Wayne Au, a professor at the University of Washington, explains why the Washington Supreme Court declared charter schools unconstitutional and why this decision has national implications.
The Court’s decision, he writes, was a “major rebuke” to the charter industry (and to Seattle’s richest resident, Bill Gates, who plunked millions into the 2012 referendum allowing charter schools, which passed by 50.69% of the vote).
At the heart of the Washington State’s Supreme Court ruling was the idea that charter schools, as defined by the law, were not actually “public schools.” The key issue is this: Washington State’s constitution has a provision that only “common schools” receive tax dollars allocated for public education. The law in Washington State is structured so that charter schools are governed at both the school level and state level by an appointed board, not an elected one. As such, charter schools in Washington State would receive public monies without any guarantee of accountability to any democratically elected, public body. The Washington State Supreme Court decided that this lack of public oversight of charter schools meant that did not meet the definition of “common schools” and therefore are not eligible to receive public monies made available for public schools.
Au was a plaintiff in the lawsuit; before that, he frequently spoke and wrote about the dangers that privately managed charter schools pose to public education. He understood that they are a precursor to privatization and a direct threat to community responsibility for public schools for all children.
As background, he points out that the Washington Supreme Court had previously ordered the legislature to fully fund the state’s public schools and is fining the legislature $100,000 a day for its failure to do so (since August 15).
Charter school supporters are furious about the Court’s decision and are now trying to persuade the legislature to create a separate funding stream for charter schools. Au asks how this make sense: Why should the legislature create a separate fund for charters enrolling 1,300 students when it has not properly funded public schools enrolling 1 MILLION students?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am seeking legal advice vis a vis this ruling. Does anyone out there know if and/or how the Colorado charter law fits into this ruling? Washington state has 9 charters with 1200 students. Denver alone has 71 approved or operating with about 20% of its overall k-12 students ~85,000 (17,000 to 20,000) being served by privatized charters. If you have information that would help us here, please share. Thanks.
The decision is specific to the Washington State Constitution, which says support of common schools is THE primary duty of the state, and defines common schools as those subject to a locally elected school board.
From a national point of view see this response from the next post about “Education Law Center. . . ”
“D L Paulson
September 11, 2015 at 11:05 pm
There’s already a national precedent for The Washington State decision.
From the U.S. Supreme Court:
“No single tradition in public education is more deeply rooted than local control over the operation of public schools; local autonomy has long been thought essential both to the maintenance of community concern and support for public schools and to quality of the educational process.”
—Chief Justice Warren Burger, writing for the majority in MILLIKEN v. BRADLEY (1974)”
Colorado does not have a constitutional provision prohibiting funding to private schools. However, Colorado does have a constitutional provision requiring the legislature to provide “a thorough and uniform system” of public schools (article IX, section 2).
In 2009, the Colorado Court of Appeals examined in Boulder Valley School District RE-2 v. Colorado State Board of Education, the Colorado Court of Appeals examined whether its charter school statute violated article IX, section 2 by creating a separate school system that was outside of the control of school districts. The court rejected this argument because the legislature had an “‘almost unlimited power to abolish, divide or alter school districts.”
The court also found that the thorough and uniform clause permitted the state to “provide additional educational opportunities open to all students in the state through . . . charter schools, provided that these opportunities are available state-wide.” Therefore, the court saw no reason why “section 2 should be read to prohibit the State from creating a school system with different types of schools, some controlled by school districts while others are not.”
You can find an overview of state constitutional challenges to charter schools in the following link: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2399937.
Where do charter supporters draw the line at local governance? Should we have city councils and county commissioners or are they “too political” so we should just send everything to the state legislature or maybe an appointed state board of some kind?
I don’t understand why this “public/private” question or questions on really profound issues of representative government are just waved away as inconvenient technicalities.
Does that apply everywhere, or just public schools?
The idea in my state is school districts are “taxing entities”- they collect local taxes- and that’s why local elected representatives are required. We didn’t just pull this out of thin air because we wanted more government or wanted to “protect the status quo”. It’s grounded in some very profound ideas which is why it’s in state constitutions.
I live in Washington state… 😊
“Why should the legislature create a separate fund for charters enrolling 1,300 students when it has not properly funded public schools enrolling 1 MILLION students?”
Might it be because the charter proponents have deep pockets which would then be open to the politicians????
They have their own golden rule, they have gold and think they should rule. Democracy is such an ugly thing, the peasants might get something.
There is an extensive history of charter schools doing what they please, with no public oversight, and then shutting down the moment it gets uncomfortable, or unprofitable (for most, the same thing), and there is no recourse to anyone. Without public oversight it’s nothing more than a private business run for profit….which is not what public education is presumably about…