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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 The Mighty Buzzard on Monday September 07 2015, @11:31PM
No, slappy, my education was paid for as well and, as I'm able to think for myself despite all the attempted programming, is not who I am. I can see how that would confuse you as you seem to have bought entirely in to the entirely liberal education cabal's party line and have never had a thought you could truly call your own.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 08 2015, @12:09AM
No, whippy, no one can have thoughts of their own, because thoughts are not property! Because if they are, and all the liberal cabals of teachers unions are sapping the virile man-strength out of all young persons, they are violating intellectual property rights! I strongly suspect that you did not actually pay the full cost, or for that matter, the full value of your education, if that is, any of it had stuck. And why would you pay to be brainwashed, and why would you be so proud of the fact that you did not get what you paid for? I am quite sure you could have just "thought for yourself" without any schooling at all. After all, my fellow philosopher Rene Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am". So I guess that would mean, if you are, and you paid for it, you can think whatever you want. Of course, as a programmer who avoided programming, you know what thoughts without discernment are, don't you? A program with no data? Not even to the point of garbage in!
I enjoy these little talks we have, Buzzard. I see that you do have an independent mind, and a desire to find the truth. So remember, you are not yet what you are, education is a never-ending process, and the first step to finding the truth is to admit that you might not have it.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 08 2015, @01:39AM
What was paid was every penny asked of myself and my parents. If the state sold my education too low, that's their problem.
Why I'm proud? Simple, I don't owe anyone anything. That is the only way any free man should allow himself to live. I can turn a deaf ear to claims of you owe "society" this and "the community" that because I owe them nothing. Everything. Every last thing "society" has given me has been paid for by the state's own pricing. It means that every bit of wealth I create is by right mine and mine alone to dispose of however I choose.
Take this site, for instance. I'm not being paid cash money but I am getting fair exchange for my time. What I get in return for my work is a site that I enjoy using and that continues to improve. The moment that stops, so does my effort. I'm not a socialist but I do recognize value outside monetary.
If we could set up schools that actually demanded excellence and let those not capable of achieving it fail, I would be happy to contribute more to the communal pot. A workforce educated to the best of their ability instead of to the lowest common denominator is in everyone's, including my own, best interest. What we have now, however, is a joke. We've gone in the past hundred years from teaching Greek and Latin in highschool to teaching remedial English in college.
Why? Greed of the masses. Idiot parents think their idiot children are as good as anyone else and throw a fit if they can't pass their primary education. Idiot adults, having passed through a pathetic primary education through no merit of their own, go to college instead of learning a trade as they should. When they graduate, they've likely burned hundreds of thousands of dollars and achieved nothing but a liberal indoctrination disguised as an education. They come out of college with no marketable skill, just a piece of paper saying "you might have to train this twat slightly less, maybe".
If they were allowed to fail in primary education and denied entrance to secondary education, they would have no choice but to take up a trade. Which would be better for themselves and everyone around them. More skilled workers would do what you and your lot try to achieve through minimum wage laws. It would make skilled labor less valuable for having more of it and unskilled labor more valuable for having less of it. Plumbers would no longer make sixty or eighty-thousand dollars a year more than Wal-Mart cashiers. The products of skilled labor would become cheaper as well, thus more easily afforded by unskilled laborers. Those who are currently in skilled labor shortage markets for the money would simply find another market with a shortage because they're quite obviously brighter than the average bulb.
Save education for those who can make use of it. We gain nothing either individually or collectively by a gas station attendant vaguely remembering some Shakespeare or Keats. A lawnmower repairman's life is not enriched in any way by being able to eventually solve a quadratic equation. Education, simply put, is worthless unless it is made use of and most people barely use anything past sixth grade for the rest of their lives.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 08 2015, @01:57AM
In other words, you have no idea what education is? Education is not for employment. That is "training". We can do that with animals or machines. Education is for minds. And failure is not an option. "From each, according to their ability; to each, according to their need."
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday September 08 2015, @01:42PM
Thank you, quoting Marx is exactly what I wanted to hear. You're now easily dismissed as a thief whose creed is nothing but greed dressed up as philosophy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 09 2015, @01:51AM
It is not Marx, it is Proudhon. See? Education. Now you owe me, you freeloading libertarian sociopath!!!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday September 09 2015, @03:03AM
Second verse, same as the first... You're the sociopath here, slappy. Sociopaths do not feel empathy. Makes it easy to see it as perfectly okay to steal what they have not earned. Molon Labe.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.