Mercedes Schneider Reviews the Washington State Ruling Against Charters

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1. fmindlin says:

   September 4, 2015 at 11:47 pm

   My favorite Abe Lincoln quote: “How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?” “Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”

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   • Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

     September 5, 2015 at 4:00 am

     Thanks for the chuckle.

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2. Dr. John Inman says:

   September 5, 2015 at 12:28 am

   All I can say is wow. I hope this wakes up courts across the nation. Most of these charter operations, my opinion, are illegal given they have no public oversight and are funded with taxpayer dollars. Hats off to the Washington supreme court. They did the ethical and legal thing when the rest of the nation seems to be hiding from reality and our children suffer. .

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   • WA Teacher says:

     September 5, 2015 at 1:45 am

     A huge thank you should go to the League of Women Voters up here. They are some brilliant, ethical women – amazingly good with the policy analysis and other legislative matters. They were against charter schools when the initiative was purchased by Gates & Co, and they were a strong force in this lawsuit (and others that have been beneficial to students and schools). Stands in sharp contrast to our pathetic LEV (league of edumacation voters), which never met an rephormy idea they didn’t like.

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     • Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:

       September 5, 2015 at 4:01 am

       Hat tip to the League of Women Voters in WA state.

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   • Dienne says:

     September 5, 2015 at 7:00 am

     Sadly, this will not affect courts across the nation because most states’ constitutions do not define public education as clearly as Washington’s constitution does. This case provides no national basis for eliminating charters.

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3. Lou says:

   September 5, 2015 at 9:33 am

   I just stumbled on this site for the first time and I feel that I have to speak up. It seems that everyone here thinks that charters are always corporate entities and that isn’t the case. The term “charter” is being used here like it means the same thing across the nation and it doesn’t. I am in Fulton County in Georgia (the system that closed the two Turkish charters). We have charter schools that are run by non profits with elected members from the parent community as well as community leaders. The boards are trained by the school District. We get their monthly budgets and analyze their spending. We maintain their employee records in our database. We require that they use our student information system so we can daily monitor their students. We make them video tape their admissions and lotteries. We observe the schools every semester and include their staff in all our trainings. They are responsible for their own debt. In return, we get school communities whose parents and teachers are willing to try something different. If the experiment works, the District can expand the concept to other similar traditional schools that might benefit from the innovation. If it fails, we close the school and we know that a particular innovation won’t work in our District. We have schools trying single gender classes, high school classes being taught by college professors, unique math and world language instructional methods, outdoor learning experiences, wrap around social services for failing students, etc. We have closed schools for non-transparent governance, financial failure, academic failure and low attendance. Are they a silver bullet? Of course not. Can charters, if carefully selected and monitored, benefit not only the students in the charter but also the students in a District that learns from the successes and failures of these controlled experiments with the cooperation and support of informed parents? Our experience would indicate that charters can be a useful tool for improvement.

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   • Daun Kauffman says:

     September 5, 2015 at 1:51 pm

     Even a “good” charter (definition ?) syphons crucial funding away from public schools at least in PA. Public schools that are on life support. If we are to have a free, quality, public education (for all), we can’t fracture precious resources, fracture our efforts, fracture our focus (and then watch while pro-charter folks talk about a failing system…) That is why we view “good charter” as an oxymoron…

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4. Daun Kauffman says:

   September 5, 2015 at 1:51 pm

   Even a “good” charter (definition ?) syphons crucial funding away from public schools at least in PA. Public schools that are on life support. If we are to have a free, quality, public education (for all), we can’t fracture precious resources, fracture our efforts, fracture our focus (and then watch while pro-charter folks talk about a failing system…) That is why we view “good charter” as an oxymoron…

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5. Daun Kauffman says:

   September 5, 2015 at 1:52 pm

   Many troubling issues with current excuses to rush to charters without solving basic pedagogy issues first:

   The Rush to Charters Ignores Real Issue

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6. ira shor says:

   September 5, 2015 at 1:56 pm

   “Lou”–How about you and other advocates of “good” charters going to war with the privatizing campaigns of Success and KIPP and North Star which are charter chains de-funding public schools and creaming off select students? Still waiting for the “good” charters to come out swinging against the “bad” charters. And, for all the “good” charters that may exist in America(CREDO study put it at 17% of charters they studied), how many exceptional public schools are there which are losing funding and being painted as failures?

