Ten people have supplied 91% of the $8.9 million raised to promote a charter school referendum in Washington State.

Prominent among the super-donors are Bill Gates, Walmart heiress Alice Walton, Amazon Titan Mike Bezos, and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer.

It’s fair to say that none of these financial sponsors have a child in the public schools of Washington state or that they will ever have a child in the public schools of Washington state.

They are doing the old noblesse oblige thing, that thing you do for the children of the peasant class.