Washington’s charter school law, one of the best in the country, is working as the voters intended when they passed Initiative 1240 in 2012. The state Charter School Commission has approved seven new schools to open their doors to students this year and next, and officials at the Spokane School District have approved a charter school to serve the city’s low-income families. The state’s first charter school, First Place Scholars, opened in September in Seattle’s Central District, helping homeless and low-income children gain access to a good public education.
Families in Spokane, Seattle, Kent, Tacoma and Highline are excited about the new schools planned to open in their communities. In all, the law permits 40 charter schools to open over five years.
Charter schools are popular, especially with low-income parents who know that education is the key to a better future for their children. Demand far exceeds supply. In January, members of the Charter School Commission rejected applications from 12 community charter school groups, leaving 4,900 children to wait for a future opportunity.
The second round of charter school applications is underway. Tomorrow at 10:00 am in Yakima the Charter School Commission will hold a public meeting and decide on four applications: Bilingual Academy in Clark County, Green Dot School in Seattle, Sunnyside Charter Academy in Yakima and Village Academy in Pierce County. All four schools are targeted to communities with high drop out rates, significant achievement gaps and a large share of students eligible for the federal free and reduced lunch program.
Despite voter approval, charters face formidable political resistance. Executives at the powerful WEA teachers union, who led the fight against I-1240, are now pursuing a lawsuit to get charter schools closed and to bar students from attending them. The case will be heard by the state Supreme Court on October 28th.
In Tacoma, school board member Karen Vialle is voicing opposition to opening charter schools for disadvantaged children. Three schools are due to open in Tacoma to serve 1,500 poor children, including in the city’s troubled Hilltop neighborhood. Boardmember Vialle bemoans what she considers a “loss” of $10 million from her budget to that of the new schools, not recognizing that children attending public charter schools have as much right to receive public support for their education as children in other schools. “We will be laying off teachers,” she added.
At the same time, area charter schools announced they are hiring 77 public school teachers.
Opposition may exist within the Charter School Commission itself. Some Commission members may not support charter schools. And the Commission has two newly-appointed members whose support for charters remains uncertain. State law is clear on this point:
“All [commission] members shall have demonstrated an understanding of and commitment to charter schooling as a strategy for strengthening public education.”
Still, this may not be the case in practice. In June the Charter Commission received Notices of Intent from 12 community groups, yet by mid-July only four groups remained, having soldiered through the Commission’s cumbersome 500-page application process. These are the schools whose fate the Commission will decide tomorrow in Yakima.
It would be ironic if the state commission set up to authorize community charter schools ends up becoming their primary obstacle, with the result of quietly undermining the most important education reform passed in Washington in 30 years.
The process continues. Tomorrow I’ll report on the results of the Commission meeting.
This report is part of WPC's Initiative 1240 Follow-up Project
