KUOW, Seattle’s left-wing public radio station, receives tax money to report the news.  So it’s odd these public resources are being used, again, to target families attending one of the most popular options available in public education – state-funded charter schools.

The legacy station’s well-worn education reporter, Ann Dornfeld, has recently displayed a strong bias against public charter school families.  In April she wrote a hit piece against Summit Schools, the educational network that runs three high-quality high schools in Seattle, West Seattle and Tacoma.

Now she is going after families at Impact Charter Schools, which runs Puget Sound Elementary in Tukwila, Salish Sea Elementary in Seattle, and Commencement Bay Elementary in Tacoma.  Together these schools serve some 1,200 families.  All families attend the school based on choice.

Impact officials are set to open a new choice-based school in Renton in 2023.  Here’s their full response to Dornfeld’s latest foray.

KUOW’s fresh attack comes as charter school families face funding discrimination at the state and local level.  Local officials bar charter families access to local levy funding, and state lawmakers have cut charter school funding by about $3,000 per student.

In partial redress of this inequity Governor Inslee recently signed legislation to make up about $1,600 of the funding gap, limited to one year.  (See Section 501, (4)(z)(dd), Page 605, 2022 Supplemental State Budget, signed March 31, 2022.)

It’s also interesting that KUOW’s hostile reporting is directed at public schools that primarily serve low-income, black and Hispanic children, and that charter schools are mostly located in traditionally underserved communities.

The key to charter school popularity and success is that parents choose the school and are highly engaged with educators.  Impact’s most recent parent survey shows a 99% satisfaction rate and that nearly all parents say they would recommend their school to another family.

Dornfeld’s reporting cherry-picks one or two parents whose child is experiencing difficulties. Even these parents were involved in the school by choice.  Parents can always enroll a child elsewhere if the local charter is not meeting their needs, an option that’s not generally available in traditionally-run schools.

Dornfeld dings her own reputation as a journalist by not reporting the record of success Summit and Impact charter schools have achieved for low-income, black and Hispanic students.  Most of Summit’s students graduate and go on to college.  In 2020 Impact Charters received the national Above and Beyond Award for getting homestudy laptops to every student when Governor Inslee closed all schools that spring.

Puget Sound Elementary students ranked in the top one percent for math and the top three percent for English among the state’s public elementary schools serving a majority of low-income students.

These facts explain why nearly every charter school has a waiting list.  But it doesn’t explain why KUOW would use its ample tax-funded resources to target these popular community-based schools. 

A better use of public radio resources might be to investigate why 70% of students at traditional schools failed the state math test, or why 52% failed in English.  Or why union pressure kept kids out of traditional schools for nearly two years, while charters, where the union has less power, re-opened safely after only a few months.

Low-income families seeking learning choices need encouragement, fair treatment and funding equity, not narrow-minded media criticism.  At a time when we’re told “Be kind - we are all in this together” it would be nice if Seattle’s public radio station did a little more to help kids out.