Initiative 1240 would give Washington the best charter school law in the country
I received a call from Jerry Cornfield, reporter and political columnist at The Everett Herald, with a research request about Initiative 1240, the ballot measure to allow charter schools in Washington. He asked a good question: “How does Initiative 1240 compare with the model for high-quality charter schools developed by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools?”
I conducted a systematic comparison of the national high-quality model with provisions of Initiative 1240 and sent him my findings. He also says the National Alliance, as he puts it, “...calibrated how Initiative 1240 stacked up against the final product.”
The result? Initiative 1240 contains some or all of 19 of the 20 essential components of a high-quality charter school law. The details are reported in the Herald article, here.
The only component that is missing is that Initiative 1240 would cap the number of allowed charter schools at 40, in our system of 2,345 public schools, while many states have higher caps or no limit at all. Still, charter schools that do open in Washington, like all public schools, would be tuition-free and open to all students.
One of the ironic advantages of being one of the last states to consider charter schools is we get to learn from the experience of others. As a result we have access to the latest advances and best practices in education reform. If Initiative 1240 passes, Washington will have the best charter school law in the country, and we will jump from a being a backwater state to the leading edge of education reform.
Comments
Trigger law makes I-1240 best?
There are some good elements to the charter school initiative. There are some real efforts to create quality measures and assurances.
There are also some real problems with this initiative.
To start, the parent trigger and the teacher trigger are not very good. Under this initiative if a majority of the teachers at a school petition for it, they can convert the school to a charter. Given the devastation that a conversion would cause a school district, this is a lot of power to put in the hands of very few people. Imagine a school where the teaching staff doesn't like the principal. It's not hard to imagine at all. Now imagine that this staff goes to the district and issues them with an ultimatum: replace the principal or we're taking over the school. This law gives the teachers a gun to hold to the district's head.
Now suppose that the teachers want to make other demands. They could demand changes in working conditions. They could demand changes in policy. They could demand anything they wanted. The district would have little option but to comply.
School districts don't have a lot of excess capacity. Our schools are pretty crowded. Transportation is expensive. Students have to request assignment to a charter school. If a neighborhood school is converted to a charter, the district will have to offer every child in that school a seat in another school and a bus ride to that school. Also, the charter school can, over time, reduce its enrollment, pushing students onto buses to neighboring schools.
A charter school operator could also make teachers a lot of rich promises to buy their signatures on a conversion petition. It wouldn't take many. An elementary school might have 18 teachers, so it would only take ten of them to convert the school.
The initiative also has a "parent trigger". A majority of parents in a school could also threaten the district and demand changes or be won over by a charter school operator's campaign.
Once the school is converted to a charter there is no going back. So the families in a middle school, who will have students there for just three years, can permanently alter the ownership and governance of the school.
There are some very small schools that could be easily taken over.
Let's remember that the supporters of I-1240 contributed millions just to get it on the ballot. You don't think that they would pay hundreds of thousands again to gain control of a school? What do you think a school building is worth? What is the value of the property and the building? The cost of the signatures on the petition would be a very cheap way of getting that real estate. Especially if it only takes ten of them.
I think it's odd that folks are quick to point out how it serves the WEA's interests to oppose this initiative without thinking about how it serves the charter school investor's interests to support it. We're supposed to think that teachers, the people who spend their lives educating our children, don't care about that but that hedge fund managers do?
Charter schools
Bring them on..... Washington voters need to understand that the WEA opposition to charter schools is not based on the interests of children.... It is based solely on a selfish interests.... If Washingtonians want to see public schools get better then they should vote for charter schools..... No monopoly ever produced anything that was first class... They don't have to...as workers of the long ago Ma Bell telephone monopoly used to say..... "we don't care......we don't have to...".
I head back to the classroom tomorrow..... Is there anyone out there that understands that charter schools would be the best thing that could ever happen to public school teachers.... Administrators would finally have to start listening to teachers or else risk losing their best and brightest employees.....
All kinds of wrong
It is, without a doubt, a very bad and foolish idea to purport to know the motivations of others unless they have specifically described their motivations. Any person who would undertake such a silly effort cannot be regarded as a serious person or a person who can support their claims.
