Jen and Ansel, thank you for actual journalism. Again.

ditto @1

What about their other platforms, the I-594 campaign was funded nearly exclusively by this same list, and provided no funding mechanisms ( sounds familiar ) 1%er money is cool if you share the ideology? a wee bit hypocritical.

Didn't Gates and Hanauer both support the state-income tax, quite vocally? Just because they are for charter schools doesn't mean they are against teachers, students, or funding education.

Gates Sr. supported the income tax, as I assume the son did too. Other billionaires did not. Not sure this qualifies as journalism, since they are all patently obvious facts. More like opinion.

Yes, what Call me Scott said.

@4: Thanks for pointing this out. Corrected the post.

Echoing #4. What evidence Ansel do you have that Bill Gates is against progressive income tax? You can probably say that about Ballmer and but I don't see evidence on Gates.

Believe it or not, it is quite possible to simultaneously believe that charter schools have value and that teachers should be paid better. Completely false dichotomy.

Can you imagine our economy without Gates and those like him? He's created thousand of millionaires and several billionaires. You should travel to another state with punishing, raping taxes. The kind of place that repels the ambitious. I have to respect your tenacity for a disastrous state tax that will never happen. Thank God for all the WA voters who will always tell you to stick your economy killer up your ass.

Whatever Kansas is doing just do the opposite.

@10, can you imagine if they contributed equitably to the tax base, you have to imagine it because they sure aren't doing it now.

King 5 last night was handing out sloppy blowjobs to Charter Schools. Apparently there are deep pocket "Private Funds" willing to step up and help them this year till this gets through Appeals.

Destroying Public Education is a long term goal of the 1%. They'll be patient.

@4, @8 Gates did not support the income tax, standing viciously mute on the issue his father was heavily promoting. Meanwhile, Microsoft itself and its big wigs donated heavily to the opposing campaign.

Do with that what you will...

I do think the public school system would benefit by adapting some of the characteristics that make private schools generally work better:
- smaller class sizes
- more teacher control over curriculum
- more leeway to promote, demote, and fire teachers based on performance
- less standardized testing
- less chaos and randomization (i.e., "reform") from billionaires and for-profit text book companies peddling the latest trendy nonsense on math education
- more focus on achievement rather than achievement gaps
- more focus on education rather than social work
- not being a dumping ground for unmotivated, unruly, attention-draining students
- less bureaucratic overhead

Indiscriminate salary raises for teachers are definitely not on this list. In fact, good teachers regularly leave public schools to take lower paying yet more rewarding positions at private schools.

$10 - Yes, if only states like New York and California would stop burdening its citizens so—perhaps some moneyed folks would finally settle there?

@15:

Ironically, much of what you propose are precisely the issues SEA is now striking to try to get put into their contract. And while good teachers may take lower paying jobs in the private-sector, they probably still come out roughly even, if only because they're not paying out-of-pocket for supplies for their classrooms - and often students - not working unpaid overtime, and probably making smaller health insurance contributions as well.

It's not in our kleptocratic rulers' interests to fund education anyway. The billionaires need ignorant peasants to continue mindlessly pissing away what little money they do have on the toxic, destructive products peddled by their corporations, and then in turn vote for their political puppets, who're screwing the poor and former middle class six ways from Sunday.

Teachers are overpaid, end of story.

@ 20,
They haven't had a raise in six years, which means their purchasing power is going way down at a time when the cost of living in Seattle has exploded, and that's not even scratching the surface on the many issues on which they're striking to improve student education.

@16 news flash. People with money are fleeing both of those states and Illinois. They only people people flocking to CA are homeless scum trash that need your style of government to live that life.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2…

@ 20,

Oh, and if Washington actually had a proper tax system and mechanism for appropriate school funding, no one would need to beg billionaires like Gates for money he made off the work of others and by gaming the system. Microsoft is a notorious corporate tax cheat that has unethically moved money around state and international borders and purposefully deprived the state of revenues for decades leading to exactly the situation that we're in today.

@ 23,

Sure, that's why San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York are now dangerously underpopulated. They can't even give houses away! Er, actually that's right-wing glory hole Kansas.

Don't complain about Chopp's spinelessness until The Stranger is ready to stop endorsing him. Tim Keck is just a willing to trade away his principles for a political advantage like the Speaker's seat as any of these other political players you're sitting here judging.

First, as usual, Ansel proves he's a liberal asshole who sits on his white, trust fund, latte drinking ass going on and on about "progressive issues" without ever considering that scum like him are part of the problem. Much the same way that douche Trump blames "da Mexicans", Ansel and his ilk blame "da billionaires." First off, Charter schools have been proven to help minority students where public schools fail:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25…
(But I guess the huffpost is just a "right-wing blog" that shouldn't be taken seriously)
Second, what did Gates donate money too that actually caused the state to disregard the constitution? Gun Control.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/26/technolo…
But we don't see Ansel or any other chumps writing for Der ᛋᛋtranger never said anything about it. In other words, billionaires donating is fine, as long as they are donating to causes they like.

