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Common Dreams reports
The Seattle Times reports that
The ruling--believed to be one of the first of its kind in the country--overturns the law [I-1240] voters narrowly approved in 2012 allowing publicly funded, but privately operated, schools.
Teacher and author Mercedes Schneider offers more on the Act:
As is true of charter schools nationwide, the charters in Washington State (up to the current ruling) were eligible for public funding diverted from traditional public schools. Charter schools were approved via a November 2012 ballot initiative (I-1240, the Charter Schools Act) in which charters were declared to be "common schools" despite their not being subject to local control and local accountability. And also like America's charters in general, Washington's charters are not under the authority of elected school boards.
Thus, Washington voters had approved to give public money to private entities--a one-way street that provided no means for such funds to overseen by the public.
[...] The new ruling (pdf)[1] states that charters, "devoid of local control from their inception to their daily operation", cannot be classified as "common schools," nor have "access to restricted common school funding."
[...] "The Supreme Court has affirmed what we've said all along--charter schools steal money from our existing classrooms, and voters have no say in how these charter schools spend taxpayer funding," said Kim Mead, president of the [Washington Education Association], in a statement.
"Instead of diverting taxpayer dollars to unaccountable charter schools, it's time for the Legislature to fully fund K-12 public schools so that all of Washington's children get the quality education the Constitution guarantees them," Mead continued.
The Associated Press reports that the state had one charter school last year, and eight more have opened in the past few weeks.
I pity Ms. Schneider's students if she routinely starts sentences with conjunctions--especially consecutive, redundant conjunctions.
[1] I had trouble with the connection.
(Score: 1) by fritsd on Monday September 07 2015, @10:26AM
I found this a fascinating discussion, but unfortunately I think I didn't understand any of it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 07 2015, @12:09PM
Well, I'll try a summary to help you out.
Basically the government is a conduit to collect tax money from the richer half or so of the population, print a bunch of extra inflation money, and hand it to private companies either directly or indirectly by handing money to the poorer half or so of the population (who then hand the money to the companies). See health care, monopoly utilities, higher education via guaranteed college loans, the entire real estate complex via govt backed loans and massive handout regulation, car manufacturers via govt backed loans, the military-industrial complex, the prison industrial complex, basically any company thats still alive and hasn't moved to China in 2015 exists because of central government control, every company that is not Soviet in nature is closed or moved. We've finally achieved true communism, from each according to their ability and to each according to their need all controlled by the central state. Every other economic entity has been driven out of business or out of the country.
So some gang of idiots got together and decided a tiny slice of that national business model, K-12 education and solely K-12 education, is unconstitutional at the state level. Which is laughable given how much other stuff would also need to be considered unconstitutional, they may as well call it Civil War 2.0 and file secession paperwork, or admit its all for the dumb PR because there is no alternative economic system in the United Soviet America...
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Monday September 07 2015, @12:34PM
i'll summarize our situation to date:
1. various bootlicks, toadies, and carpetbaggers (AKA lobbyists/politicians and media whores) plumping for komplete korporate kontrol of the education 'industry'; manage to have an obscene 'principle' taken as received wisdom: the bidness world is super-efficient and can run them there schools mucho macho mo betterer'n sillyhead gummints can, by gum, by golly !
2. 1%'ers -by means of astroturf gruppes, buying off established quasi-public institutions, and their near total kontrol of the media- propagandize the great unwashed masses about their unique snowflakes being dis-served by a public education system PURPOSEFULLY DESTROYED by the 1%, and their ONLY salvation is the power of the (lord's) charter schools...
3. in conjunction with the INSANE teach-to-the-test regime forced upon public schools by los federales, ABSOLUTELY failing to serve any useful purpose EXCEPT line the pockets of test-making korporations, etc; AND WHICH charter schools are TOTALLY exempt from doing ! ! !
( now, wait a minute, IF these preposterous number of tests, horribly made up, CONSTANTLY interrupting *actual* teaching on the subject matter, with draconian consequences for students, teachers, schools, on up, are so-o-o-o important; THEN why the fuck are charter schools exempt from virtually ANY OF THESE TESTING REQUIREMENTS ? ? ?
)
4. in spite of cherry-picking students, shedding low-performers to public schools, not taking special-needs kids, avoiding all the onerous requirements of public schools, etc, etc, etc; in spite of all those advantages, charter schools do NOT perform any better, overall...
5. currently, there is a slow rebellion against this anti-education regime which views students, teachers and schools as a profit-making industry, ripe for takeover and cost-cutting to maximize profits, NOT maximize learning...
(AND, if you don't think this is part of a conscious effort by the 1% to destroy our trust, and LITERALLY (old-school literally) DESTROY OUR best public institutions, then you are hopelessly naive... you think fucking up the USPS was just by accident ? )
disclosure: better half is -you know- the source of all evil in the world : a unionized school teacher
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @09:26PM
> I found this a fascinating discussion, but unfortunately I think I didn't understand any of it.
I don't have the time nor the expertise to figure it all out. But I saw that it was the League of Women Voters who won this case. I'd trust their opinion over practically anyone else's when it comes to the welfare of children.