As a washingtonian who has been strongly in support of charter schools for years without any knowledge of Gates' involvement, this story seems to be choosing a

As a washingtonian who has been strongly in support of charter schools for years without any knowledge of Gates' involvement, this story seems to be choosing a very strange case-study for criticizing billionaire philanthropists. Perhaps it has not occurred to the author that many people support charter schools because they're actually a good idea? The fundamental problem with saying that this money should go to the public school system in order to make it better is that we don't know how to make the school system better. It doesn't matter how much money is thrown at anyone in education because everyone is doing it wrong. Throwing more money at the public educational system will simply result in schools that are exceedingly good at cranking out students that excel at taking tests and memorizing useless facts instead of actually being good at something. Every argument against Charter schools that I heard during the debate was focused almost universally on money. It was always about money. Teachers seem convinced that in order to make our school system work, they just need more money, when in fact the entire public educational system has already driven off a cliff. Charter schools won't be better than public schools because of money, they'll be better than public schools because they try fundamentally different ways of teaching kids. Nobody can fix the educational system until we find better ways to educate children. Until we can find a way to instill creative problem solving and encourage innovative thinking instead of violently shoving children's brains into boxes, nothing is going to change, no matter how much money is thrown at the problem. In a world where computers are better at following instructions than any human being ever will be, creativity is the one single advantage we have, and the regulations hovering over the public school system are doing their best to utterly destroy any creative spirit our children might have had. Our society is being shaped not by the kind of intelligence that is measured by a test, but by the innovative spirit of people who think outside the box. It's time the educational system started thinking outside the box, too.