Mostly in part because they appear to be operating on the premise that Charter Schools are being touted as either a full replacement to public schools or as the answer to fixing everything that is not working with the current status quo education system in this state.

Choice is needed and competition is needed to improve any service. No one group should ever hold so much of a monopoly over a single system or single group of resources and that is exactly what we have with the public education status quo.

Money/funding as the sole primary driver of the decision making over the diversity in services to a captive consumer base and as a dangled incentive towards overall education professional improvement has put the public education system in Washington State in position where it is manipulated and controlled for self-serving power protecting purposes by legislators, unions, administrators and school districts.

Putting more money or full funding into this current system will not change the way in which it is managed and who is pulling the strings nor will it change the dispensing or implementation mechanisms that are currently controlling it.

I compare it to individuals with self-destructive poor decision making practices who win the lottery. The self-destructive poor decision making practices still remain in place and are fully functional, they simply have more money to expedite their destruction on a grander scale. Fundamentally the same problems they had before are still there.

Money should not be the only driver for improvement. Competition needs to be increased as well. Public Charter Schools will add substantive choice and competition to a monopoly system that is not working to serve and can simply not support the diverse needs and choice desires of the parents and children in Washington State.

Colleen Smidt
Key Activist
League of Education Voters

http://www.wastatepta.org/meetings/leg_assembly/1112_charter_issue_paper.pdf

Public charter schools are independent public schools granted more site-based authority. Usually, this frees them up to be more innovative. Charter schools operate from three basic principles:
 Choice: Parents choose the school their child attends; teachers and principals choose to work at that school.
 Flexibility: Charter schools can make timely decisions about developing curricula, structuring the school day and hiring teachers who meet the needs of their students.
 Accountability: The “charter” of the school functions similar to a contract, making the school accountable to parents, to their charter school authorizers, and to the state.

Thank you SO much for this well-thought out message to the legislature.

As an public education activist in Seattle, I have read this bill and I can see that you have as well. Your reasoning is sound.

I will let you know, if you receive any pushback about your courageous stand, that the Legislature passed TWO innovation schools bills last session. As I wrote to the members who sponsored those bills, why not allow those laws to work?

As well, the Supreme Court just said we don’t fully fund our existing schools. How is bringing new schools on-line going to help?

Best wishes,
Melissa Westbrook
Seattle Schools Community Forum blog

For me,the term unfunded or underfunded mandates needs to be eliminated. To be a mandate, they need to be fully funded at the state or federal level or they should not exist as a mandate in the first place.

Also, federal money that is awarded to this state should NOT be subverted, diverted, or used in a bait and switch shell game by the legislature in the manner that the EduJobs money was. That was a really disgusting display by Olympia of just kicking the problem down the road just a few more feet