Innovation Schools/Creative Approach Schools and ALEC
Last year legislation was pushed through referred to as the Innovation Schools bill.Sue and I called this bill a charter school bill in sheep’s clothing and that’s exactly what it was.
Then, our district’s union leadership decided to take this on to show that we could have innovative schools in Seattle and therefore didn’t need charter schools even though we have “Option Schools”, which are progressive alternative schools, Montessori, STEM, the IB program and other schools and programs that could be considered “innovative schools”. There were objections to the term “Innovation Schools” because that was too close to what charter schools were so the leadership renamed it “Creative Approach Schools”. Same difference. It’s still a charter school in sheep’s clothing.
According to theMemorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Seattle Education Association (SEA) and the Seattle School District, there is to be no oversight by the school board and teachers lose their collective bargaining rights. In exchange for that, the staff can develop their own curriculum. The sad part about this is that