Look at the difference in funding for the WA state charter initiative. We're doomed.

[iemitsu]

1. I hate Bill Gates too.

Everything you said in your post is correct, and depressing.
Three times Washingtonians have voted down the privatization of our public schools but the monied class wants their hands on the public purse. There has been no honest discussion of charter school realities. The facts that charters don't do a better job of educating students and that they promote segregation and drain needed resources from traditional schools, that really do take all comers, are well documented but the corporate elites (who are sponsoring this shit) don't care about good public policy they just want our wealth.
That's what an American philanthropist looks like.