@9
You are absolutely right. Just keep in mind people like Ansel have to use strawmen, otherwise they would actually have to use data and logic to backup their positions instead of blaming everything on the Monopoly man. Charter schools are community endeavors of human agency outside of the State. Statists like Ansel would rather everything, from utilities to healthcare, from education to recreation, from gardening to gyms, be run by the state. He and the other Statists know good and well that their real agenda would never fly, not even somewhere like Seattle. So instead they try to hide it, and the best way to hide things is by offering the distraction of "blaming the other," which in his case is the "evil billionaires."

Ansel also probably has issues with private community gardens, voluntary carpools, volunteer animal shelters etc, but instead he will say "billionaires are funding exclusivist gardens in poor neighborhoods as part of gentrification" instead of just coming out and saying "if the government isn't running it, it should not exist, even if that garden is helping poor people."

Much like Trump dances around the idea that he is racist without coming out and admitting it, Ansel dances around the idea that he is against human agency, without coming out and admitting it. The two of them should maybe go bowling or something.

Oh, and I do support higher taxes on the wealthy too, and abolishing the unfair way public schools are funded and replacing it with a need-based system, but also support charter schools.

@30 – You’re not really equating population growth percentage with emigrating millionaires, are you? How.. the… never mind. I mean, you basically just wrote “well you have AIDS anyway” to a today stranger, so you might be.
BTW, that magazine you linked to named San Francisco “Best Large City in America for job growth.” So despite not being able to see our way outa these foggy bath houses, we seem to be hitting the conservative metrics outta the park.

*total. Must be loopy from the you know what.

Stop bashing BillG. Here's brought more economic opportunity for routes for success than any of Seattle's founders. Bitching about Microsoft is just jealous sour grapes, or for that matter the same goes to Amazon or Google or Boeing.

Keep in mind, software does not increase global greenhouse gasses.

@COMTE: As I understand, they're lobbying for the following 3, so yes, that's good.

- smaller class sizes
- more teacher control over curriculum
- less standardized testing

On the down side, unions make it nearly impossible to link compensation and job security to anything other than seniority, which is a big problem, I think.

Supply sider Washington's chickens are coming home to roost, as is the case in many other locales. It's an exercise in head-scratching to read the defenders of concentrated wealth above, but they're still around. The privileged do love their privilege (as do their courtiers, like @20) and will hire whole teams of flacks and politicians to fight like dogs on their behalf in order to retain it. Ah, but the 1980s are belatedly coming to an end. Finally, the change is real. The thing is, the plutocrats eventually made things to where the working class has very little to lose. This teacher's strike is just the tip of the iceberg.

It would be helpful if someone from the union or the district, or if the Stranger would ask the question, where does the money to pay the teachers' request come from? The district can't raise taxes for this contract year. What gets cut? Do we cut more nurses? Nonacademic activities? Arts? Are they just sitting on a pile of gold they don't want to touch? No one's answered this from what I've seen yet.

The court ruling wasn't unanimous on that point, Ansel. The concurring opinion agreed that charter schools couldn't receive "restricted funds," but nothing was stopping the State from using money from the General Fund to support them. Therefore it is factually incorrect to say that the Court unanimously ruled that charter schools couldn't receive public funds.

@9. Given the only proven acheivements of charters are lowering salaries for teachers, introducing religious education on the public dime, and giving public funds to for-profit school management companies (working for "non profit" schools.) what is it you support?

@31/32:

Are you still here? Why haven't you moved to your Libertarian Paradise of Galt's Gulch, Texas or where ever the hell you perpetually say you're going to shove off to yet? You do realize you can only promise that so many times before even Bailo begins to think you're more full of shit than a sewage treatment plant.

@15, private schools are not synonymous with charter schools. Private schools don't take money from the public system.

@31: wow, you're using Huff Post as a cite? It doesn't matter whether it's right wing or left wing; it's a f*cking blog full of articles by writers who don't get paid.

@14 "viciously mute" eh? The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Logical Fallacy 101 my friend.

@15 - I generally agree with a lot of what you have to say, but you are profoundly wrong about "what charters do right". The "magic" of charter schools is Selective Enrolment. If you understand Adverse Selection in healthcare, then you understand selective enrolment in school admissions. Regular public schools, however, are legislatively (constitutionally!!) bound to take all students, no matter what (this is a good thing). And even with this advantage, charters generally do the same or worse than public schools in raising student achievement. What you do get is convenient self-segregation. Charter is the new Segregation Academy where "those people" has been expanded to include anyone in the low S-E status with costly educational needs.

