Bill Gates struggled for years to bring charter schools to Washington State, over the opposition of parent groups, teachers, and civil rights organizations. He lost three state referenda, but won the fourth—barely—by blitzing voters with a multimillion dollar campaign that the opponents could not match.
Be careful what you want. First a CREDO report found that the charters did not outperform the much-maligned public schools.
Now a state audit reports that charters in Seattle and Tacoma are breaking the law by hiring uncertified teachers.
Teachers who lacked proper accreditation taught at charter schools in Seattle and Tacoma, in violation of state rules. This was discovered through an audit; State Auditor Pat McCarthy called these findings “unprecedented.”
The state audit found that Summit Sierra and Summit Atlas, schools in Seattle, and Summit Olympus, a school in Tacoma, received nearly $4 million in funding related to the positions, which may now need to be repaid…
The auditor’s office estimated that Summit schools received $3.89 million in state funding more than it should have related to the teaching positions filled by uncertificated staff.
In a formal response to the audit findings, an attorney for Summit Public Schools challenged all of them, and the state’s repayment calculations.
“It is simply not the case that a person is only qualified to teach under Washington law if he or she has a state-issued teacher certificate,” wrote attorney David Stearns.
The auditors, Stearns wrote, failed “to recognize the explicit exception to the teacher certification requirement that applies to charter schools.”
Jessica de Barros, interim executive director of the Washington State Charter School Commission, which authorizes and oversees Summit Public Schools, disagreed.
“All public charter schools are required to employ certificated teachers,” de Barros said. “The Commission supports full compliance with all of the audit recommendations,” including repayment of inappropriately-granted state dollars.
“We have since strengthened our systems to ensure these inadvertent reporting issues will not happen again,” said Kate Gottfredson, spokesperson for Summit Public Schools. “We will work with the [Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction] to develop an appropriate plan to address the findings.”
It is not clear why the spokesperson for the charter chain thought the problem was a “reporting issue,” not a breaking-the-law issue.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The drive to increase the number of charter schools has never been driven by evidence about achievement and certainly not equity. Rather, it been driven by an elitist ideology that destains democracy, dismisses government action on behalf of the common good in favor–at best– of private efforts to save a few and–at worst–to provide opportunities for profit no matter what the damage.
The drive for charter schools has never come from parents, only from billionaires like Bill Gates, plutocrats like Betsy DeVos, and oligarchs like Charles Koch.
Yes, and the push to undermine the public schools parents actually value gets addition support by Koch, et al actively subverting public school quality through the Reagan/Bush “starve the beast” strategy: Reduce and restrict funding, while saving the wealthy tax dollars. And, more recently, campaigning to elect and appoint people to positions of leadership who want to undermine the institutions they serve.
Arthur, Charter Schools used misleading and cherry picked facts to generate evidence for that fake achievement. The manufactured ideology was the cherry on top of that rotting corpse.
The art of selling people a slice of Mars or a bridge that doesn’t exist is always wrapped in fancy fast talk designed to confuse and mislead.
What lives by any news is better than no news even it it is fake news?
“The drive to increase charter schools” is the campaign for school choice. In Ky., media report that Ky.’s EdChoice VP is also the associate director for the Catholic Conference of Kentucky. In Indiana,
Catholics take credit for the state’s school choice legislation. Some state Catholic Conferences co-host with the Koch’s AFP, school choice rallies in state capitols.
In a state adjacent to Wash., a writer wrote an article about weaponized Christianity (6-15-2021), published at Rantt Media. He is one of the very few who identifies the politicized Catholic influence in the alliance of right wing religion and politics.
IMO, it’s just a matter of time before there is widespread acknowledgement that school choice propaganda and its legislative success are part of the issues package that brings together Koch, conservative Catholics like Pat Buchanan and, plutocrats like Melinda Gates who attended Catholic schools.
Reportedly, in 2013, Pat Buchanan said, “Putin is one of us.” Recently, Georgetown Catholic University hired Ilya Shapiro, a former Koch network employee as a top administrator in its law school.
I tend to agree. Putin is one of them.
and absolutely the two key words in that sentence: FOR PROFIT
For profit charter operations will always put profit above what is best for students. By requiring that charter schools hire certified teachers, the state is trying to ensure that students would receive instruction by adequately prepared teachers according to state guidelines. Corporations always seek to reduce costs, and they often break the rules to do so. In this case Summit Schools were caught.
Corporate America does not always do the right thing. Much of the inflation in our country is due to shameless profiteering by major corporations that are raking in record profits. Covid has caused supply chain problems, and the war in Ukraine is contributing to higher prices at the pump. but big companies are making record profits by taking advantage of the crisis. They are busy buying back their stock to produce profit for shareholders instead of trying to help working families cope.
Since the divorce, Melinda Gates has full ownership for what the Foundation does that subverts U.S. democracy and increases American theocracy and plutocracy. If her motivation for privatization is based on a preference for Catholic schools, media should inform the public. If she is opposed to common goods, the public should know. If she is in favor of the legal theft of Main Street’s assets for the benefit of Wall Street and tech industries, the public should be made aware.
