In March 2012 and September 2010, Gates gave CCSA $1 million for general operating support each time.

Two of the largest Gates grants toward charter schools were for $3 million each, one in June 2014 and one, in June 2012, to the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (total $6 million).

The largest single grant was for $5.5 million, to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS), in November 2007.

In October 2009, NAPCS received $500,000 that was more to the point: “to provide general operating support for continued growth of the charter industry.” Also in Washington state and receiving Gates money for operations was the Cesar Chavez Public Policy Charter High School ($9,700 in October 2008).

Other charter school entities receiving Gates money for operating support include the Texas Charter Schools Association ($250,000 in May 2009 and $650,000 in May 2010); the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools ($450,000 in April 2011 and $200,000 in November 2012); the Georgia Charter Schools Association ($250,000 in October 2012); the Illinois Network of Charter Schools ($600,000 in September 2011), and the New York City Charter School Center ($950,000 in September 2010). Gates paid Children Now $700,000 toward operating support in March 2015.

Pro-CCSS-test-score-focused Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (TNSCORE) has also received its share of Gates operating support: $2.3 million in January 2015; CCSS-lesson conduit, the Teaching Channel: $2.5 million in November 2014 to follow a healthy $7 million in June 2013; and Teach Plus, a fine slice of general operating support pie, $7.5 million in October 2014.

In seven states and DC, Teach Plus actively promotes both CCSS implementation and the message to “opt in” with the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test. Just noticing, is all: Education Post is trying hard to push the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), and it might not look too good if the billionaire who agreed in 2008 to bankroll CCSS is also financially supporting a pro-CCSS blog that offers supposed “honest, straight talk” absent any “playing politics.”

If my thoughts are off base, Education Post CEO Peter Cunningham should feel free to set me straight with some of that “honest, straight talk” regarding the specifics on that mystery funder.

Next on the list of hefty Gates operating support money to education organizations is Lumina Foundation-founded, Maryland-based Achieving the Dream, a “national reform network” specializing in “institutional change,” “policy reform,” “sharing knowledge,” and “engaging the community” in order to “close achievement gaps and accelerate student success nationwide” for community college students.

In December 2012, Gates paid Achieving the Dream $646,000 toward general operating support, and in May 2014, Gates increased that amount by another $2.4 million.

That takes care of 2014-15 Gates operating support to education and “education-ish” organizations.

Here are some notable organizations that have received Gates operating support in 2013. (I wrote about NTC founder Ellen Noir in February 2013 as part of my National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) series.)

–Innosight Institute (now the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation), $650,000 in October 2013.

–Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), $1.5 million in August 2013.

–Michelle Rhee’s The New Teacher Project (TNTP), $7 million in August 2013.

Those interested in systematically investigating Gates grants for operating support paid out up through 2012 can start their investigation here.

For now, I am done.

However, allow me to offer this observation in closing:

In her defense of choosing to continue accepting Gates funding, National Education Association (NEA) President Lily Eskelsen Garcia insinuates that accepting Gates money “is complicated” since Gates appears to fund “a spectrum” of education (or education-styled) organizations.

In my post dated May 18, 2015, I take issue with Garcia’s unabated plan to accept Gates funding for NEA despite her April 25, 2015, Network for Public Education (NPE) public statement indicating otherwise.

And in this current post, I close with an observation regarding Gates’ doling out millions to favored “education” organizations for general operating support:

On the Gates grants search engine, the keywords, “general operating support school” yielded 80 results.

Three times, Gates supported traditional public schools.