@22. They don't and that's an entirely bigger kettle of fish. Enrollments are down at Colleges of Education all across the country. People bitch about teacher quality, yet we have created a system where those most able to do the job are motivated to seek employment elsewhere.

Regardless of which billionaires supported the income tax, the choice to implement it wasn't up to them. Once again, our citizens have been short-sighted and narrow-minded. We're the ones who voted down the income tax, and have no one to blame but ourselves, no matter how Bill Gates felt about it (who cares?!?). So, if we're going to trace this back to blame the billionaires, then we must take the next logical step and blame ourselves for not voting to tax their incomes and actually bring some stability and sanity to our state's budget, and the funding of education.

TRUTH BOMB: WA Republicans REFUSE to follow the law set down by the WA State Supreme Court to fund Education is heinous and should be punished with the same laws used to punish others for breaking the law. Governor Inslee needs to take responsibility for setting the stage when he organized an $8.5 billion tax break and incentives giveaway to Boeing, which takes $8.5 billion away from any future needs of the people, education, and infrastructure. On top of this the legislators, both Democrats and Republicans have now amassed a $7.5 billion annual giveaway to 650 companies. This doesn’t include the Capital Gains tax break that if repealed would bring in $4 billion enough to fund the educational portion of the budget. None of these giveaways, more than $19 billion yearly have improved the economy, created jobs, in fact they have served to increase our poverty, hunger and homelessness. There is no excuse for 30,000 homeless children in Washington State a year. Shame on our Governor for not calling the legislators in until they fund education, making it absolutely critical for teachers to go on strike to get results. Shame on the Republicans for blocking taxes on the 12 billionaires, Bill Gates alone would have paid enough to cover the educational budget. Shame on the Democrats for not fighting harder for the people and our children.

Petition: Demand Gov. Inslee call emergency legislative session to fully fund WA state education https://www.change.org/p/jay-inslee-rand…
Blame the Billionaires, Not the Teachers http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/20…

State income tax makes sense. Who in the state legislature is prepared to propose it? Maybe move beyond the Gates as big guy storyline to the real meat of this story.

Thank you Jen and Ansel for reporting this enlightening article.
Billionaires rewarded with government subsidies to dodge having to pay their fair share of taxes, with a track record for supporting Republican lobbyists who will enforce their special interests at the expense of everyone and everything else should be held accountable instead of being lauded as philanthropists (Koch Brothers' Evil Empire, anyone?), and should NOT have such a stranglehold on legislative policy! I am sickened that Alice Walton, Wal*Mart matriarch, is among the staunch proponents of Washington's privately run, publicly tax-funded charter schools, and is among those enthusiastically plugging out of state money for this public education disaster.
We are not in Kansas! Washington State's legislature needs to publicly denounce Doug Ericksen, the worst excuse of a state senator, R for Roadblock-Ferndale (who, by the way, claims he "cares" about public education--just because his wife is a school teacher; our state's worsening water and air quality and public health when as Department Head of the Washington State Department of the Environment--how did he get THAT title?!?--he's out to gut the ERA, public health when he wants to defund Planned Parenthood and threatens our public safety daily along the railroads while proudly serving only his "constituents" in the fossil fuel industry), as well as Michael Baumgartner, R- Roads, Roads, and More Roads! from Spokane.
@51: I agree; Washington has needed a state income tax forever for the very reason of putting our shameful level of income inequality to an end.

Awww, shit!--I meant EPA--for the Environmental Protection Agency in @52.
Seriously, though, Ericksen and Baumgartner are among many special interest lobbyists gleefully benefitting from outside money at our expense--and need to go.

Seattle teachers suck as bad as the school district does.
On a scale of 1-100, they only come in at 56 for math, and 50 for reading.
Kids will learn more reading ads in the local paper.

Ironic, tax payers/parents have no say over what happens in public school. Me are legally required to put our kids there, and then our kids are at the mercy of bad and often abusive teachers. When we try to fix it, get help, etc. we are talked down to and told we are the issue. Mappers all the time to every child at least once. The list of what need improving in our schools is long, more teacher pay is not one of them. Year round schools. Magnet schools. Teaching, real actual,teaching. Cut back homework, use challenging and inspiring curriculum. I could go on forever. My youngest is a senior and I have 20 years of this behind me. I think we all value the good teachers. We also do not want to pay bad teachers 80K and have our kids lives negatively affected by them zero control. Until WEA gets the bad ones out and expresses an open mind about longer school years and work hours, no support from me. I am a federal employee and can tell you our union is the cover for the worst employees. And I am a NJ girl with teamster roots, so it took a lot for a union to loose my support. WEA is the devil.

Glad The Stranger found a way to work Amazon in there. I get sad when they leave us out.