Parent writes check to save first grade teacher’s job

The owner of a film production company in Seattle wanted to shame school administrators and politicians after he saw a story that parents at a school were trying to raise $90,000 to save a first-grade teacher’s job.

Brian Jones was surfing the Internet looking for information about the Seattle Seahawks when he saw the story.

So he wrote a check for $70,000 to the school with which he has no ties.

““My broader goal was to shame the administration and the legislature and the mayor, for the fact that a private citizen and parents are putting up money to support children, because they’re doing nothing,” Jones told KIRO TV.

Washington Post writer Valerie Strauss gives the system a failing grade.

Despite billions of dollars poured into corporate education reform — to pay for the opening and expansion of public charter schools, the creation and promotion of the Common Core State Standards and new standardized tests, teacher evaluation systems linked to test scores, the rise of alternative teacher training programs, etc. — traditional school districts still find themselves without adequate resources to do the basic job of educating kids.