The funding would come from the resources of regular public schools: each student would “carry” his or her per-child funding out of the district system to a charter school. These were to be taxpayer-funded schools, but privately run and exempt from many of the regulations governing district (regular) public schools. This story begins in 1995, when the Washington State House of Representatives first considered legislation that would enable private individuals and organizations to obtain charters to create their own K–12 schools. The Case of Bill Gates and Washington State It’s a textbook example of the tug-of-war between government by the people and uber-philanthropists as social engineers. What follows is a case study of the way charitable plutocracy operates on the ground. Like all forms of plutocracy, this one conflicts with democracy, and exactly how these philanthropists coordinate tax-exempt grantmaking with political funding for maximum effect remains largely obscure. They translate their wealth, the work of their foundations, and their celebrity as doers-of-good into influence in the public sphere-much more influence than most citizens have.Ĭall it charitable plutocracy-a peculiarly American phenomenon, increasingly problematic and in need of greater scrutiny. They aim to do good in the world, but each defines “good” idiosyncratically in terms of specific public policies and political goals. The trustees would spend the earnings of the endowment to pursue a typically grand but wide-open mission written into the foundation’s charter-like The Rockefeller Foundation’s 1913 mission “to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world.” Today’s multi-billionaires are a different species of philanthropist they keep tight control over their foundations while also operating as major political funders-think Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, or Walmart heiress Alice Walton. Once upon a time, the superwealthy endowed their tax-exempt charitable foundations and then turned them over to boards of trustees to run.
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