The Times misses the point

I applaud today's Seattle Times editorial for supporting charter schools and for slapping the teacher unions for trying to block them. But the editorial ultimately misses the point.

The focus on charters is diverting attention from the real issue, which has much broader implications: When will state leaders muster the will to fully fund public education and boldly support what we know works to improve schools?

In other words, charter schools are nice but not all that important. This seems to be the Times way of changing the subject from reforming the way schools are managed to simply spending more money on them. This looks like the segue into a Times campaign for I-884, a measure to increase the state sales tax in order to pour another billion dollars a year into the unaccountable swamp of the state's mismanaged and failing education system. This measure is just another device of the usual public school employee groups to skim more money off the state's productive economy with no obligation to deliver any value in return.

The Times tries to diminish charter school proponents with the silly mischaracterizaton that

Zealous proponents will call charter schools the answer to all that ails public education.

I've been among the most zealous of charter proponents, all of whom are perfectly realistic in their expectations and none of whom have uttered any nonsense about a cure-all. But charter schools not only provide immediate benefits to the handful of students who would be able to attend them. They are also an important step to raising the bar for all the public schools through competition and meaningful accountability. Without which all the spending in the world will only reward and reinforce the failed practices that exist today.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at June 11, 2004 11:50 AM