AirBnB, Google, Twitter, Uber, Facebook, and SalesForce, some of the largest and most powerful corporations in the world are based right here is SF.  Why can’t we put an initiative on the ballot to put a tax on them to pay for schools and other public goods.

Let’s work for a progressive tax on the extremely wealthy, rather than the proposed regressive parcel tax, which hurts working class homeowners in SF for whom an extra $200 per year is a lot to pay.

Make them pay on our terms, subject to public control, rather than on their terms, through pet philanthropic education projects like “the Primary School”, which will be opening soon in SF, and is jointly funded by the SFUSD (and likely the new parcel tax as well), and is a project in which the super wealthy call the shots.

SFUSD actively recruits big donors through its SPARK program.  Can these funds be used for educator salaries and the supports for the classroom chosen by the people in the classroom?   Why not?   Isn’t the most important element in successful schools the actual people who are in the room working with the students?

Check out the list of donors to SPARK: How much money do they donate? What is the money paying for?  Who decides how the money is spent?  What do they actually mean by “innovation”?

Former Superintendent Carranza on launching the SPARK program.

Agendas and minutes for SPARK board meetings

SPARK Board of directors