Charter School Update

The Education Excellence Coalition reports that the Washington House Education Committee finally passed a charter school bill, but one that is substantially weaker than any previously bills. The most serious shortcoming of the bill is that

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) is NO LONGER AUTHORIZED to approve a worthy charter school application on appeal UNLESS the SPI gets permission from the same local school district that rejected the application or from an Educational Service District (ESD).

[Note: a knowledgeable reader posted a comment correcting the above quote. Be sure to read the first comment for details]. An ESD is a regional authority elected by local school boards, so for all intents and purposes the only way a charter school can be created is if the local school board is bold enough to authorize a competitor with itself. That has happened elsewhere, but it isn't likely to happen very often.

This is a pretty disappointing bill for a state where not only the Republican legislative caucuses charter schools, but where the Democratic governor claims to support charter schools, as does the Democratic Speaker of the House. Still, this bill is better than nothing. If this bill passes and charter schools are legally possible, then it makes more sense for local community groups to organize and apply pressure to their local school boards to authorize a particular school. Once a solid constituency for charter schools exists and once there are successful charter schools operating in the state, it will be easier to get a better bill at a later time.

On the other hand, the current bill is so weak that I hope the pro-charter legislators will still improve the bill in both the House and the Senate. I also hope they didn't have to trade any other concessions to the obstructionist Democrats to get this version of the bill, which really isn't worth very much.

The Washington Education Association's Position on Charter Schools

The state's largest teacher union has a very simple position on charter schools:

WEA does not support any charter school legislation

Not any. None. The reason is very simple: charter school teachers would be allowed to join the WEA, but they wouldn't have to. Most would prefer not to. Therefore, the WEA would lose an average of $744 a year in union dues for each teacher that chooses to leave a traditional public for a charter school. Yes, it really is that simple.

Nevertheless, the WEA can't come out and say that they're fighting to preserve the revenue stream which pays for their extravagant union executive salaries and their generous illegal campaign contributions. Instead, the WEA's stated arguments against charter schools are pathetic, but also hilarious when you look closely. For example:
1) Charter schools "Experience higher staff turnover". This is so, but only because public schools experience unnaturally low staff turnover, due to the fact that the teacher unions exist largely to make it impossible to fire the dismally incompetent.

2) "Enrollments evidence greater racial segregation than regular public schools". If this appears to be the case, it is only because a disproportionate number of charter schools exist in order to serve largely minority communities that are so poorly served by the traditional public schools. The WEA is implicitly shaming those same minority parents for pulling their kids out of the failing teacher union schools and placing them in higher-performing charter schools.

WEA delenda est.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at February 01, 2004 05:00 PM