Nick Hanauer Replies

I earlier reported that Nick Hanauer, who wrote the I-884 initiative to raise the state sales tax by a billion dollars a year to boost education spending, and also paid for most of the campaign to put the initiative on the ballot, appeared to have an inside interest in the legislation. Posted this comment in response.

While it is true that I am an investor and board member of Teach First, it is not true that this association will in any material way benefit from I884.

First, my investment in Teach First represents approximately 1 part in 10,000 of my net worth. If you consider the dilution that has occured since my investment, even if TF succeded beyond our wildest dreams, the return on my investment would not even register with my accountants. My interest in TF is consistent with many of my activities, to make Public Education in the USA the best in the world.

Second, even if Teach First were to benefit from more money in Washington's public Schools it would represent only 1/50th of the possible revenue for the company. There are 50 states, and needs for ESL help (the company's primary product)are greatest elsewhere.

No doubt you are looking for motivation. If you do not want to believe that my wife and I, having grown up middle class and gone to public schools ourselves, and having found ourselves the beneficiaries of almost incomprehensible good fortune, just want to give back to the community in the highest leverage way that we can-by funding public education-then believe this;

That wealthy citizens like us have a dispraportionate stake in insuring that America works for all citizens, not just the fortunate few. It is broad and equal opportunity and widespread success that creates a country that is fun to live in and can produce the life that we are now so fortunate to lead.

If you are looking for some bad guys in this fight, go after the business leaders in this state who have been pounding the table about standards and accountabilty for decades and now don't want to focus the resources on the problem necessary to get kids up to those standards. Go after them!

Hanauer and his wife have donated nearly $500,000 to state political campaigns and another $179,000 to federal campaigns in the last five years alone. Nearly all of the money has gone to liberal Democrats and tax-increasing ballot initiatives. They've even donated to Seattle city campaigns for the Monorail and the Families and Education Levy to raise the taxes of Seattle residents even though they don't even live in Seattle.

I admire Hanauer's stated commitment to public education. I think he's wrong to insist that the top priority for improving the schools is simply to increase the funding. The real priority is to make fundamental reforms in the way schools are managed. Nevertheless, if Hanauer wants to donate $650,000 of his own vast fortune to the public school system, God bless him. But it's a pretty perverse form of noblesse oblige to spend all that money in order to impose a tax increase on the millions of Washingtonians who aren't as well off as he is.

UPDATE: I sent Nick Hanauer a follow-up e-mail asking him to state his position on charter schools and also to state whether his own kids (he has two) go to public school or private school. I was told they go to private school, but I'm hoping Hanauer will clarify this.

UPDATE 2: Hanauer replied to my questions. I was wrong about the above:

My kids are 4 and 2. They go to pre-school now, but will go to the local public school in shoreline where we live.

I'll post the rest of his reply later.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at September 26, 2004 05:34 PM | Email This