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Sunday, January 3, 2016

The charter school shell game in Washington State: Money laundering at its best (or worst?) by way of OSPI | Seattle Education

The charter school shell game in Washington State: Money laundering at its best (or worst?) by way of OSPI | Seattle Education:

The charter school shell game in Washington State: Money laundering at its best (or worst?) by way of OSPI

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If you haven’t been keeping up with the fight over charter schools in our state, for now just know that the Washington State Supreme Court recently ruled that charter schools are not common schools and therefore unconstitutional and cannot receive public money.
With so much money spent on preparing for charter schools in our state with funding from Bill Gates through orgs such as LEV and SFC and through political donations, and the money to be made by charter school franchises, Teach for America, Inc. and online learning corporations, the fight is still on in our state but now the deals are being made behind the scenes and under the table in a way that looks, sounds and smells like contempt of court to me.
Honestly, if Bill Gates wants to determine the fate of our schools, he should simply run for State Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI). It would be far more democratic than providing OSPI with over $42M since 2009 and strong-arming OSPI into doing Bill’s bidding.
So let’s get to the deets.
OSPI, with lame duck State Superintendent Randy Dorn at the helm, has been receiving millions from Gates for the last six years.  It is questionable whether a state office can legally or ethically receive private money but that’s worthy of another investigation and The charter school shell game in Washington State: Money laundering at its best (or worst?) by way of OSPI | Seattle Education: