Now It Gets Real for Charter Law in Washington State
Update: What's the torque that the Republicans are going to use to try to do this?
The levy cliff that districts face.
So let's threaten to throw 1M+ traditional school students over a levy cliff to save 1,000 former charter students.
I urge you to write your legislator or Governor Insee (his Twitter handle is@GovInslee)
Again, I know the Supreme Court is watching.
end of update
There's a great commentary over at the Washington Policy Center over what is going on in the legislature. I'm not the biggest fans of WPC; I don't have a problem with them taking a stand but sometimes their education voice is not factually correct and overwrought.
But boy, do they get it right in their commentary on some in the legislature trying to weasel in a charter school bill that will likely be many things, among them: unconstitutional, not vetted properly by either legal experts and lacking any public discourse or input.
Now I'm sure those legislators would say, "We are carrying out the will of voters who voted in a charter initiative" Problem is, the voters did not vote in the bill they are pushing. There is NO way to say that any charter bill being pushed is today anything like the original initiative. It has now gotten to near farce and/or the breakdown of our democratic process.
But let's read what Jason Mercier, the Executive Director at WPC, in his piece, " Do Good End Results on Bills Justify Bad Process?" (bold mine)
With the deadline to save charter schools just a week away, several "title only" bills have been introduced to serve as a "vehicle" in case a last minute deal can be reached by lawmakers. Amazingly, one of those "title only" bills, SB 6670 was actually adopted by a committee today without changes and sent to the Rules Committee as a blank bill. This means the blank bill could potentially be pulled directly to the floor if a deal is reached and voted on without any public comment on the actual details.Reasonably, he understands that some might like the outcome of THIS bill but Seattle Schools Community Forum: Now It Gets Real for Charter Law in Washington State:
Those who have followed this blog know that we're no fans of"title only" bills. But now that they are being used as a "vehicle" to possibly save charter schools which we are strong supporters of, surely the ends justify the means, right? No.