Port Commissioner Bill Bryant, GOP challenger to Gov. Jay Inslee, has embraced and toured charter schools and taken up the cause of 1,200 students whose future education was thrown into doubt by the Supremes.
“We have a governor who will close schools that are meeting education needs of the most disadvantaged in our midst,” Bryant told Republicans’ Roanoke Conference last Saturday night.”
http://www.billbryantforgovernor.com/seattle_pi_charter_schools_tricky_dangerous_issue_for_gov_jay_inslee
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It gets better.
First of all, the money the charters are supposed to get now comes from the Opportunity Fund, which funds scholarships for low-income college students and pays for Pre-K for low income preschoolers.
Secondly, one of our better legislators, Gerry Pollet, got some public records out of one of the charter (Summit “Public” Schools) and found that a good portion of the students came from private schools or from wealthier areas of Seattle, not from the surrounding, very low-income area. This despite the charter of the school that said it was supposed to serve the low-income, underserved population of South Seattle. (He also had trouble getting info from the school despite their claim of being public and getting public funds – go figure!)
Finally, Pollet reveals that the original plan by the GOP in WA State was to give charters 3x as much of the funding per student that public schools are allocated.
So those private school students moving to charter schools – who need the funding the LEAST – would have gotten 3x the funding of public school students who need the funding the most.
Here is Rep Pollet’s statement:
http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/gerry-pollet/why-i-opposed-charter-school-bailout-bill/
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As the charter-mania increases among lawmakers in Washington, public school parents will find that their legislature does nothing BUT charter school policy.
Buckle your seatbelts. This is just the beginning. You’ll find public schools drop lower and lower on the legislative agenda until they’re barely mentioned.
You’ll have year-long fights over expansion, funding fights, facilities grants and that’s just the warm-up until you get to vouchers and “charter governance reform” which will then completely occupy your lawmakers for another year or two.
Meanwhile, years will go by and public schools will be completely ignored- treated as a kind of disfavored, default “back up” for the preferred “choice” schools.
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Recall them all. The fact that they voted as they did indicates corruption. They no longer deserve the trust of the voters, nor their offices. To me, it’s a, “How dare you!” act.
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Look into the very successful school-board recall in Jefferson County, Colorado. That was hugely supported by voters. Hopefully, that type of anti-power-monger action can/will spread?
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Thanks.
The more the Gates agenda and tactics are exposed, the more we recognize that he, and the Koch Bros., are brethren.
The Philanthropy Roundtable posted an article by an employee of a Gates-funded organization, quoting, “reformers …declare ‘We’ve got to blow up the ed schools’ “.
The alternative plan, by the richest 0.1% to take over university departments, with their money, is then laid out.
The Washington DINOS who betrayed the state’s citizens are scum.
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It is so disheartening to know after all the many years public school supporters have fought against charter schools, and even with a Supreme Court ruling, the legislators have voted to go ahead with this back door tactic to fund charters here. Especially the Democratic house members. Luckily neither of mine voted to allow it. The fight against the “reformers:” cannot let up, we must always be vigilant.
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It was very disheartening, especially in light of some of what Rep Pollet wrote about regarding Summit “Public” Schools and how they are already skimming and not telling the truth about their population, plus trying to dodge public records requests, plus finding out just how much money the GOP was wanting to hand over (3x the funding they provide for public school students – just think of what WE could do with that funding!)
I have done phone-banking for one of these “Dems” several times, but I won’t do it again. Sadly, I suspect WEA will still support these DINOs, as they’ve been strangely silent about all of this.
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Full disclosure, I am an educator and a WEA member, and agree I would think the WEA would make some noise about this..
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“Dirty Paws”
The dirty paws of Billy Gates
Subvert the laws and seal our fates
An end-run ’round the people’s will
With piles of dollars from the Bill
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I agree. WEA should have been organizing protests etc.
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Add to that, our governor, a democrat, who has opposed charter schools in the past (as the party platform clearly states), and now, faced with a veto, saying that he “…doesn’t want to shut schools.” You mean the same schools that lied to parents and opened even though they knew there was a huge chance the Supreme Court would rule them unconstitutional? We are living in strange times in the WA. Indeed.
