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As reported in Crosscut, last Saturday Senator Rodney Tom (D-Bellevue) told constituents there is no reason to invest money in increased teacher salaries. He pointed to a statistical study of the state teachers’ salary structure and graduation rates which shows no correlation between the two.

Government insiders know that a common way to undermine a new program is for its opponents to manage it. The opponents are then in a good position to hamper the program's success or to encourage its failure.

The authors of Initiative 1240, the voter-approved charter school laws, were well aware of this danger. For that reason they included a direction regarding the Charter School Commission under Section 208, now RCW 28A.710.070(3), which says:

This morning the Senate passed SB 5328, which would create a pilot program to implement Governor Inslee’s A through F school grading proposal by giving letter grades to schools in five school districts. School grades would be based on the State Achievement Index and on schools’ progress toward improvement. The bill passed 26 to 23.

As many of my readers know, I have been closely following the behind-the-scenes efforts by charter school opponents to undo voter-passed Initiative 1240 and stop charter schools from opening in our state. In the latest round, executives at the Washington Education Association union, League of Women Voters and El Centro de la Raza are seeking a lawsuit to overturn the Initiative and prevent any children in Washington from attending a charter school.

Today, using an idea endorsed by leaders of both parties, Washington Policy Center publishes letter grades for schools on the Washington State Public School Achievement Index. The Index is based on the State Board of Education Achievement Index, accessible here.

Even though the idea of assigning letter grades to schools has wide appeal, state government has yet to adopt the idea.

Peter Callaghan has an insightful article in the Tacoma News Tribune on the state of education reform today. Interestingly, Callaghan notes that at first Democratic governors led efforts to challenge the status quo of mediocre public schools back in the 1980s. Yet today, as reactionary unions remain the primary obstacle to reform, the most exciting education ideas are now coming from coalitions of concerned people from the center and the center right.