WA State Charter Schools to Benefit from DeVos Largesse

The Seattle Times has a story about how Washington State charter schools are eligible to apply for dollars from a $20M grant that the Washington State Charter School Association will receive from the Department of Education.
To note, Betsy DeVos has been instrumental in sending out many more federal dollars to help shore up the starting-to-lean-like-the tower-in-Pisa charter school business.  Washington state was just one of five states to receive a grant.

Although they receive state funding for each child who attends, they do not benefit from local tax levies, which pay for school districts’ building and construction costs. Charters have to raise money for these and other upfront costs by fundraising, turning to philanthropists and seeking grants.”

The original charter law would have allowed access to local school levy dollars and luckily, that got changed. I’m glad for a couple of reasons.

Districts have to pay for these elections and there was no wording in the law that charters would have to contribute. Why in the world would they get the benefit of school levy dollars without helping to pay for levies AND going out to help pass them?

Also, the Gates Foundation has a non-profit group just for charter schools and their capital needs. I’m surprised the Times didn’t admit this fact into the story. Of course, the Foundation has its favorites so only those that Gates wants to see succeed get those dollars.

To note, Seattle charter schools can now access levy funds from the City’s Families and Education levy. That’s a fact the City would NOT admit during the campaign and one not noted in this article. Again, why would the Times omit information that would contribute to the understanding of the issue for this story?

Charter schools are not opening here in WA state at any great rate so all this “parents want them” seems to not be proving itself to be true. I am glad it is hard to open a charter school in our state because it protects us from money-grabbing for-profit management groups and shoddy schools as other states have experienced. There is still only one school district that has become a charter school authorizer, Spokane SD.