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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: 2) by aristarchus on Monday September 07 2015, @08:40PM
Point taken, the jab at frojack was uncalled for. Or at least not explicitly called for. Oh, hell, he was asking for it!!
You have an interesting perspective. My response to fro, however, was based on one thing you don't mention: an ingrained anti-intellectualism in America that leads to dis-valuing of education and teacher bashing. When there are claims of a broken system and "bad teachers", often it seems to me the amount of emotion behind these accusations can only be explained by a bad personal experience with education. Even those who were not educated in public schools often manifest this. So how much criticism of public schools is just sub-conscious revenge on some, any, teachers? I don't know, but it is a better explanation than the Mighty Buzz, "out there edumacating hisself to the knowing of his own choosing, and no damn idiot with a piece of paper can tell her what to think" Freedoom!!!! explanation. And, everyone should read Naomi Wolf's "Shock Doctrine" so they know what we are dealing with when it comes to Mag Thatcher type privatization.