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This is very similar to Nevada with vouchers, the courts have stated they likely won’t hold up under scrutiny, the state treasurer tried to issue the money anyway admitting that would make it harder for the courts to rule against him since the money would be gone with no accounting system to bring it back. That is part of why the judges issued an injunction against any money being issued!
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What is not mentioned here, is the proponents literally disappearing when it comes to full funding for the public schools. Despite their protestation during the regular session that they believed that the funding should take place, they are nowhere to be found or even commenting much on blogs other than bragging about their coup. The 22 highly paid lobbyists brought in cleared the halls the day after the vote and are nowhere to be seen on the funding of public schools issue. The bragging by proponents of spending on two six figure ad buys has not translated over to helping the public schools. You know big money was being spent when Strategies 360 lobbyists were outside the door plunking for a vote along with the usual ‘astroturf’ groups. A number of us raised amendments on the charter school bill that were turned down. Rep. Drew Hansen suggested temporary funding for the current 8 until we could figure out the funding issues. That was a no. I proposed that charter schools use the same Teacher/Principal Evaluation Programs that we passed in 2010 for the public schools, if we believed in the importance of teacher quality. (You can find roll calls on many of these amendments) That was a no. Suggestions to make the governance more transparent and open were also turned down, which I believe will only add to the unconstitutionality of the new bill. Only those that had pre-acceptance by charter school proponents seemed to make it through out of the 27 amendments on the House floor. Even proposing that charter school board members file public disclosure forms like other appointed public officials do was at first opposed on the House floor, but actually made it through, when opponents realized that appointed Board members in this state do file them already in other areas. We are now in special session with the supplemental budget, and it has been complicated by the millions slated for charter schools. No more funding is pointed toward settling the court ordered funding for the public schools, and we are facing possible cuts due to a so-called levy cliff.
Rep. Mike Sells, 38th Legislative District
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Thank you, Representative Sells. Your support for our WA public schools and your attempts to make charter schools follow the same rules as public schools are much appreciated. This is more good info to make sure all public school parents in WA have so they can see just how many games the charter school corporations, the billionaires, and their duly purchased legislators are playing with public school funding, and how little they care about public school kids.
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I need to acknowledge State Representative Bergquist , State Representative Mike Sells, State Representative Pollet, State Representative Reykdal, State Representative Ortiz Self and State Representative Kuderer. These individuals offered amendments and stood in the face of adversity.
SB 6194 (new bill) suffers many of the fundamental constitutional flaws that led the Supreme Court to strike down the initiative. The following elected officials have written about this issue:
http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/gerry-pollet/why-i-opposed-charter-school-bailout-bill/
http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/sharon-wylie/rep-wylies-e-newsletter-for-march-10-2016-charter-schools/
http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/patty-kuderer/my-vote-on-charter-schools/
Senators Carlyle and Frocket offered an amendment that would comply with the Supreme Court’s order to fully fund education by 2019. The amendment would also halt the proliferation of charter schools beyond 40. The amendment failed.
The bill can be viewed here:
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=6194&year=2015
The teacher’s union put a lot of time and effort into getting Governor Jay Inslee (D) elected. The fate of this bill rests in the hands of a Democratic governor.
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The new bill suffers many of the fundamental constitutional flaws that led the Supreme Court to strike down the initiative. State Representative Pollet and others on this issue:
http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/patty-kuderer/my-vote-on-charter-schools/
http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/sharon-wylie/rep-wylies-e-newsletter-for-march-10-2016-charter-schools/
http://housedemocrats.wa.gov/gerry-pollet/why-i-opposed-charter-school-bailout-bill/
special thanks to Rep. Mike Sells, Rep. Chris Reykdal, State Rep. Gerry Pollet, State Rep Kuderer and others that offered amendments. These individuals stood in the face of adversity.
Here is the bill”
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=6194&year=2015
Citizens have begun calling upon Governor Jay Inslee (D) to veto this bill.
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Public schools are not doing the job even after throwing away billions. More money for the unions will not get better education. Gates received quality education from a very expensive school and look where he is. You especially should not dictate where children go to school or anything else for that matter
Yours truly
Jimmy Boyle
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