Seattle Schools Community Forum: Mr. and Mrs. Gates

Seattle Schools Community Forum: Mr. and Mrs. Gates:

Mr. and Mrs. Gates

Bill and Melinda Gates are having a two-day (kinda secret) Gates Foundation event in downtown Bellevue.  Yesterday, the first day of the event, Mr. and Mrs. Gates sat down to opine about their adventures in public education. 

The Gates' friends at the Times, which gets funding for education reporting from the Foundation, put out one version of this story yesterday that I see that TODAY has now been edited.  A quote by Gates is altered and soft quotes from State Superintendent Randy Dorn and the head of the Road Map project are in.  (I really have to start taking screenshots of these stories since the Times feels compelled to rewrite them at will.) 

From the Times:

Working on reforming the U.S. education system is the hardest job they’ve ever tackled, Bill and Melinda Gates said Wednesday — even more difficult and complex than trying to find a cure for malaria.

And again, failure after failure and yet they just keep trying to see what might stick.  Using other people's children as their guinea pigs. 

“If we come up with a new malaria drug, a new malaria vaccine, nobody votes to uninvent our malaria vaccine,” said Gates, to laughter from the Seattle Schools Community Forum: Mr. and Mrs. Gates:





Washington State Charter School Updates

Some items I have mentioned before and some items are probably new to most readers.

- The Washington State Charter Schools Association asked the Supreme Court for an extension on their filing for reconsideration by the Court and was granted it.  They have until October 24th to file.

- Meanwhile, Attorney General Bob Ferguson met the 20-day deadline for his office's filing for reconsideration.

- Additionally, Ferguson is filing a friend of the court for the WSCSA's reconsideration.

- The Washington Education Association has launched a petition to ask Ferguson to reconsider his motion to the Court for reconsideration. It has over 1,000 signatures.

- Troubled First Place Scholars charter school is have a "radio-thon" this weekend in to raise money for the school.

- Remember how the head of the WSCASA, Tom Franta, had said, immediately after the ruling, that private donors would make sure that the current charter Washington State Charter School Updates