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Legislature must act to preserve charter schools

Wed., Dec. 9, 2015

State funding for Washington’s charter schools could be cut off as soon as next week unless a ginned-up plan to bring all nine under the wing of the Mary Walker School District in Springdale comes together quickly.

Here’s to gin, but you don’t want to make it a habit. Longer-term solutions must be found to the dilemma created by two Washington Supreme Court rulings that state-funded charter schools violate constitutional requirements for local control.

The arrangement with the Mary Walker district, if finalized, would reclassify the schools as Alternative Learning Environments. As such, they would conform to Washington law.

But consolidation of the schools, and their 1,300 students, within a district that has only 500 resident students, certainly raises the same questions of local control the Supreme Court insists on.

The schools – two in Spokane – would remain in place, but receive their funding through Mary Walker. The relationship has been likened to online learning.

The Mary Walker board deserves credit for its willingness to provide short-term shelter for the charter schools – if they choose to go that way.

Spokane Public Schools, which approved and has worked well with the Spokane academies, considered ways the schools might affiliate with the district. Although officials backed away, they say they are looking at models from other school systems around the country that imbed charter schools in the district.

Sen. Andy Billig is preparing legislation that would give in-district charter schools run by nonprofits the flexibility to set the length of their school days and years, control their budget and the hiring/firing of teachers, and decide how they deliver curriculum.

Besides passing constitutional muster, the contracts could provide for the use of district buildings. Whether teachers would belong to their own union, or become members of districtwide bargaining units, has not been resolved.

Billig says efforts to bring the original charter law into compliance with court rulings will be futile. With lawmakers still trying to satisfy the justices – they are making satisfactory progress toward amply funding public education – reviving charter schools certainly will not be a priority.

Voters authorized charter schools in 2012 by the barest of majorities, and may decide they are not worth the hassle. The Washington Education Association will certainly shed no tears.

We have supported charter schools because they provide alternative paths toward educating students. The two Spokane schools had to turn away potential scholars for lack of capacity.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn has worked to ensure the education of charter school students will not be interrupted despite the court. Dorn opposed the initiative that authorized the schools, and his efforts on behalf of their students are noteworthy.

He won’t run for re-election next year, and need not have lifted a hand.