So, when Bob Dean writes that the WEA's opposition to charter schools "is based solely on a selfish interests", he is talking nonsense and shows himself to be foolish.
The WEA is made up of teachers. Teachers are the people who are working directly to educate children. To question their devotion to that effort is nothing short of bizarre. Excuse me, but who is more committed to children's education than the people who actually do it?
Bob Dean also seems confused about his own attitude towards teachers. On one hand he casts them as the villian - the selfish people who are preventing the improvement of our public schools. Then, at the end of his disorganized and poorly constructed rant, he suggests that we need to empower these very same teachers.
Let's try something that is reality-based instead.
The WEA opposes charter schools because they are a bad idea. There are problems in our schools but charter schools won't solve them. This is not a question of charter schools or the status quo - it is a question of whether we should invest our scarce education funding and political will in charters - a reform which has proven ineffective - or invest our money and efforts in other reforms which have proven effective. The WEA prefers the effective reforms.
The creation of charter schools does not somehow magically create improvement in public schools. If it did, then the 41 states with charters would each have blossomed into an education paradise. Has this happened? No. It hasn't. Nevermind your free market theories, in real life there is no competition among schools for students. Instead, the competition is among students for schools. There is no improvement in either schools or students created by this competition.
I'm sorry that Bob Dean doesn't think that our phone system, when it was controlled by the monopolistic AT&T was first class. Which country was it that had a better phone system at the time. Please remind us, Bob.
Bob is right about one thing: if I-1240 passes, administrators would have to start listening to teachers. This initiative would allow every group of teachers to threaten the principal, the district and the school community with a takeover of the school. The initiative includes a "teacher trigger". That means that if 50% of the teachers petition for it, they can take over the school and make it a charter under their control. Imagine that! If the teachers don't like the principal, they can tell the district to hire a replacement, and if the district refuses, the teachers can take the school away from them! Or if they don't like the math curriculum, or if they don't like their work hours, or if they don't like anything at all. This initiative would hand a gun to hold to the head of the district and allow them to issue any ultimatum they like.
Charters
Charlie, First let me tell you that I am a member of the WEA and have been for more than two decades. The WEA doesn't represent the views of their teachers.... in most cases they don't even ask. Their primary interest is in their own liberal agenda which does not coincide with much of their membership. They also made a deal with the governor and sold out teachers by supporting the adoption the Common Core which took away both the voice of teachers and the public over much of the education in this state. Right after that they were claiming that they wanted teachers to have a bigger voice in what they teach....
There is no competition for students by schools? Evidently, you haven't been around when schools come in mass to recruit students. Most of my students are accepted at multiple universities...
Competition doesn't work in education? What do you think we have in our public and private university systems? And yes that competition has a very positive impact on the quality of education that students get in this country. A monopolistic university system would lead to the same failure we are seeing in public schools today.
And yes.... when the phone system we had was first deregulated it caused some chaos for a time.... however, that was long ago and the choices we have now are far beyond what we would have ever had under a monopolistic system.
As for your last paragraph.... I think that is a fantastic idea.... If teachers are going to be held accountable then why shouldn't they have a say in what is being done... The public doesn't understand that today teachers are being told what to teach, how to teach, when to teach and now even how they will grade, and who they will pass or fail. They are forced to use unproven methods that fly in the face of their professional judgement and then blamed for the shoddy results. Evidently, what you are happy with is the status quo. As for me..... Not so much. And by the way.... you don't have to attack me personally.... we just have a difference of opinion.
Bring them on..... Washington
Bring them on..... Washington voters need to understand that the WEA opposition to charter schools is not based on the interests of children.... It is based solely on a selfish interests.... If Washingtonians want to see public schools get better then they should vote for charter schools..... No monopoly ever produced anything that was first class... They don't have to...as workers of the long ago Ma Bell telephone monopoly used to say..... "we don't care......we don't have to...".
I head back to the classroom tomorrow..... Is there anyone out there that understands that charter schools would be the best thing that could ever happen to public school teachers.... Administrators would finally have to start listening to teachers or else risk losing their best and brightest employees.....