Seattle Schools Community Forum

Over at The Stranger Slog, Goldy reports yet another interesting story about 1240; the Bezos family is funding four PACS.   They are Children for WA PAC , Democrats for Ed Reform WA PAC and Education Voters Political Action Fund.   The newest one is Revising the Status Quo .  Most of the money from all of them comes from the Bezos family, including Jeff Bezos' mom and dad.  And, in turn, Stand for Children throws some of its money in there.  (It's a long line of circulating money usually starting from a wealthy person/entity like the Gates Foundation.) Further more, all of these IEs were done by the same direct mail house, Amplified Strategies, a firm that proudly boasts its work on the No on I-1098 (High earners income tax) a campaign to which the billionaire Bezos family contributed $150,000. So while it may look like Cann and Bowman are getting a lot of support from a broad array of good-sounding organizations with "education" in their names, i...

Today's front page headline story in the Times is about Amazon, " a virtual no-show in hometown philanthropy." The story points out that while it even took the Gates Foundation awhile to start opening its vast pockets, Amazon still hasn't.  Their model? "Our core business activities are probably the most important thing we do to contribute, as well as our employment in the area," Bezos told The Times. In a 2010 interview with PBS' Charlie Rose, Bezos expressed doubt that philanthropy was the best way to solve social problems. "I'm convinced that in many cases, for-profit models improve the world more than philanthropy models, if they can be made to work." For example, he thinks inventing the Kindle brings more reading opportunities to people worldwide.  Discuss that statement. But frankly, I guess if Amazon continues to grow, employ and be good employers, that is a good thing for our city.