Charter schools would reduce funding for education
Published: September 20, 2012
This November, voters will be asked to decide about Initiative 1240, which if approved would allow the creation of charter schools. Public schools in Washington are already faced with the challenge of improving student performance at a time of declining resources.
If the initiative is approved, every dollar that goes to a charter school is taken away from a local classroom. For example, in Thurston County each charter student would receive an average of about $10,000 of public funds. This is not new money, but would be taken from already limited school budgets.
We bring attention to this critical issue as the elected board of directors for Educational Service District 113, an agency which provides support and services to 70,000 students in Thurston, Mason, Lewis, Grays Harbor and Pacific counties. We work on a daily basis with 44 districts and understand the negative impact of taking money out of local classrooms to fund a special opportunity for a select group of students.
Earlier this year the Washington Supreme Court ruled that the state was not meeting its constitutional obligation to fully fund basic education. The court mandated that the Legislature should begin to immediately fix this problem. Until that mandate is achieved we certainly should not take money away from our already under-funded local schools with a new and unproven