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7. Lou says:

   September 5, 2015 at 2:14 pm

   That finding issue is not the case in Georgia which is exactly why a more nuanced and specific understanding of this topic is best. Every state, and in some instances, every district will have unique situations related to the issues the article raises. This should be a decision made by local officials as to what is in the best interest of their students. All due respect to your views, but parents and locally elected school boards can and should make such decisions for the students in a community. In our situation, our board has strategically planned for a fairly consistent 5% of seats for charters as well as some for magnets and some for open enrollment. Parents are content. Taxpayers are seeing a good return on investments. Most importantly, students are learning. I would hope a district that seems to have found a productive balance for the benefit of students would be a positive indicator worth further study rather than the blanket, unfounded assertions about fragmentation of resources on the part of the “we” you apparently represent. Please feel free to contact our District if you want to learn more about our approaches and see if there might be some useful best practices to ponder. Wishing you well…

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8. Lou says:

   September 5, 2015 at 2:42 pm

   Ira, The job of defining “good” and “bad” should be a shared function of the parents who choose a school for their child and the school board who signed a contract with a charter vendor to supply a quality education for students. I am not advocating for charters. I am advocating for good public schools as overseen and managed by elected officials, parents and community members. If that structure hires a charter to provide a good school, wonderful. If that structure can use traditional methods to create a good school, wonderful. I am agnostic but I do think the condemnation or blind advocacy for one approach or another without allowing local governments and parents to do their due diligence based on facts is counterproductive. I prefer local control of public schools and want to give local communities as many tools as possible from which to choose. wishing you well…

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   • Donna says:

     September 5, 2015 at 4:02 pm

     Joe?

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     • Robert D. Skeels * rdsathene says:

       September 6, 2015 at 1:48 am

       Sounds like him, doesn’t it.

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   • NYC public school parent says:

     September 6, 2015 at 10:51 pm

     If the idea is “good”, then the school board should be able to enact it with a “choice” school that is under the control of the school board. There is no reason to hand off the idea to a private entity. And the fact that there are people who supposedly have these “ideas” but are only willing to do it as a charter and not simply as another public school in the district speaks volumes. Why is that?

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9. Duane Swacker says:

   September 5, 2015 at 5:51 pm

   The most important constitutional challenge that needs to occur is the one that challenges the educational standards and standardized testing regimes that reward some students, not by race, gender, sexual orientation but by inherent, just like the three classifications mentioned, mental capabilities with moving on to the next grade, garnering scholarships/preferential treatment and/or graduation and that deny and/or punish other students through inherent mental capabilities by holding back students in grade, not allowing students to take courses they may wish to take, and/or not getting diplomas, awards etc. . . .

   As stated in the Missouri Constitution about the purpose of government (of which public schools are a part):

   “Article 1

   Promotion of general welfare–natural rights of persons–equality under the law–purpose of government.

   Section 2. That all constitutional government is intended to promote the general welfare of the people; that all persons have a natural right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the enjoyment of the gains of their own industry; that all persons are created equal and are entitled to equal rights and opportunity under the law; that to give security to these things is the principal office of government, and that when government does not confer this security, it fails in its chief design.”

   I contend that the rewards and denials as outlined above contravene Section 2 of the Missouri Constitution. I’d bet that most state’s constitutions have similar language. Someone needs to take advantage of the constitutional guarantees like Section 2 and challenge the standards and testing regimes as discriminatory.

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10. John says:

    September 5, 2015 at 7:51 pm

    A ruling like this by a state supreme court is a very significant wake-up call for the entire nation.

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