Not so sure about this
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/02/melinda-french-gates-wealth-gates-foundation
Thanks for the link.
Melinda Gates could announce Bill’s plans for privatization of schools was unconscionable. But then, what does that say about her?
I suspect that she shares his myopic view, but she might be rethinking a lot of things right now. Lord it would be good to have someone with her financial might on our side (on the side of real public schools) for a change.
Her brain wasn’t activated until her husband spent time with Epstein and had an affair?
Sad
I haven’t read her book or followed her, but she wouldn’t be the first person to put spousal loyalty first and to have a certain degree of blindness as a result.
She believed the burnish of her self-paid PR.
News reports are saying that Ms. French Gates will no longer be doing her philanthropy through the foundation but through various charitable organizations.
She may be jealous of McKenzie Scott—ex-wife of Jeff Bezos—who is handing out huge grants to organizations that seem worthy, no strings attached. They don’t apply; she doesn’t set conditions; she wants them to keep doing their best instead of following her orders.
I just read today an article about how the coalition of ruling parties in Finland–all five of them–are run by women.
Estimates indicate that fewer than one-third of Finnish people believe in the established myths that rely on God-mandated patriarchy.
Christian propaganda promoted in Finland is similar to that in the U.S., “Christianity will be made illegal.” The right wing won’t accept national neutrality i.e. the absence of theocracy.
I suspect that you are onto something here. Of the many things that the Church has to atone for, including leaving rivers of blood throughout history in its Holy Wars conducted under the banner of the Prince of Peace, the subjection of women over millennia is one of the greatest sins. Its negative influence in the matter of governance is obvious enough. But there are other more subtle issues. I think, for example, of the matter of sex and sexuality. Among the ancient Greeks, it was a truism that women were more naturally libidinous that men are–this is a theme that runs throughout ancient Greek literature and philosophy and myth. But after two thousand years of the Church sex and body shaming women, by the time one got to, say, 1950s America, more than half of women reported never having had an orgasm in their lifetimes! Think of all that was lost there in the arena of personal fulfillment, of eudaimonia. Or think of all the stories, novels, plays, poems, musical works, painting, sculptures, inventions, discoveries, not made by women over those two thousand years because the Church taught that their proper roles were as help meet to men, as baby factories, as keeper of the hearth. It’s sickening, all that unrealized potential stolen from women and from society as a whole by the twisted prejudices and superstitions of old churchmen.
Thanks for the comment, Bob.
The baby factory is among the worst. The mother’s life is made irrelevant by Catholic church doctrine. To have half of the church membership be women shows the impact of societal norms and it shows the narrowness with which individual women seek a source for meditation and for the fulfillment of other types of promises their religion makes. Those women’s belief practices come at a cost to women’s lives and well-being, to their political rights, to their morality and ethics and, to their self respect. Because it has carry over effect, it is an especially high price to be paid. The rest of women who live in the same religion-dominated countries deserve better than the betrayal.
Bob-
Btw- when an organization tells the assembled to call the leader by the name, Father, it’s an indicator that it’s a dangerous cult.
Well observed, Linda!
It is not clear why the spin DUCKtors…
Chances are, if “it” quacks like a
Donald Duck, of the deflect attention
away feather, bag of tricks, it IS.
The validity of score based avatars
/proper accreditations/certifications
rests on the validity of the “standards”
upon which they are built.
It is assumed that “standards” of the past,
and tests based on them, measured what
they purport to measure?
Is it assumed that “standards” of the past
actually defined the lines that separates
the good from the bad, the excellent from
the mediocre, the pass from the fail?
So when it comes to professing
“all of a sudden” standards and
the tests wed to them are
BUNKUM, pray tell,
WHAT makes standards and
tests, of the past, the real deals,
the true measures of achievement?
It seems to me that the most important thing certification does for the profession is to assure a commitment to long haul teaching. As a product of a private high school and as a person who taught in a private setting, I am acutely aware of the private school way of hiring. Teachers are often right out of college, usually bright, energetic, and personable. A few are natural teachers. Halfway through the year, a good portion of the group decides on their next step in life, and they are beginning their new adventure even as they finish their stepping stone.
Then there are the ones who went to college, anticipating a teaching career. Even if they are not certified, they have found ways to expose themselves to methods and have begun to collect materials and to fabricate lessons. They may not have state certification, but they usually get it, and will someday join the public sector where their pay will be better.
If a school wants to have a good program, what ever type it is, it needs long term continuity that comes from staff stability. Certification assures that the people teaching want to teach for a career. Not every suggestion made in my education classes went toward a good practice in class, but it made me think about it.
“We have since strengthened our systems to ensure these inadvertent reporting issues will not happen again. From now on, we will report all uncertified teachers as certified ones.”
–Bo Dudley Shepherd, COO (Chief Obfuscation Officer), Bob ‘n’ Darlene’s Real Good Floruhduh Schools
Hey, at least Washington requires charter teachers to be certified. Such is not the case in Massachusetts.