Seattle Schools Community Forum

Let's start with charters. You may recall the "yet another faux ed reform group" called Act Now for Washington Students .  This group is organized by the usual suspects - LEV, Stand for Children, DFER and the Washington State Charter Schools Association.  All these get money from the Gates Foundation. They have formed a PAC that hopes to raise (and presumably spend) $500,000 just for this legislative session to influence legislators on charter schools.  They have already spent $20K on 13 House members (each got $1,000) including Seattle's charter cheerleader, Eric Pettigrew.  This is in addition to the number of print and tv ads running.  It is not cheap to run a local ad during football Sunday. 

Update 2:  I wrote to Kevin Jacka, the superintendent of Mary Walker School District, to ask him about his resignation from the Charter Commission and about taking the orphan charter schools into his district. Here's what he said (or didn't say);

I may have mentioned it but to clarify, this "new" group, Act Now for Washington Students, is an astro-turf, Gates-funded group made up of DFER, League of Education Voters and Stand for Children.  You don't get more ed-form and Gates-guided than those three.